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In lugnet.loc.uk, simon.robinson@sdxplc.com (Simon Robinson) writes:
> Yeah - but I think it is a bit different in the US. I've only been to
> the USA once - and I don't know if other people have found the same thing
> - so tell me if anyone else disagrees...
> but one of the overwhelming things I found in the USA was it didn't
> feel like one country in the same way the UK does - because it was so big.
> I remember watching the news - and stuff from the another State seemed
> like it was another country. It was more comparable to watching the news
> in Britain and seeing a report about something in France or Holland.
On the other hand, to someone living in Boston, events transpiring 4000 km
away in San Francisco typically seem a hundred times closer than events
transpiring only 400 km away in Montreal.
> I mean - like - in the UK you'd just about drive most of the length of
> the populated part of the country in a day if you really had to. You
> wouldn't do that in the USA!
But in the USA, where petrol is (terribly unfortunately) so bloody cheap,
you'd just fly the length of the populated part of the country if you really
had to (it's not uncommon to book a 4000 km flight for £100). That's one of
the reasons the USA seems so small sometimes (to Americans).
> So I wonder if, when you're making comparisons for what feels local
> /appropriate for a local group, it'd be better to compare the UK
> (or other European countries) to a US state, rather than the USA.
It might be appropriate, except that there is no US state with a population
equivalent to the UK. California comes close, but then it's also about five
times the area of the UK. So the UK is far more densely populated than
the USA's most populated state. Comparing it to the New England colonial
states might be a good comparison, as they are much more densely populated.
Note BTW that there are 83 newsgroups in the lugnet.loc.uk hierarchy for a
kingdom with a 1996 population of 58.8 million people, compared to 222
newsgroups in the lugnet.loc.us hierarchy for a country with a 1996
population of 265 million people. So there are roughly twice as many UK
groups per capita than there are US groups per capita, but this is mainly
due to there being so many counties in England not very heavily populated
main towns, and it made me nervous to think about leaving some areas of the
kingdom unrepresented.
Comparing land mass, there are 83 UK groups for 244 110 sq km (2941 sq km
per group) versus 222 US groups for 9 518 323 sq km (42 875 sq km per
group). This seems horribly out of proportion until one considers the
square roots (i.e., driving distances) of these relative areas. That is,
sqrt(2941 sq km) is ~54 km and sqrt(42 875 sq km) is ~207 km. Given how
expensive petrol/gasoline is in the UK versus the US, and how carefree/
careless most Americans are about their cars and pollution and how far their
extended families tend to disperse across the country, doesn't this make a
bit of sense after all?
Anyway, the little itty bitty loc groups are there if people want to use
them, and they can ignore them if they don't want to use them. But I'd hate
for a group not to already be there when it was needed someday.
The best way to ignore the little groups is to subscribe to them via e-mail,
and you'll never miss anything.
The best way to invite someone from a little group into the big group is to
post a follow-up to their message in the little group (if they're new and it
looks like they weren't intentionally posting only to the little group) and
crosspost it to the little group and the big group, with followups set to
one or the other, whichever is most appropriate to the topic.
If someone is talking about Toys R Us, the most appropriate place is
probably the big group. If someone is organizing a spur-of-the-moment get-
together for chips and ale at a pub in, say, Aberdeen or Plymouth, then the
most appropriate place is probably the little group.
--Todd
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: All UK Groups subscribed?
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| (...) Yeah - but I think it is a bit different in the US. I've only been to the USA once - and I don't know if other people have found the same thing - so tell me if anyone else disagrees... but one of the overwhelming things I found in the USA was (...) (25 years ago, 13-May-99, to lugnet.loc.uk, lugnet.admin.general)
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