Theos-Talk Archives (July 1993 Message tl00004)

Finally getting caught up with my mail......

John Mead writes:
> I think if Paramax will support a Usenet News group, we
> should do this!

Usenet doesn't work that way. To create a new newsgroup would require
weeks of polling the Usenet community to see if there is sufficient
interest.
With the other related newsgroups already in place, I question whether
such
interest could be found. Does compuserve provide access to Usenet
newgroups?
Otherwise, I can gateway some of this traffic through our mailing list
and provide
a way to post articles from the mailing list to the Usenet community.

Remember, Usenet works through the cooperation of the each Usenet node to
forward that various articles from each newsgroup. There is no central
database
which holds and manages a particular newsgroup (though there are news
group
moderators which can restrict the flow of articles into a newsgroup).
Since any
new newsgroup could conceivable result in considerable network (or phone)
traffic
which each site would pay for, any attempt to create a new group would
require
the approval of many people.

Personally, I think we should wait and see if we have so much traffic to
justify
a new newsgroup. At this point, how many of us can even read the groups
that already
exist? Of course, a new group would be a way to announce to the world
that
Theosophy is here. I've been too busy to follow the Usenet groups to know
whether
that announcement has already been made.

-Mike Grenier
mgrenier@mhs.sp.paramax.com