Your comments re: my proposal for alt.winhelp and alt.winhelp.win95

[Patrick O'Connell <titanide -at- MICRO -dot- ORG>]

Hi Daniel,

I never intended to duplicate newsgroup function, or get
comp.os.ms-windows.winhelp deleted. I have indeed read that fellow David's
"So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup," and I'm quite conscious of
netiquette generally. I'm not some clueless Usenet newbie, thank you.

I intend to create the alt.winhelp (or WHATEVER) newsgroup family (of
which BTW the winhelp one or ones would only be a subset), assuming more
in favor than opposed after posting on alt.config and in other significant
fora.

Then I'll try to nudge the comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.winhelp posters
over to the new group(s), and post regularly on c.o.m.p.winhelp saying
where all the traffic has gone if I'm successful. Also broadcast regular
messages on all help- and online doc-authoring mailing lists.
c.o.m.p.winhelp is just not that high-traffic a group -- it never has been
-- so I don't see big problems moving the traffic over.

Moreover, non-WinHelp authors regularly mistake c.o.m.p.winhelp for a
"help for Windows configuration problems" newsgroup and the new family
name I'm thinking of (alt.online-auth.*) would, I think, eliminate that
problem.

I disagree strongly that longer and longer newsgroup names are "the
future of the Net," and somehow inevitable. Trying to keep the names of
new newsgroups to a reasonable length is being considerate of people who,
like me, most often read news using an 80x25 (or sometimes smaller)
character-based terminal emulator, or even a terminal.



Peace,
PatO'
titanide -at- micro -dot- org