Re: change your password day

On Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:16:37 -0700, Roedy Green <see_website@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Why is there a topic rule? To make it easier to find things.

That is not the sole reason. You may have nothing else to do but some people, believe it or not, have a limited amount of time on their hands, and wasting a bunch of time junking a bunch of threads (never mind feeling compelled to be distracted by meta-issues asking that people stop wasting their time forcing them to junk a bunch a threads) isn't what they want to spend their time doing. And in spite of the widespread availability of broadband, there are still users for whom it's a hardship to download headers or messages for a bunch of off-topic posts.

That you would overlook this I find very ironic, given your previous assertion that simply fixing the Java implementation of StringBuilder so that it works like .NET's would have some significant impact on energy consumption around the world. All of your off-topics posts have WAY more effect globally than fixing StringBuilder would. Moving data between computers is much more expensive than copying it from one memory location to another.

It is
not there because certain topics are verboten. When there are no new
threads for days at a time, the off-topic rules SHOULD be relaxed to
stimulate discussion.

There is no need to "stimulate discussion".

When traffic falls below a certain volume, a newsgroup dies entirely.

False. A newsgroup "dies entirely" when there are no longer enough people interested in the topic.

The Java and .NET APIs have largely supplanted the need for people to use the Winsock API. But, the alt.winsock.programming newsgroup still exists, and people continue to monitor it. When a question is posted, often it is still answered within the day. The newsgroup is far from dead. And yet, weeks can go by without a single message being posted to that newsgroup.

The Java newsgroup is in no danger whatsoever of withering.

Our newsgroup is in far more danger from low traffic and bullies
frightening others off than it is from topic drift and slightly off
topic posts.

That's not the point. Your job isn't to save the Java newsgroup, and even if it was, polluting the newsgroup with off-topic posts doesn't accomplish that goal. If anything, when you screw up the signal-to-noise ratio that way, you cause harm, reducing the effectiveness of the newsgroup and increasing the changes that people will abandon it.

Did you ever see the movie Dr. Strangelove? In it a US soldier refuses
to shoot a Coke machine to get a dime to phone in the recall codes for
nuclear bombers.

If and when you can prevent an incipient nuclear attack by posting an off-topic message to this newsgroup, please...by all means, post your off-topic message.

Until then, that analogy is completely irrelevant.

Spam is far more of a problem that off topic posts, yet there is
almost no discussion about how we could eliminate it.

There's "almost no discussion", because we all understand that it's out of our control. Most of the spam comes from Google, Google itself has no interest in blocking it, and the independent news providers aren't going to get together and stand up to Google to insist that they clean up their act.

But a regular newsgroup member who ought to know better? Hope springs eternal that such a person would eventually realize the error of their ways and be swayed by the logic of sticking to the newsgroup charter.

Pete
.

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