Re: periodicity (splitting

[Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <3cd9b572a0b9f2d8b2459674bacef4b6.48257@mygate.mailgate.org>, "Kent Paul Dolan" <xanthian@well.com> writes:
> "Robert Dewar" <dewar@gnat.com> wrote:
> 
>> "Kent Paul Dolan" <xanthian@well.com> wrote:
> 
>>> Well, perhaps the criteria have changed; with around a hundred new
>>> messages since I logged in yesterday, I'd guess a six or ten way split
>>> would be in order.
> 
>> I think this would be a bad idea. A hundred new messages
>> a day is perfectly manageable if you have a decent news
>> reader that tracks threads. Mostly the subjects of threads
>> are clear enough, I find I only look at about one third
>> of all the threads. A thread like "future of Ada" has lots
>> of posts, but if you are not interested in advocacy posts
>> (I am not), you just skip the whole thread. THat's near
>> enough equivalent to having a separate advocacy subgroup.
> 
> Ah, yes, the old "I've got great technology, so the devil take the
> hindmost" argument.
> 
> Of course, if one were trying to evangelize some issue near and dear to
> one, say, the wide dissemination of a programming language, to someplace
> where the technology isn't the most modern, say, the third world, then a
> willingness to believe that the world is not restricted to just what you
> see on your desktop might be a wiser  approach.

While Robert may be guilty of hawking his favorite brand of newsreader
(without naming it) in that post, such is actually not necessary for
his side of the argument.

I use ANUNEWS, which has virtually none of the spiffy features
people praise from other newsreaders.  But threading is basic.
I have no trouble skipping everything that has been delivered to
date on a given topic, or killfiling the topic for the future.
I have much more faith in this old newsreader than in relying
on posters to put their material into the right group, avoid
cross-posting, etc.