🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0BGzz.1FA.1@cs.cmu.edu>, 
pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu ("Phil G. Fraering") writes...

>\I subscribed to this list in order to try to inform myself about the latest 
>/news about US and other coutnries' space programs.  I thought that this would 
>\be a list of technical discussions, not a religious debate that has turned 
>/into ad hominem attacks and flame wars as virulent as any I've seen in the 
>\religious news groups.  Then I see things like this, from Herman Rubin:

(excerpts of rantings deleted)

>1. Henry Spencer's little excerpt isn't political ranting but a
>   good summary of the facts. If you don't think so, you need to
>   look at the background of the COPOUS Treaty.

Great!  Let's degenerate this thread into a flame war on what 
constitutes ranting.


>2. Currently our space programs are run mainly by the government,
    ...(unrelated stuff deleted)
>   of the situation." The people trying to push this off into
>   other newsgroups, which are accesible neither for posting
>   nor reading purposes to much of the internet population, are
    ...(more deleted)

OK, if the problem is that some people don't have access to the other
newsgroups suggested by the originator of this thread, I suggest
either of the following solutions:

1.  Move the offending threads to a new newsgroup (sci.space.advocacy)
    or create a sci.space.news or sci.space.dispassionate.discussion.

2.  Use meaningful subject lines.

The latter would be good practice with or without the former.  It
would be a lot easier to sift through postings if the subject lines
reflected the actual topic.  For (just one) example, the "Re: Latest 
Pegasus news?" thread managed to stay on the topic for about two
postings before turning into the same discussion that seems to occupy
half the threads in this newsgroup.

Would it be too much trouble to change the subject line once a thread
has moved off to an entirely new topic?

Changing "Terminal velocity of..." to "Stupid Shut Cost arguements..."
is an excellent example of what I'd like to see.