Pynchon News?

[Andrew Dinn]

This is a public reply to two private emails regarding the idea of a
`pynchon-l news group'.

Someone posted to me the suggestion that we try creating a pucker news
group, say alt.books.pynchon. This is quite straightforward to
implement - it would merely require posting a proposal and registering
100 votes in favour (and less against, obviously). I'm sure with help
from list members and rec.arts.books we could get such a group
started.

However, I'm not so sure I would like to go the way of a News group
rather than a list. Clearly, there are too many notes posted to the
list these days for most people to cope with and news readers provide
better technology for handling threads than mail readers. So, having a
news group would be an advantage.

But I quite like the subscriber system provided by list servers. It
means people have to work that much harder to join in so they have to
want to talk about Pynchon. Also it avoids most of the cross-posting
hell that New groups (particularly alt groups) get subjected to. Also,
you get pretty well every note - no gaps because a server down the
line doesn't talk to you for a week and meantime expires all the
pynchon stuff. Contrariwise, you feel more inclined to hold on to list
server notes because you know once you delete them you may not be able
to retrieve them whereas News notes might still be hanging around
unexpired on the server. Most important of all, anybody with email
can subscribe to a list server. Not everyone has News access,
particularly to alt groups.

Any other opinions?


Andrew Dimm
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Daran, nachdem die Wasserwogen / Von unsrer Suendflut sich verzogen
Der allerschoenste Regenbogen / Als Gottes Gnadenzeichen steht!