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Caveat wrote:
> [...]
I saw your post, but I had to go back to the google archive
to get your text because it expired from UCSC.
This will not be linked to the thread.
> Thanks for all the info, history, insight and suggestions, Eugene.
Actually, it comes with the job. I am involved in more than just
Usenet in the research funding of the wider Internet as a few lurkers
and posters can tell you. I've even been called in on bum deals from
attempts to sell used biking gear to get thing straightened out.
> I appreciate your efforts, as I am certain most others do here, too.
Some get it, others don't.
I try to balance friends and enemies which should keep me in the middle.
Those that don't can be Darwin-awarded as far as I am concern.
It's an intelligence tests of sorts.
> Following one of your suggestions, I did peruse some of the sci.
> groups. There are some impressive minds there. Good for learning, but
> I wouldn't be able to contribute much to their knowledge base.
Well Usenet as well as other parts of the Internet were among the cited
reasons for Information Superhighway analogies.
In some groups, you can literally reach the worlds' experts on some
topics. At least for a while until the masses and spam bore them.
It was even more impressive in some areas in the 80s and 90s.
Certain golden periods are passing.
> One that did get my attention was the sci.skepic group. Pretty wild
> place. It was so off-the-wall that my comments probably wouldn't
> even
> be noticed in the din: a half-MILLION threads according to Google,
> double that of this group, with cross-posting to a half-dozen other
> groups seemingly the norm. I found that wild-eyed fanatical exchanges,
> replete with gratuitous obscene personal insults are de rigeur there.
Skeptic is a bit of a flamer group.
But consider sci.bio.* or one of the relevant bionet.* groups
if you see say a wildlife question. Now I doubt that you will get the
Craigheads answering bear questions, but you might troll a good passing
bear expert.
> I sure hope that's not an example of an A or B group ;-). Our little
> NG here seems quite tame by comparison.
s.s. is a C group.
If you want examples of an A group, you want comp.compilers or comp.risks.
There are others. The moderators get stipends and the group has
produced books.
The aforementioned rec.hunting is kind of a B group as moderated groups go.
soc.culture.french was kind of impressive at one time for an unmoderated
group; that has likely changed.
> Still looking...
Roam the net like you might roam a backcountry trip.
When you are ready to take the next step, consider trolling for a
postcard a long way away. That's using bits to move atoms. A small
task, but that's prescisely the same road taken by Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!,
etc.
> Caveat
>
> P.S. -- I still don't know what NGM stands for (could it be that even
> Gary doesn't know???). The possibilities I found include:
Gary does not remember.
News.Group Maintenance.
> National Geographic Magazine
They make very useful tee shirts.
It's telling that some people saw the M as management.
I view it more as a janitorial function on my part.
It's not netiquette, it's more like basic information.
Some of this is on panels 12, and I think 26.
I'm not particular fond of the idea of starting FAQs.
It's a measure of laziness in people (of which I am certainly one),
but among other things it did get me my last assignment which included
trips around the country as well as Europe and it resulted in
participation of funding the google search engine.
It's a research question why people aren't good question posers.
But it was a lot of fun doing the last job.
We are an unmoderated group. Posters can largely post whatever you want
here short of really big image files (or binary executables).
No one can tell you that you are off topic posting here unless they fall
under the same ISP rules, and if that's a problem, change ISPs.
Those guys are the clueless guys.
Sort of like herding cats.
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