To BIONEWS/bionet.general in response to some private mail on this
subject:
The author of the message that was complaining about the proliferation
of USENET newsgroups simply broadcast his message to the "general"
bulletin board for all the various USENET branches. There was nothing
in the message which made me believe that he was referring to the
bionet groups in particular. USENET is growing rapidly and new groups
are added alomst daily (but not in the "bionet" domain).
For those who might be alarmed by the "bad press" that this might give
to USENET, I just want to point out that every site has complete
control over which USENET groups they choose to receive on their
machines. This is a task for their systems management. Contrary to
the impression given by the author, there is a lot of useful
information on USENET.
Secondly, contrary to that message, there are definite procedures on
USENET for establishing newsgroups which involve voting by the
potential users. Newsgroups are not set up capriciously, but only in
response to perceived demand.
Enough said on this flame; I have more important items to deal with.
Sincerely,
Dave Kristofferson
GenBank On-line Service Manager
kristoff at genbank.bio.net
