Subject:
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Re: The name/purpose of the QOTD group
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Tue, 4 May 1999 21:29:28 GMT
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Viewed:
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391 times
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> In lugnet.announce, lehman@javanet.com (Todd Lehman) writes:
> > [...]
> > -> lugnet.off-topic.qotd (group):
> > Special "Quote of the Day" group: Messages posted here start as
> > follow-ups to messages appearing in other LUGNET groups, the purpose
> > being to highlight an unexpectedly humorous, profound, witty/wry, or
> > ridiculously silly comment for general consumption and enjoyment;
> > NOTE: This group is not for making people look stupid (use common
> > sense), and it is not for posting maxims, proverbs, profundities,
> > etc. from outside sources; Instead, originality and (more
> > importantly) spontaneity are the key ideas here.
> > [...]
>
> I may have screwed up badly on the name on this group -- and not fully
> understood how people might perceive it. It seems that no matter how it's
> described in its charter, people somehow still infer that it's for posting
> quotes. But it's NOT a quotes group. Here's the jist behind the group --
> (this is a crummy name but it gets the idea across):
>
> lugnet.off-topic.quotes.heard-within-lugnet
>
> Now, of course, "heard" really means "seen written" rather than "heard," but
> this is the basic idea: Someone says something funny or ridiculous or silly
> or profound in some random group here, and someone else posts a follow-up to
> that message, directing it into the .qotd group for general consumption.
> It's like a whiteboard where you write funny things someone says at lunch or
> during a meeting or wherever. But it's -not- for posting quips or a maxims
> or proverbs or lists of quotes from outside places -- not like that at all.
>
> Thoughts? Is this group, by its very name, no matter how carefully worded
> in the charter, doomed and destined to being destroyed and recreated under a
> different name, or not at all? Once something like this gets going (if it
> does), these sorts of community QOTD resources can be quite a lot of fun.
I think it is a naming thing. When I first see "QOTD" it interprets as
"somewhere to put cool quotes I heard" without any accompanying "on LUGnet or
RTL" being intuited by my brain.
I think that what you may want to do, even though it goes against your general
philosophy for LUGnet newsgroups so far, is give the group a non-intuitive
name. Something like:
lugnet.off-topic.whiteboard
lugnet.off-topic.reposts
lugnet.off-topic.for-posterity
something like that, where it doesn't automatically intuit (as most of the
lugnet.* does) as a summation of the charter, but after reading the charter,
it makes sense - that way, people are more likely to read the charter to
figure out what the group is about, instead of seeing the name, and assuming
they know already.
> BTW, I think the immediate flood of regular quotes may be an indication that
> people might actually expect and want a plain old regular .quotes group --
> which wouldn't be a bad thing, but increases the chances for copyright
> problems/issues.
As someone (possibly you, I'm not sure) posted in an earlier thread about this
very subject, there are a gazillion(1) newsgroups and webpages and mailing
lists out there that do, or are about, quotes. Maybe a group about Lego-
related quotes...
-->sound of light-bulb <--
Hey, how about:
lugnet.off-topic.lego_quotes
? That implies immediately that it's not just any old quote, but a quote that
is related to Lego in some way, and the majority of quotes that would show up
elsewhere on LUGnet (like two of the three appropriate posts in .QOTD) would
qualify. Also, it's fairly intuitive. (well, to me, at least)
James
http://www.shades-of-night.com/lego/
1: Other observers may have acumulated different figures. ;-)
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The name/purpose of the QOTD group
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| (...) That's what I was afraid of last week, but I didn't listen to my gut. Shame on me. Thanks for spelling this out. (...) Ahhh. The tense feeling that I've had in my stomach all day has just subsided. Your general approach sounds like an (...) (25 years ago, 4-May-99, to lugnet.admin.general)
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