alt.cypherpunks

Hey, folks,

I thought all you had to do to create an alt.group was to have a news admin
somewhere just make a group; send out a control message of somekind. I
thought that alt groups didn't have to go through a charter, or voting
process, or anything else. They just happened.

Then, everyone just has to tell their local news admin that they went to
see it, or they can wait until their news admin sees it flying by, and adds
it to the available groups list at his own discretion.

It's not like we want comp.cypherpunks or something, with a voting process,
right?

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga





-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"Never attribute to conspiracy what can be
explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/
FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/

Robert Hettinga writes:

> Hey, folks,

> I thought all you had to do to create an alt.group was to have a news admin
> somewhere just make a group; send out a control message of somekind. I
> thought that alt groups didn't have to go through a charter, or voting
> process, or anything else. They just happened.

> Then, everyone just has to tell their local news admin that they went to
> see it, or they can wait until their news admin sees it flying by, and adds
> it to the available groups list at his own discretion.

In theory, and according to the alt FAQ, anyone can create an alt group. 

In reality, control messages are merely advisory, and greater weight is
lent to control messages which have the imprimatur of the Alt Cabal than
to those issued by mere peons. 

The typical news admin finds that if he honors all rmgroup messages issued
by Cabal members, when they disapprove of a newsgroup not previously
discussed in alt.config, his life is made simpler, and he no longer has to
weed the wheat from the chaf by hand. 

Since most people are inherently lazy, and most newgroups created outside
of the alt.config process are trash, the path of least resistance is to
only automatically honor newgroups and rmgroups issued by Cabal members. 

This is of course the exact antithesis of how alt was supposed to work in
the first place, but with the large number of users on the Net at present,
it is not practical to create every single newsgroup a person might want
automatically.

--
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com> writes:

> Hey, folks,
> 
> I thought all you had to do to create an alt.group was to have a news admin
> somewhere just make a group; send out a control message of somekind. I
> thought that alt groups didn't have to go through a charter, or voting
> process, or anything else. They just happened.
> 
> Then, everyone just has to tell their local news admin that they went to
> see it, or they can wait until their news admin sees it flying by, and adds
> it to the available groups list at his own discretion.
> 
> It's not like we want comp.cypherpunks or something, with a voting process,
> right?

The voting process is not that bad - it'll easily pass if a fraction of
people now subscribed to this mailing list votes yes.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps