"John Fereira" wrote in message
.. .
bb wrote in
:

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 23:09:08 GMT, John Fereira
wrote:

Sure, it's simple to delete posts that you're not going to read buy why
should we?

You don't need to bother deleting them, just have the willpower not
to read them.

When did I claim that I've been reading them? For about a week on a
typical
day I would open up my newsreader, select r.b.p. (one of about a dozen
groups that I subscribe to) and will see that 50-100 new messages have
been
posted. From the subject lines I can see a handful of what appear to be
paddling related articles so I pick them out and read them. I also see a
bunch of threads that are clearly off topic, some with subject lines that
are essentially calling one of the participants names. As is the case
with
most newsreaders, if I don't want to see the same articles the next time I
read the group I have to mark the articles as read (even if I don't read
them). So even though I'm not actually reading every article posted to
the
group I have to take action to indicate that I don't want to see them.
Furthermore, when 80-90% of the articles posted are off topic, it become
more difficult to find articles that *are* paddling related.

This is a newsgroup about paddling. There are many other
newsgroups in which political discussion, and even flaming is on topic.
Those that want to read that kind of article can go to those groups.

That all sounds just dandy, but it doesn't work in reality. I tried
going from the boating news group to the political group to talk
politics, and a boating topic broke out. I left my football group and
went the flame group to do some flaming and a football discussion
broke out. Even the dang political and flaming groups stray off
topic. Personally, I think it's all Bush's fault.

I don't expect that every newsgroup is going to remain 100% on topic, but
when 80-90% of the group consist of off topic posts, to the point where
some
of the participants in those threads are essentially just calling each
other
names and creating new thread solely for that purpose it's getting a bit
out
of hand.


That's
the whole point of creating topically based groups.

Stop blaming others for your own lack of willpower. It fairly easy to
skip posts that aren't relevant.

Again, I'm not reading the off topic posts. I still have to read the
subject line for the thread to know if they're off topic and then mark
them
as read. It's much easier to skip posts that are not relevant if they're
posted in a group that I haven't subscribed to.

I've been reading this
group for about 7 years and this is the worse case of off-topic article
posting I've ever seen. I've been participating on usenet for 20 years
and the number of off-topic article to on topic articles is just about
the highest ratio I've seen as well.

Get used to it because it's not going to go away. Society changes,
even use net society.

Those that continue to post the off topic articles are just flat out
rude.

Off topic is now the norm. You may consider it rude, but it is now
the norm.

At least in this newsgroup, off topic is not the norm, which is one of the
reasons that I have continued to read it for 7 years.


Hi John: this is a post i wrote but did not send (RWBNS) in response to an
earlier one in this thread from you, but it seems to fit in here, in support
of what you are saying.


"John Fereira" wrote in message
Those that continue to post the off
topic
articles are just flat out rude.


Rudeness is hard to define, and according to some, thats a useless exercise.
Although there are not FORMAL usenet rules, the thing I always liked about
rbp in the past, the most recent calm period nonwithstanding, is the
informal set of rules that had evolved and the cameraderie that evolved. And
in that vein, I would define 'rude' as being contrary to that spirit.

RBP is not a real-world space, and most folks here have not met IRL, but
nontheless the longtimers had some intense shared experiences. The death of
Scott, the invasion of Burntballs, the invasion of Sponsonboy.... and
throughout it all we still posted friendly posts about river running,
adventuring and a lot of folks managed to get together in the real world at
times and share a paddle and/or a beer. We maintained our identity, folks
had differing roles here and contributed accordingly, and visitors who
dropped in either found it homey and welcoming and stayed, or found it too
small-towny, too inbred, and left.

In a lot of ways, rbp has been like a little-known special river, one that
the locals know about, took care of, and although there is no organized
effort to keep it secret, we all appreciated that it hadn't been discovered
by the world at large. Sure, a lot of rbp-ers went over to Boatertalk and
some other forums, but it wasn't the same, I hear. I seriously doubt if the
denizens of those groups ever made 'BoaterTalk' t-shirts or stickers
like we did here. There was something up close and family about this place,
and the inside joke of the 'clique' was just one way of recognizing those
who were part of the family and got the joke. A family, I might add, that
was completely open to anyone who wanted to join, as long as they wanted to
JOIN and not CONQUER, recognized the aura of the place and contributed to
it rather than tried to redefine it.

However, recently it seems like we've been discovered by some folks who
would rather conquer, to redefine according to their own wants, and the
effect is not unlike watching a big commercial river running outfit set up
shop on that favorite little-known river. They have their lawyers, running
legal defense and offense, cutting off protestations and insisting on equal
access. They have their belligerant outfitters, used to being able to get
their own way and well-able to bulldoze the put-in beach and pour a cement
slab, changing the aura of the place forever to their own liking. And they
have their dozens of innocent clients, helping to destroy that same private
little river by their tacit participation with the outfitter, with no idea
of what had been before. They have
their experts at all aspects except the most important one; the ability to
sit on the sidelines, watch the interactions, and get a feel for the aura
before joining in to contribute. Oh, they're not doing anything wrong in the
legal sense, but it sure feels wrong watching it all go away.

Somehow, I don't think rbp will really recover from this last invasion.
There are
some players out there with a whole new set of rules...rules that are legal
and legitimate, just rude and insensitive to what rbp was when it was a
nicer place, and they aren't going to go away, and they don't care. By the
time the dust settles, there will be dozens of new
posters with legitimate definitions as 'locals', and the changes will be
here to stay. Thats how it goes, and we all know that it doesn't always get
better.

I don't think I'll be posting too many 'back in the day' trip reports, as
the handful of people that I had a personal connection to seem to be lost in
the mob these days. Hopefully it will change, but I don't see it coming.
Its just become too rude.

--riverman