Phred > wrote:
> (Victor Sack) wrote:
> >[Notice to rfc readers: crosspost to aus.net.news]
>
> >opposing the proposal. However, there may very well be a *better*
> >reason to support it instead, *if* real interest is demonstrated with
> >honest statistics. No one wants to prevent people from having a
> >newsgroup for which real interest is there. BTW, only Usenet traffic
> >matters here; mailing lists, no matter how numerous or popular, are
> >irrelevant.
>
> Have you read "Catch-22"? ;-)
Sure.
> ISTR from years back that this bureaucratic requirement is indeed the
> way the "system" is supposed to work. However, if there is no
> newsgroup serving the purpose then people are clearly forced to use
> other methods of communication.
Surely there are some such newsgroups, rfc being one, along with a few
other global ones. Besides, in such cases people often post off-topic
or borderline off-topic. In the aus.* context, I'd check such
newsgroups as aus.family and aus.general, for example. A serious
proponent would do exactly that, i.e. compile statistics of
Australian-related food posts on all those newsgroups. If the evidence
is favourable, the problem is solved. If there are only an average of a
couple posts a week, the proposed newsgroup is probably not viable.
> So active mailing lists on a topic
> may well indicate there would be viable traffic on a proposed new
> group. Particularly as mailing lists can be a real pain compared with
> following newsgroup discussions.
They may or they may not. It always depends on the audience in
question. I remember many such discussions in news.groups over the
years and many people maintained that the audience is different in
either case. Russ Allbery, as I remember, was one exception, but I
believe he had technical newsgroups (such as those for programming
languages) in mind. In any case, it is highly unlikely that people who
post on mailing lists but not on Usenet will want a change. If there is
an overlap, it might be different. As to other forums, such as
Web-based ones, there was a consensus that practically no overlapping
occurs and the audience is completely different. Some Usenetters use
such forums and indeed sometimes cease to post in Usenet altogether in
favour of them, but there is apparently no movement in the opposite
direction.
Victor