On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:51:44 -0800, "QLW" wrote:

It's plainly obvious that this newsgroup has become almost useless as a
boating forum. Rec.cruising, rec.boats.building and alt.sailing are good
but there is also a need for a general boating forum where one does not have
to wade through all of the political crap and in-fighting posted here. I
can't figure out why people insist on doing this...but they do! So how is a
new news group formed? To bad we can't make this one moderated to limit the
content to boating related topics.

There is nothing that says you can't have a moderated group, but it's
difficult on Usenet - you have to have people who will cooperate, you
have to go through the alt.config process, build a group charter/FAQ -
it's a process. Then you have to have newsservers pick up the group,
etc.

However, speaking with the voice of experience, it's much better to
get a good newsreader like Agent or Xnews, build a good filter with
parameters you want and do it that way. Normally, you can filter out
95% of the nonsense. The reason for using personal filters on a good
newsreader is that all groups eventually devolve along either
personal, political or whatever lines - it's just the nature of the
beast.

Here's something for you to read about starting a newsgroup.

http://www.duke.edu/~mg/usenet/newnewsgroup.html

Good luck.

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
----------
"My rod and my reel - they comfort me."

St. Pete, 12 Lb. Test