Subject: Re: WARNING: This Group About To Be DELETED!!

From: mtiffany (Michael Tiffany)
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 21:31:45 -0800

Please, let's keep rec.gardens as one big happy family. I enjoy the
variety, and I think that we will all lose if the group is splintered.

Good gardening!

Stephanie Tiffany

---

From: [email-masked] (Gary Cooper)
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 23:29:19 +0000

In article <[email-masked]>
           [email-masked] "Brian Hachey" writes:

<much deleted to save bandwidth>

> The only reason I post this is because I get the impression that most
> of the anti-"shredder" people out there want to keep things exactly
> the way they are.  I'd ask that they at least consider the merits of
> this one change.
> 

I certainly have no problem with that - but I'd rather it was not in
a new "plants" hierarchy, which would be a logical nonsense if it was
applied as is being proposed. 

-- 
Gary Cooper

---

From: [email-masked] (Sherry Bailey)
Date: 16 Feb 1995 23:14:15 GMT

Mike put in a plea for "at least one change", a newsgroup about houseplants.
This is not a "change" really, or it shouldn't be -- it's an addition.
Those who have been around here al ong time know I have always, in these
discussions, used houseplants as one logical and viable separate group -- it
ISN'T the same as "gardening".

Frankly, I think the problem here is insufficient interest.  If somebody who
WANTS a houseplants group (not my interest, so I'm not gonna do it! ;^) )
could post a proposal and follow the "starting a new newsgroup" procedure,
which is posted in one of the news.* groups, maybe there would turn out to be
among the lurkers enough support to start one.  It seems to me, though, that
the majority of houseplant discussion comes from people who zap in and ask how
to keep their office begonia/african violet/cactus/philodendron alive, then
disappear, often with "please e-mail since I don't follow this newsgroup"
attached.  Maybe having one place for houseplants alone would make this
different, but I'm not sure.  

At any rate, fragmenting rec.gardens to acquire a houseplants group is not
a good solution.  Starting rec.houseplants might be.

Sherry

---

From: [email-masked] (Sandra Hoffman)
Date: 19 Feb 1995 17:01:50 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>,
Gary Cooper <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>Sherry is also quite right to point out that these proposals do *not*
>come about due to excessive traffic - they come from three sorts of people:
>those who cannot be bothered to learn to use the software available
>to scan the posts, 

I use and know how to use a threaded reader.

>or whose servers expire after absurdly short periods,

I do not have a problem keeping up with the expiry times on my server.

>*or* those who are not, really, gardeners at all, but are just people 
>whose hobby is growing one type of plant. There *is* a difference. 

Hmm, I grow flowers and vegetables on a 50 by 50 rented plot, have
a small herb and ornamental garden around my townhouse, and have about 
twenty indoor plants. Do I qualify as a gardener, really?

I'm in favour of splitting the group to at least indoor, misc, and 
organic, and would prefer to see misc split to edible and ornamental. 
Then instead of spending 2/3 of my time deleting posts I am not 
interested in, I could go to the groups I am most interested in first and 
save the topics I am least interested in for the days when I have extra 
time. As it is at least half the time I find myself catching up the group 
without reading any of it. Because the thought of coming in and weeding 
through 50-100 posts I'm not interested in to get to the ten or twelve 
conversations I'm interested in is just too much. As a result I rarely get 
enough continuity to get involved in discussions.

This group is one of the few I find that having a threaded newsreader 
does not help with. So few of the topics actually develop into threads. 
Most of the time when I enter the group there are at most one or two 
threads that have more than two articles in.

sph

ps I am not in favour of the current proposal for a plant.* hierarchy 
currently under discussion in news.groups.

-- 
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (B GOOGLE)
Date: 19 Feb 1995 19:06:19 -0500

As long as the categories are such that all interests can be accomodated
and I can still continue to read and respond to what I want to, I don't
really care.  I don't know if I'm missing something,  but it seems to me
that I can still have the variety by subscribing to all the resultant
newsgroups.  Is this correct?

