Mike, it's great to be considerate of bandwidth, but it's not necessary to
be so concerned that you must tell people not to babble. Do you have any
idea how much babble there is on USENET? It's about a 10-to-1 ratio of
blather to thoughtful, interesting content (and that's a generous estimate
-- it's probably higher).
Relax. Blather is a very important component of human communication. New
ideas frequently come out of it. Telling people please not to blather unless
they're very sure everyone wants to hear what they have to say only throws a
wet blanket on people's enthusiasm -- since *no one* can be sure that everyone
wants to hear what they have to say.
Let's not be goody-goodies about this, please! If you want to work to cut
bandwidth usage by USENET, Mike, then do something constructive -- write a
better netnews program that allows coherent conversations to take place
without the need of quoting the posting one is responding to. That would
cut bandwidth by about 1/3 - a huge amount. Work toward an effective
goal, don't lay a "be good" trip on everybody. Yeesh... bandwidth, indeed.
I'm not in charge of alt.gathering.rainbow, nor igc, nor USENET bandwidth,
nor anything else -- but I'd like to encourage anybody with anything to
say, however innocuous (who's to be the judge of the value of your
posting? Mike?), to speak right up. There's plenty enough bandwidth on
USENET and its carriers for that! Conversation is what USENET is there
for. And conversation is 90% blather.
> On usenet when people ask a question they usaly say something like...
That just isn't so. There's no ONE WAY people usually do things on the
net. One of the things some people do is tell you there is one way people
usually do things on the net. But not everyone says that (or any other
one particular thing). USENET is free. It's anarchy. Speak your mind.
Yes, try to be polite, try not to repost the entire text of War and Peace
just to add, "I agree."
But really, there's no need to be *paranoid* about bandwidth if you have
something to say, even if it *is* blather!
Relax. Enjoy. Speak up. It's Cyberspace.
- John Hoag