Re: Hammond artist discussion

[gilles@netcom.com (Gilles Bacon)]

>I think this is a good idea, although at the outset I will read both groups.

Discussions have already started!

>Which brings up a question: how can we turn these discussion mailing 
>lists into bona fide "newsgroups"? I would suggest something along the 
>lines of
>
>rec.music.makers.hammond
>alt.music.hammond
>
>for the "infrastructure" and "content" newsgroups, respectively.

I don't want to have a Groove-B3 on an alt.* newsgroup, and will not go
through the trouble of strating a rec.music.* newsgroup again.

>There must be a way to set up newsgroups easily; I keep seeing new ones 
>pop up at the end of my newgroup list.

Try subscribing to news.groups to see how bitter some of the discussions
get.  There is no easy way to set up a newsgroup in the big seven hierarchy
(rec.* being one of them).  The proposal must be approved by the Moderator
to news.announce.newsgroups David Lawrence.  There is a mandatory 3 week
discussion period, as well as a mandatory 3 week voting period.  You must
factor in the time it takes for the moderator to respond to you (several
weeks sometimes, if he's not on vacation!), as well as all the network news
administrators and cooks who vote NO automatically on all newsgroup
creations (quite a few).

>It is my understanding that users without newsgroup access can still 
>subscribe to newsgroups via email, so this change would not lock them 
>out; but those of us with newsgroup capability would not have our mail 
>inboxes filled with hammond messages.

Try subscribing to Blues-L, with 60-100 msgs per day.  That's the reason why
I proposed rec.music.bluenote.blues which passed last August (250-50), after
3 1/2 months of frantic posting and many futile arguments.  Of course I had
the added "pleasure" of arguing petty objections from several r.m.bluenote
"purists" who wanted to maintain their newsgroup intact.  One of them was
David Lawrence himself, who abused his power as Moderator and refused to
post my proposal for over a month (the Usenet is supposed to be democratic!).

>Does anyone agree that a newsgroup is in order? Do we have enough 
>readership? How do we set one up?

I don't think there is enough traffic to warrant a newsgroup.  I read
several newsgroups which have 20-30 msgs per day, but anything under that I
find is much more beneficial as a mailing list, since you get more dedicated
readers.  The reason I don't want to transfer Groove-B3 over to an alt.*
newsgroup is that a lot of people crosspost erratically in that hierarchy,
which is also visited by a lot of cooks.  Not that they're cooks, but we'd
have all the alt.music.deep.purple and alt.music.alternative cross-posting
to the hammond music group.  No thanks!

I don't mind discussing those artists, but Groove-B3 is a mailing list
"joined at the hip" with ^Groove^, and readers are strongly encouraged to
read it before they post.  The main goal is to build the (in)Complete
Hammond Discography started here by Brad (and I'll continue to post it here
if asked to) and gather as much information on Hammond artists and their
music as we can.  I think putting that on a newsgroup would be detrimental
and cause a lot of unnecessary traffic.

Regardless of what I think, anyone is welcome to create a Hammond music
discussion newsgroup on the rec.music.* hierarchy (I'll e-mail you the FAQ
and wish you good luck) or the alt.* (this can be done instantly, NO VOTING,
all you need is the FAQ to tell you how, which I will also e-mail to anyone
who wants it).

However, Groove-B3 will remain intact, as its purpose is best served by its
current format.  What happens to this Hammond list is up to you good people.

I'll have to charge you $1 for this one!  Please send to gilles@netcom.com!

Gilles

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