---

From: [email-masked] (Fellwalker)
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 23:46:01 GMT

Sherry Bailey ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Fellwalker ([email-masked]) wrote:

: :    You don't call up to 350 posts every other day excessive traffic?! 
: : Firstly, I use a threaded newsreader and I _do_ know how to use it...it 
: : still took me 3 hours to get through this newsgroup when I was away for 2 
: : days. Suggestions to scan over posts with a threaded newsreader don't 
: : apply for people who _are_ interested in reading a wide variety of topics 
...snip..
: I THINK we are all reading the same newsgroup here.  I don't find 350 posts
: every other day... and after a while, you don't read everything because so
: much is repeated every few weeks that you have already learned it or are no
: longer interested.  Having several small groups will only compound the

   After being offline for 22 hours...friday night to Sunday 
morning....there were 310 _threads_ with new postings, some multiple, in 
rec.gardens. That means there were more than 310 new posts in the past 22 
hours, and while there's always a spurt in new posts on Saturdays, I there 
will usually be a couple hundred new posts in that amount of time.

: problem.  (I don't know why you keep challenging the knowledge of the people
: who have watched this phenemenon in other split-up newsgroups -- do you think
: we are LYING when we predict trouble? I've been on thenet for seven years now,
: and I know of some people who were here before I was -- we KNOW whereof we speak!)

    My knowledge and observations are as different from yours as yours 
are to the next guys. The amount of time you've spent on the 'Net doesn't 
guarantee your expertise or make you capable of forseeing the future. I 
am not a 'Newbie' and refuse to have _my_ opinions written off on the 
basis that I may not have been around as long as you have. If I didn't 
care to hear your opinions I never would have asked to hear them (in my 
posts querying about reorganization). 

: Yep, you definitely have the right to SUGGEST a reorganization -- just as the
: rest of us have the right to streuously oppose it.  I'm sorry people lose

    Go ahead...oppose whatever ideas you are against. I just despise 
rebuttals to a persons proposal (such as Mr.Sexton's) that take the form 
of a personal attack on whoever's proposing the idea, instead of being 
directed against the idea itself.

   What was left out of your post (which I'm replying to now) is that I 
_was not replying to YOUR post_ The comments of mine that you used, 
supposedly in answer to you, were from a response to a post by Gary 
(Cooper?). You edited it down to look as though I was responding 
specifically to you, when I was actually responding to his post (which 
was a followup to yours)

    In that post it was implied that everyone who tries to reorganize 
re.gardens is either lazy, doesn't know how to use their newsreader, or 
isn't a "real" gardener.
: :   I don't know what you're trying to get at with your last
: : statement...that people who want a plant specific newsgroup should just 
: : read rec.gardens? What? People in rec.gardens.roses may grow only one 
: : type of plant, does that mean they aren't really gardeners? Or that they 
: : shouldn't have a specific rose newsgroup?

: I don't know what "my last statement" was, but from your remarks here, I
: assume you are referring to my opinion that there should be VERY few

    Probably because I wasn't responding to your post. If you hadn't 
edited out Mr. Coopers post, you would have clearly seen I was 
responding to HIS last statement.

: :    While I don't agree with his 'plant' hierarchy idea, please realize 
: : there are more than a few people who _would_ like to see some sort of 
: : reorganization....and their views are just as valid as yours. It is 
: : unfair to arbitrarily lump them into groups and dismiss them.

: I disagree.  Everybody has the right to state their opinion, but I don't
: accept that every idea is equally valid.  Some ideas stink!  MY OPINION is

   I didn't say that every idea is equally valid. I said that everyones 
views are equally valid. Yes, to me, the rec.plants idea stinks, but Mr. 
Sexton's view (belief, opinion, whatever) that there should be a 
rec.plants hierarchy is just as valid as my opinion that there shouldn't.

: And once more I want to comment to other newbies -- I think you ought to pay
: special attention to those of us who have been here a long time -- we have
: seen irrevocable mistakes made in other newsgroups, and we KNOW WHAT WILL
: HAPPEN! This experiment has been done before.  If we split IT WILL GET WORSE.

     Get off your "newbie" kick. There are other ways to express your 
opinion without trying to demean others. I am not a newbie, but I still 
resent a "holier than thou" attitude when it's thrown in my face. 
    I am perfectly capable of listening to your opinions and information 
based on the fact that you are an individual with an opinion...I don't 
write off the opinions of people on the basis that they're "Newbies", or 
may not have as much Usenet experience as I do.

    Again, I was not able to reply to much of your post because you 
edited out Mr Coopers post (that I had responded to). Without that, my 
comments didn't make sense.

