net.os

[Henry Spencer]

>	Since we are starting over, I again cast my vote FOR net.os.

ARGH!  NO!!!!

For the 357th time, calling for a vote in a public newsgroup read by
everyone is NOT PROPER PRACTICE.  Everyone will have to read hundreds
of silly vote messages, when most people really are not interested at
all.  The way to conduct a vote by the net is for someone to volunteer
to collect votes, and then everyone else *MAILS* their votes to him.
When the flurry dies down, he then posts a *summary* of the results.
Can we get this pollution off the technical newsgroups?!?

And by the way, one does not create a newsgroup by voting on it.  One
creates a newsgroup by demonstrating a substantial volume of traffic in
an existing newsgroup that would like to be rid of it.  For lack of
anything better, net.unix or net.micro would be the obvious places for
this one.  Or maybe net.misc.  It is not enough to have lots of people
who are interested in *reading* a newsgroup, it is necessary to have
people who will *write* for it.  Over and over again, groups have
been created as the result of popular enthusiasm, only to fizzle and
die because nobody ever submitted anything to them after the first week.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry