Re: Is aus.rail bad?

["Dave Proctor" <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au>]

"Barry Campbell" <campblbm@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
Ofq15.15243$N4.558079@ozemail.com.au">news:Ofq15.15243$N4.558079@ozemail.com.au...

> aus.rail is, by comparison, a pretty good group.

Agree with that 100%

> The recent cross posting
> fiasco was one of those things you have to put up with from time to time.

It was mainly the MOUL and Dead_Elvis. There have been a few people from
alt.ozdebate (where myself, Eric Cartman and Anita frequent) who have posted
in here to ask rail related questions. The MOUL (et al) have seized upon
this and have started cross-posts.

The MOUL show up about every six months and do nothing more than crosspost
inappropriately.

> Otherwise the posters are generally on topic and reasonably polite. I
have,
> at times, lurked at aus.legal where at least one other aus.railer is a
> regular

I resemble that remark.

> and where one would expect this to be a reasonably civilised group.

It is - you should pop into aus.politics or aus.net.access for examples of
uncivilised groups. Although aus.net.news has quietened down a lot since the
aus.culture.true-blue group was passed.

> This is not the case. Even worse is aus.tv and god knows what some of the
> others are like.

Ha - as I just mentioned, try aus.politics or even (venturing into other
hierarchies) alt.activism.death-penalty or talk.politics.guns - then you
will know what troubleseome newsgroups are like.

> I routinely ignore threads about Metcard, V sets and steam but I other
> people are interested in those things so  why not. I support a formal FAQ
> and I don't think the group ahs been going downhill.

I support a formal FAQ as well, purely from the viewpoint that a newcomer
will download all headers and then see a post with "FAQ" in the subject
field. It *might* serve to reduce some of the questions, although we would
still welcome the person as a contributor of course.

As for all of the other annoying threads, I just ignore the whole thread -
it is much easier.

Dave