Subject: Re: PROPOSED REORGANIZATION>rec.gardens

From: [email-masked] (Janine Dahms Walker)
Date: 16 Feb 1995 22:13:08 GMT

I agree with Kay- keep rec gardens as is. I can easily scan all the
articles and select those of interest.  I also like reading about plants
from all over the country, and have had many responses from people outside
my zone 3/4.  Besides, I enjoy readers from the south complaining about the
cold!  It's all relative in Minesota!  Janine Dahms Walker

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From: [email-masked] (Fellwalker)
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 22:53:22 GMT

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

: :    I've never seen a gardening magazine (or any other magazine) that 
: : didn't put a table of contents at the begining so you could find what 
: : subjects you were interested in, and I've never seen anything short of a 
: : gardening encyclopedia that had (up to) 300 articles in every issue. You 
: : get something that big and it starts making sense to split things into 
: : "chapters".

: What newsreader are you using?  I have used at least three different ones on
: UNIX, and all of them thread the subject lines -- THOSE are your chapters. The
: most obvious of these is tin, which sorts all the articles into subject lists
: and even BRINGS BACK previously read and lost postings to which new followups
: are being added... my sysadmin led me to believe that tin is freeware
: available for all UNIX systems.  But even in rn and the other one I can't
: remember now, there is always a command key to follow a thread foreward or
: backward, so if not as tidy as in tin, the capacity to have "chapters" is
: still there.

    TIN doesn't sort postings into subjects, it gives you a list of the 
individual threads active. Today, after being offline for 23 hours, there 
were 310 individual threads with new postings (if I pull in all active 
threads, even without new postings, thre are almost 600). That means that 
even with TIN set to list only threads with new posts, (and knowing how 
to use my newsreader), I'm still scanning through 300+ 'subjects' every 
time I sign on, many with multiple posts per thread. 

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

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From: [email-masked] (Fellwalker)
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 01:12:47 GMT

Gary Cooper ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Why do people seem to feel that just because there are x-hundred
: posts a day that they have to *read* them all? Even without a
: threaded newsreader it's no trouble at all to scan through the 
: headers and only read those which strike you as interesting. If we
: split the group the really keen among us (ok, ok, the obsessives!)
: will probably take most of the new groups and end-up with even 
: more to scan, as the total number of posts will be bound to rise.

   I read them all because I'm _interested_ in more than a few types of 
gardening. However, I wouldn't buy a loosefeaf gardening book, take the 
pages out, and mix them up on the floor...then try to read it. I would 
look through it by chapter to find areas that I was interested in. 
   That's all that's being proposed here. Taking a gardening book, 
rec.gardens, and giving it chapters so it's easier to read.

  If the number of posts rise if the group is subduvided, GREAT! That 
means more gardeners are sharing more information...and probably having 
an easier time reading it then if it was all mixed up in one pile.

--Max

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From: [email-masked] (Fellwalker)
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 01:19:03 GMT

: There IS no satisfactory way to divide the subject of gardening -- the
: solution is to scan your subjects and only read the ones you find interesting,
: skipping the rest.  If you can use "tin" or another threaded news reader
: instead of rn or one of the older options, the threads are more obvious, the
: subject list shorter.

: I say REAL gardeners need access to the gamut of information, even if they
: choose to skip all "deer and animal pest" postings that week... I never saw a
: gardening magazine that limited itself to only one aspect of gardening -- even
: Organic Gardening, which comes closest, has articles on ornamentals, edibles,
: lawncare, tools, pest control, and tons of other things some people want to
: see in separate newsgroups.  

   I've never seen a gardening magazine (or any other magazine) that 
didn't put a table of contents at the begining so you could find what 
subjects you were interested in, and I've never seen anything short of a 
gardening encyclopedia that had (up to) 300 articles in every issue. You 
get something that big and it starts making sense to split things into 
"chapters".

--Max

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From: [email-masked] (Martin Zimmerman)
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 12:33:36 -0600

Another vote for the status quo. With the subjects plain to see, it only
takes me a few minutes to pick out the stuff I want to read. Lots of times
I find information for solving one problem in a post with a seemingly
unrelated subject heading. Maybe I'm buried in snow (actually we had a
thaw yesterday and I spotted my first snowdrop!) but I can garden
vicariously through the Californians and Southerners. Maybe I'd like to
stay organic, but its nice to know what chemical will get the job done
when the black vine weevils have my yews at death's door (the SOBs have
killed 2 big ones already).

I've been a follower of rec.pets.dogs for awhile, a group that recently
split into about 6 groups. I don't really feel that I'm saving any time
cruising through 4 out of 6 groups, than I did cruising once through the
big group (esp. since a lot of stuff is crossposted between groups). When
you look at the many different ways of splitting up rec.gardens ( food vs.
landscaping, organic vs. non-organic, warm climate vs. cold climate etc) I
think the crossposting would outweigh the gain of being able to skip a few
groups (like rec.gardens.bermudagrass.die.die.die :-) ).

my 2¢

Marty

-- 
Marty Zimmerman                           [email-masked]
Analex Corp - NASA Lewis Research Center
Cleveland, Ohio USA

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From: [email-masked] (Neil Mercer)
Date: 18 Feb 1995 05:31:34 GMT

I think rec.gardens should stay as it is.  I enjoy the variety in the 
group, especially as I don't have very specific gardening interests.  I  
don't see why the number of posts on this newsgroup should be a problem, 
and I don't think it's a legitimate reason for splitting.  As Sherry 
said, get a threader.  It doesn't take that long to scan the group for 
items that interest you, it's an easily learned skill.  I really don't 
want to have to read many newsgroups to find out things which I can 
currently find out in this one newsgroup as I don't see that it's 
necessary.

Leave rec.gardens as it is!

Tania.