--Max
-- 
--  ...with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes... <[email-masked]>

---

From: [email-masked] (Fellwalker)
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 00:36:50 GMT

Gary Cooper ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] "Fellwalker" writes:

: <much deleted to save bandwidth>

: >    You don't call up to 350 posts every other day excessive traffic?! 
: > Firstly, I use a threaded newsreader and I _do_ know how to use it...it 
: > still took me 3 hours to get through this newsgroup when I was away for 2 
...snip

: Actually, no I don't. Living in England *many* of the posts to
: this group are completely irrelevant to me, and scanning past those
: threads takes fractions of a second. 350 posts really doesn't seem
: like a great number to me - unless one is attempting to read, and maybe
: even respond, to nearly all of them. Quite why it took you three
: hours to get through two days posts I can't imagine. 

     Many people _don't_ scan over most of the posts, because they don't 
find them irrelevant. For those people, subdividing rec.gardens would 
make it easier to scan through groups of related subjects, instead of 
scanning through one great pile of everything. It takes me three hours to 
get through posts because I have to sort and read and sort and read....

: But, if you, too, are a generalist, interested in reading about 
: everything, how will fragmentation help? You'll still want to read all 
: these posts - and splitting will simply increase the number of them as 
: newbies inevitably use a shotgun approach with their questions.

     If I'm looking for info about vegetable gardening (for example) it 
would probably be quicker to find it in rec.gardens.misc.edible or 
whatever, instead of scanning through floweres, trees, pt lumber,etc. If 
I'm just scanning for interesting subjects, it would be quicker scanning 
through a group of more closely related subjects than a very general group.
   (example, would you think that "comp.sys" should be the only comp.sys 
group with no further division? Or rec.sports?)
    Newbies are only ignorant, _not_ stupid. They learn by their mistakes 
and stop making them. rec.gardens.roses and rec.gardens.orchids have 
hardly gone down under a barrage of cross posts.

: >    Secondly, are you suggesting that for the people who's sites don't 
: > hold posts very long, they're just outta luck? That they don't have the 
: > right to suggest a reorganization because it would better enable them to 
: > take part in gardening newsgroups?

: In a word: yes. The net isn't going to get *smaller* and it isn't going
: to get easier for underfunded or lazy site operators to handle. 
: Inevitably, all suppliers are going to have to upgrade their equipment
: and service levels. This isn't an *option*, it is being forced on all
: of us as we try to keep up while the whole system grows at a rate no 
: one can control.

: Would you rather that the development of the net was held back, or forced 
: into contortions, on account of those sites who were unable or unwilling 
: to improve their facilities? In the case of expiry times we aren't
: talking about a great deal more than larger storage facilities, which
: are far from the most expensive items going to be required over the
: next few years. How far would you propose going to accomodate sites
: with limited facilities? 

    rec.gardens reorganization would hold back the development of the 
'Net? How many new newsgroups were you given a choice of when you signed 
on today? (I had about 10 or so.)
  
...snip...
: >    While I don't agree with his 'plant' hierarchy idea, please realize 
: > there are more than a few people who _would_ like to see some sort of 
: > reorganization....and their views are just as valid as yours. It is 
: > unfair to arbitrarily lump them into groups and dismiss them.

: Breaking objections down into component elements is a good way of finding
: whether there are valid points being made. No one has challenged the
: points raised by Sherry, Kay Klier, myself and others as to
: *why* these proposals have been made - they have simply expanded on
: them - which is fine and shows that the reduction has served its
: purpose. It's hardly 'lumping them into groups' - it's an attempt at
: analysis on the hoof :-). From there, those points have been disagreed 
: with, not "dismissed".

     My reference to 'lumping into groups' was because of your statements 
about what sort of people want to reorganize rec.gardens, breaking down 
into something like, People who are too lazy to scan, people who don't 
know how to use their newsreaders (to scan), and 'non-gardeners'. I am 
not lazy, or I wouldn't be putting the work into the rec.gardens proposal 
that I have. I know darn well how to use my (threaded) newsreader, and I 
am most certainly a gardener. 
    Whatever Mr. Sexton's reasons are behind his rec.plants proposal, it 
is unfair to him, and to anyone else putting forward any proposal, to 
dismiss him on those grounds, instead of by disagreement with the proposal 
itself. 

