Before we get too involved with the newsgroup discussion, please recall the
ongoing irritations we have with spammers who happen to find this list.
Newsgroups are posted for ALL to see and are routinely searched by spammers
who harvest the email addresses of all who post.
The mailing list approach limits the receivers to those who have signed up
and distributes the postings to us alone. While it's true that we sometimes
get a lot of email out of that, it's nothing compared to what those (who are
so kind to post their questions and suggestions) would get, once their
emails have been harvested.
My 2cents... Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Thoen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: MapInfo-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Friday, March 17, 2000 1:35 PM
Subject: MI Do we want to create a MapInfo Newsgroup?
>Recently, several people have asked me if we should consider
>starting a MapInfo Usenet newsgroup in addition to (or instead
>of) the mailing list we use now. I thought I'd toss it out for
>discussion and see what everyone thinks.
>
>First of all, Usenet newsgroups take a little effort to set up.
>We would need someone who has access to a newsgroup server who
>would volunteer to be the "maintainer" (this would not be me; I
>have too much going on as it is right now).
>
>After we get the initial issues sorted out here, the official
>Usenet process starts with formal a Request for Discussion (RFD)
>on news.announce.newgroups, then we need to find a volunteer site
>to tabulate votes, then there's a call for votes. If we get
>enough votes (and people outside the MapInfo community can and
>will vote too, so you need to be coherent and persuasive in
>laying out your arguments) then the maintainer can start posting
>the messages to servers to start propagating the newsgroup across
>the world.
>
>Getting a slot in the "Big 8" hierarchies makes propagation very
>easy, but you have to have the votes. The process can take 2-3
>months. A quicker route is to create it under the alt or other
>non-big8 hierarchy. That's faster to get started, but much more
>difficult to get widespread coverage because many servers won't
>carry alt newsgroups unless specifically asked (and even then
>they still might not; alt groups are known for carrying a lot of
>worthless twaddle).
>
>For more info on the process see the news.newusers.questions FAQ
>or read news.groups for a while or go read about it at
>http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/6882/ncreate.html.
>
>There's plenty of arguments pro and con, but I don't want to sway
>people one way of another at this point. Post your comments
>publicly, and if there's anyone out there who wants to offer to
>be a maintainer/moderator and champion the cause, throw your hats
>in the ring!
>
>For everyone's information, there are currently 1143 subscribers
>on MapInfo-L. Some of those are gateways and many people read
>MapInfo-L from various web mirrors, so I don't really know how
>many "eyes" really read this list. My guess is that to get the
>votes to create a big 8 hierarchy like comp.infosystems.mapinfo,
>or sci.geo.mapinfo or whatever, you will need to really get the
>vote out. Typically, 1200 people is a small group by usenet
>standards, but it's an active one!
>
>If you have an opinion or some interest in getting involved,
>speak up! For those of you on mirror sites, remember that the
>list address is [EMAIL PROTECTED]; you don't have to be a
>subscriber to post your opinions.
>
>- Bill Thoen
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