Description
This article is from the rec.arts.tv.soaps FAQ, by Margaret D. Gibbs gibbsm@ll.mit.edu with numerous contributions by
others.
18. Why doesn't each show have its own newsgroup? (rec.arts.tv.soaps)
First, a little history about rec.arts.tv.soaps.*:
Way back when, a group called rec.tv encapsulated all tv articles,
including soaps. A flame war led to a separation of groups. The soap
people got their own group around 1984 and it was called rec.tv.soaps.
Around 1986 or so, the "arts" began cropping up in newsgroup titles
so we had rec.arts.tv.soaps. This group continued until...
On December 5, 1994, the rec.arts.tv.soaps newsgroup (which covered all
discussion of all the soaps) was officially split into three subgroups.
The split proponent's goal at the time was to have one newsgroup for each
of the three major US networks and an "all encompassing" miscellaneous
newsgroup for discussion of soaps that didn't fall into one of the other
three categories. But, when all was said and done and the votes were
counted, the rec.arts.tv.soaps.nbc group did not pass the critical 2/3
"yes" vote threshold. So, we now have:
rec.arts.tv.soaps.abc - for discussion of soaps produced by or for the
ABC television network (AMC, OLTL, PC, and GH)
rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs - for discussion of soaps produced by or for the
CBS television network (B&B, ATWT, Y&R, and GL)
rec.arts.tv.soaps.misc - for discussion of interest to soap opera viewers
not covered by the r.a.t.s.abc and r.a.t.s.cbs
newsgroups (for example: DOOL, AW, SIS,
KL, MP, & 90210)
For more information on the creation of new Usenet newsgroups, please
refer to the posts "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "Usenet
Newsgroup Creation Companion" on news.groups, news.announce.newusers,
news.admin.misc, news.announce.newgroups or news.answers for a detailed
discussion of the newsgroup creation process. If the articles listed
above do not appear in the above newsgroups at your site, you can get
copies of them using email. Simply send an email message to
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu containing any or all of:
send usenet/news.answers/usenet/creating-newsgroups/part1
send usenet/news.answers/usenet/creating-newsgroups/helper
Some readers of the rec.arts.tv.soaps.* hierarchy will no doubt continue to
bemoan the fact that their show or network does not have its own group and
will continue to ask the question: "But what about all those mindless alt
groups that show up every day...why don't we just create an alt group for
each show?" Lots of sites don't carry the alt groups. In an effort to
make sure that everyone who currently has access to the rec.arts.tv.soaps.*
hierarchy continues to have access to their favorite newsgroup(s), the new
groups ought to be kept in the rec.arts.tv.soaps.* hierarchy. There
have recently been a couple of alt groups set up for DOOL and AW fans
(alt.tv.days-of-our-lives and alt.tv.another-world), but even these
are not always propogated well.
Please, don't just say, "hey, let's split this group" and expect it to
magically happen. Things simply don't work that way. If you think you
might be up to the task of supervising another newsgroup split, it is
recommended that you read news.groups for six months before proposing
a new group.
One last thing, check out the part of rec.arts.tv.soaps FAQ which explains
the use of kill files and other methods of weeding out articles you are not
interested in. We realize everyone doesn't have access to a kill file but
there's nothing we can do about that. If you are such a person, you might
consider speaking with your system administrator about upgrading your news
reading software or, if that doesn't work, seek out a service provider
who's willing to provide you with software that better suits your needs.
[Thanks to Joanna Castillo (joanna@mail.utexas.edu) and
Cindy Camp (snoopy@spacemanspiff.den.mmc.com)]
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