--Max

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 20 Feb 1995 06:05:43 GMT

In <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Fellwalker) writes:
|Gary Cooper ([email-masked]) wrote:
|: In article <[email-masked]| [email-masked] "Fellwalker" writes:
|
|: <much deleted to save bandwidth>
|
|: |    You don't call up to 350 posts every other day excessive traffic?! 
|: | Firstly, I use a threaded newsreader and I _do_ know how to use it...it 
|: | still took me 3 hours to get through this newsgroup when I was away for 2 
|....snip
|
|: Actually, no I don't. Living in England *many* of the posts to
|: this group are completely irrelevant to me, and scanning past those
|: threads takes fractions of a second. 350 posts really doesn't seem
|: like a great number to me - unless one is attempting to read, and maybe
|: even respond, to nearly all of them. Quite why it took you three
|: hours to get through two days posts I can't imagine. 
|
|     Many people _don't_ scan over most of the posts, because they don't 
|find them irrelevant. For those people, subdividing rec.gardens would 
|make it easier to scan through groups of related subjects, instead of 
|scanning through one great pile of everything. It takes me three hours to 
|get through posts because I have to sort and read and sort and read....
|
|: But, if you, too, are a generalist, interested in reading about 
|: everything, how will fragmentation help? You'll still want to read all 
|: these posts - and splitting will simply increase the number of them as 
|: newbies inevitably use a shotgun approach with their questions.
|
|     If I'm looking for info about vegetable gardening (for example) it 
|would probably be quicker to find it in rec.gardens.misc.edible or 
|whatever, instead of scanning through floweres, trees, pt lumber,etc. If 
|I'm just scanning for interesting subjects, it would be quicker scanning 
|through a group of more closely related subjects than a very general group.
|   (example, would you think that "comp.sys" should be the only comp.sys 
|group with no further division? Or rec.sports?)

snip...

If only my newsfeed would not expire after two days, with the 
amount of traffic lately in his group, I could foresee finding 
over one thousand articles to read after being away two weeks.
But that still would not encourage me to support further topical 
division. I, too, find interest in reading all the varieties of 
discussion on gardening in one newsgroup. Often the advice found 
effects indoor and outdoor (flower or vegetation, etc.).
Rec.bonsai and Rec.orchids has worked well for specific interests
and may very well be example for a RFD for say, hydroponics.
As for my indoor, outdoor flower gardening and hedges, and 
vegetable gardening, I'd just as soon continue to spool up one 
general newsgroup.

I have a suggestion, which is not original, and has worked in
rec.aquaria since I have read UseNet. Prefacing the subject is a
marked "(F)"... for freshwater discussion; "(M)" for marine.

Why not try inserting a letter code here? Who should standardize
the code? I dunno. (%-) But I'll try some suggestions and
use the "K.I.S.S" method :

(B) Books, periodicals
(C) Catalogues
(D) Data (i.e. software, scientific)
(F) Fertilizers
(I) Indoor
(O) Outdoor
(P) Pests
(S) Soil
(V) Vegetables

Example for rec.gardening:
Subject line: (I) Geranium Propagation

A monthly message explaining the code may help users be reminded
to try this tagging method and trim down the Subject line usage 
of just an undefined "Help".

What do y'all think? This warm weather we are once again 
relishing in New England reminds me that I will have less time 
soon to spend reading news and will be spending more time outside
gardening. Bring on the Spring!!!

Regards,

---J
Janice Anne Follansbee           "One Hand Washes the Otter"
[email-masked]
     |\      _,,,---,,_       
zzz. /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_. 
    |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-' 
   '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)    fL

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Regards,

---J
Janice Anne Follansbee           "One Hand Washes the Otter"
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Gary Cooper)
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 14:25:54 +0000

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked]  writes:

<words deleted to save bandwidth>

> use the "K.I.S.S" method :

<more deleted>

This isn't at all a bad idea, as far as I can see, but I fear 
that it's unlikely to catch on.

-- 
Gary Cooper

---

From: [email-masked] (Gary Cooper)
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 14:23:31 +0000

> get through posts because I have to sort and read and sort and read....

I think we're going to have to agree to differ on this. As far as
I can see, any splitting of this group will, inevitably, increase
the total number of postings and will irreparably damage its catholic
nature. Being familiar neither with your newsreader, nor the way you use 
it, I find it impossible to imagine how it can take so 
long to look through a list of threads, decide which ones might 
interest you then either read, or pass by them. I'm afraid I simply
don't understand your comment about having to "sort and read" etc. 
This is obviously a failing on my part, for which I apologise.    

> hardly gone down under a barrage of cross posts.

Equally, if all you are interested in is vegetable growing, how long
does it take to scan a day or so's threads for those containing
relevant information? My server has a seven day expiry, which means that
I am confronted with several screens of threads every time I log on.
Even with that number, it would be the work of minutes to scan through
for vegetable-related threads. 

