🚀 go-pugleaf

On 8 Aug 1997 02:55:59 GMT, RyanS @sprynet.com (Ryan Simmons) wrote:
>> Sounds great, except it should be something like comp.dcom.cable-modems or 
>> comp.dcom.modems.cable-modems.  I don't see a cable modem group being 
>> 'alternative.'  It's a technical computer group.

Peter@adelheid.demon.co.uk writes:
>That's not what "alt" means in the context of alt.* groups.

That's *exactly* what it means (I was there when John Gilmore and Brian
Reid founded the alt hierarchy, I've talked to them both in person, and I
know).  It was designed to carry those groups that the backbone
administrators refused to carry because the topics were too controversial,
or that had been censored: alt.sex, alt.drugs, and alt.flame were among
the first alt groups.  It wasn't done just to assist the short-term
thinkers too lazy to go through the newsgroup creation process.

If you put a technical group in alt, you risk cutting the audience: yes,
ISPs will carry it, but companies may not, including those companies
containing the cable modem experts.  So why shoot yourself in the foot
and wind up with a worse group?  Don't start groups that would work
perfectly well as comp groups in alt.  Use alt for alternative topics,
the kind of thing your boss doesn't want you to read at work. :-)


-- 
-- Joe Buck	http://www.synopsys.com/pubs/research/people/jbuck.html

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