🚀 go-pugleaf

The suggestion has been made that Alexandria, VA, 
could get along with a mailing list instead, just like 
Tacoma Park, MD. I understand worries about 
newsgroup clutter, but the two situations are 
different. Tacoma Park is smaller than Alexandria, 
which has a population of at least 100,000. TP's
population in the 1990 census was 16,700
(http://www.census.gov/cdrom/lookup/date=810934871). 

Not that I'd oppose a local TP group. Quite
the contrary! It's just that the parallel 
won't work out.

My biggest concern here is that the Usenet model prevail 
over the proprietary model. Just today, the Washington
Post reported that Amercia Online was starting a 
DC-oriented service. And earlier I learned that another 
commercial service would carry Alexandria items. 

Sounds to me as if the good folks of Alexandria 
are being split up by nets. A newsgroup would guard
against this. The idea is to build some
community spirit and interest in local matters; that
means a way to reach everyone at once. Here's to the
open, universal approach without the meter running at
$3 an hour, and without any time limits!

A mailing list wouldn't work out as well. Most people 
would find a newsgroup more manageable, and
besides, lists often give birth to cliques--one thing
that a newsgroup could avoid. It would be uncensored.
Everyone could have a say. 

The suggestion has also been made that va.alexandria
wouldn't interest people in Newport News, say, or
Roanoke. As far as I'm concerned, however, they could
start their own groups such as va.roanoke. Ideally
feeds could filter out va.alexandria. But if this
were a problem? Then another approach could be used
such as dc.alexandria (given all the overlaps in 
Beltway Land) or alexandria.news (though I'm aware
this is hierarchial heresy :-;).

Also it's said that a complicated name would not discourage
people. On the contrary. More and more people--including
old hands--are using Netscape to cruise the Net. And
while bookmarks are in use, not everyone messes with them
because of the clumsy URL management system that some
browsers have. At any rate, more and more folks are 
hopping back and forth between Usenet and the Web. 
I just did that a moment ago to get Tacoma Park's 
population figure. Such usage could mean more 
informed posts. The easier we can make the Web-
newsgroup combo, the better.

Abbreviations? That won't cut it. Use of common,
obvious words makes things much more open. I'd like
newbies to be able to scan down a list of newsgroups
and think something like, "Aha! There's Virginia 
and there's Alexandria."

The concern has also been expressed that the word
"general" could be used to alert news administrators that
subgroups exist within va.alexandria. This needn't be a 
problem, however. We're talking about a locally distributed
group, and not *that* great a number of sites 
involved. Nor is there really any worry that people
in a "forsale" offshoot would be resent the lack of
a "general." 

I say: Keep things as simple as possible for *local*
users, for whom va.alexandria or alexandria.news
(or whatever it's called) would exist. I'd caution
folks in other cities: what applies to us could 
apply to you. Your local concerns are not net.clutter
in *local* groups.

Believe me, I myself just might be a hierarchial purist
if this were a proposal for the Big Seven or Eight or
whatever they're up to. Here, however, we're talking
about local distribution--about a group in the spirit 
of, say, the triangle groups in North Carolina. Out-of-
towners would be welcome to participate, but Alexandrians
would count here, just as Research Triangle residents
matter the most down there. Why there's even a music
group for Chapel Hill (possibly in a different hierarchy).

"Local" is the big word on people's minds. They want
to be able to cruise around but also to check in
to see what's happening in their own cities. An
Alexandria newsgroup would accomplish this objective
in the spirit of the Net. Hey, the Net has undergone a
lot of criticism lately for distracting people from
their immediate surroundings and civic concerns--here's a
positive response.

David Rothman | rothman@clark.net