Continuing your line of argument, I still fail to see how you think
division will help if you are a generalist gardener. Having scanned
and read rec.vegetables (or whatever) you will then have to plough
(!) through all the other groups which might interest you. These
will contain either the same, or a greater, number of posts which
means your total time saving will amount to zero. Compartmentalising
will offer no time savings and carries the risk that, for example,
the chrysanthemum specialist is likely to miss a fascinating post
about general cultivation which appears on another group. Either that
or, if it has been cross-posted, s/he will be forced to endure it
by the number of times the cross-posting has taken place.

Your analogy with other pursuits is a bit of a non sequitur because
the baseball fan is *very* unlikely to be interested in the cricket 
scores in the match between Pakistan and New Zealand at Karachi. 
Similarly, the PC clone user is unlikely to be concerned by the
latest developments in Cray operating systems. The gardener, 
however, is likely to be interested in *many* different genera and
many different horticultural techniques.  

I hope I haven't suggested (and do not believe I have) that newbies
are stupid. They are, however, a fact of life: one demonstarted
to extremes every Autumn. They will *always* be with us and
they will *always* cross-post and make the same mistakes we all
have made. You won't stop cross-posting, it happens everywhere.
If we allow rec.gardens to be sub-divided in this passion for
compartmentalisation, we will simply encourage that phenomenon.

> on today? (I had about 10 or so.)

That wasn't the point that I was making. I was saying that if we
contort Usenet to take account of those with minimum facilities,
the net as a whole suffers. If your argument for division of 
rec.gardens is supported by the claim that this is required for
those whose servers expire articles at unreasoanbly short periods,
then that amounts to such a contortion. An analogy would be
the growth of WWW, which gobbles-up bandwidth at a terrifying rate.
Should we have banned it, because of that, or installed greater
bandwidth? By extension, should we butcher rec.gardens (or any
other group) simply for the sake of those whose servers have short 
memories?

> ....snip...

And I *still* don't see why it takes you three hours to scan and
read a selection from a few hundred posts. Moreover, neither do I see 
how splitting this group will save you much (any?) time and effort.

We all receive the same number of posts and yet it is still only
a handful of people who have claimed that this is a major problem.
Many of what Sherry calls the "shredders" have supported the 
division on the grounds that they are simply not *interested* in
other subjects (which is sad, but fair enough) but few are claiming
that reading rec.gardens is in danger of becoming a full-time
occupation. That suggests, with respect, that the problem lies in
the way those few people are handling their news reading, rather than 
any inherent problem with the group itself.

> dismiss him on those grounds, instead of by disagreement with the proposal 

His proposal is absurd on any basis. Gardening is about far more than
specific genera and I find it deeply surprising that any gardener
could have proposed this. A taxonomist (pace Kay Klier!) maybe,
but a gardener, no. As for the other points, if people (and some
have) put forward arguments in favour of splitting this group
which are based on either laziness, lack of knowledge or
whatever, I do not consider it all unreasonable to comment 
accordingly. 

-- 
Gary Cooper

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard Winder)
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 17:46:39 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Sherry Bailey) writes:
>Jennifer Fruhbauer ([email-masked]) wrote:
>: Sherry Bailey ([email-masked]) wrote:
>: : IF PEOPLE WOULD LEARN TO SCREEN SUBJECT LINES WITH THEIR NEWSREADERS, THE
>: : NUMBER OF POSTS PER DAY (which is the ONLY motivation for splitting I have
>: : seen) BECOMES IRRELEVANT.
>
>: BUT IT IS A PAIN IN THE ARSE TO DO SO 
>
>To YOU.  I do it every day in a dozen newsgroups, including this one, and *I*
>think it's easy. Why do you expect the rest of us to modify the newsgroup for
>YOUR comfort?

I'm afraid I agree with Sherry here.  It is much more painless to skim through
a directory of article titles than to plow through every day's batch of
articles.  For my reader, it is straightforward (help can be handy command!).
I suspect most readers have this capability, if people would take the time to
learn how to do it.  With participation in the networks steadily increasing, 
people will have to change the way that they view some newsgroups and 
participate in them- to me, this group is kind of like a gardening magazine-
you pick the topics that are of interest to you, and pass over the rest.  If 
a significant body of people all want to connect with each other, lists get 
started.  If traffic on the list gets out of hand, then you start to see a 
push for a real group.	-RSW

  RICHARD WINDER                    Title: Research Scientist
  Canadian Forest Service           Phone: (604) 363-0773
  Victoria, B.C.                    Internet: [email-masked]