🚀 go-pugleaf

"How about some proposals on *deleting* groups 
from this roach motel?" a critic asks in 
attacking the proposal for va.alexandria.

Actually the Net should be more local, not
less. I can't help it that some Net providers 
offer every newsgroup. That's their decision. 
No one has ever talked about formally giving the 
proposed newsgroup more than local distribution. 
This would be a local group, not an alt. one.

If skeptics can't manage the present number of 
groups, then they might want to change providers 
or news readers.

But back to my main point:

"Local" is key. The last thing users need is to
have to hop from network to network, or from BBS
to BBS, to keep up with events in their own 
towns. Unite folks in the same geographical area 
and these forums will count more. As it happens, 
Alexandria is a city of more 100,000. If we
can have tiny groups for local hobbyists or for
local computer groups, surely an entire city 
can be served on the Net. Here's to net.power!

I, for one, would be highly supportive of 
newsgroups for other cities.

Let's have the Usenet model prevail over the 
proprietary one.

If nothing else, folks will recall that the Net is 
under attack for distracting people from Life 
and from their physical surroundings. Here's 
a constructive response to, say, Silicon Snake Oil.
Or to anti-Net forces of the Exonian variety. We
need many-to-many communications at the local
level, not just the national one.

Right now the Net has joke groups, groups for 
Kibbology, you name it. How about some groups 
addressing the concerns of real people in real 
cities? Again, we're talking local, not alt.

David Rothman | rothman@clark.net

P.S. Speaking of clutter, I'm trimming the reference 
to us.config, a newsgroup that someone else added 
to the headers. I understand that it isn't necessary. 
People should delete us.config from their own headers.
This is a *local* proposal.

P.P.S. Some people would protest that the Web--which
someone offered as part of a different solution--is 
too cluttered. Can't win :-;.