"Moby Dick" wrote in
ups.com:

On Feb 12, 8:36 pm, "Moby Dick" wrote:
On Feb 12, 8:12 pm, "riverman" wrote:



On Feb 13, 2:40 am, Bill Tuthill wrote:

John Fereira wrote:

Thanks Mike. If the group is for more than kayakers (and that's
fine), then use all the dang keywords: "kayaking", "canoing",
"paddling". That way people searching for any of the above
stumble upon the group.

This group isn't a Google group or Yahoo group in the same sense
that you may be familiar with. It's a usenet newsgroup and
doesn't have any associated keywords. Usenet was around long
before Google or Yahoe or any other web site (I've been
participating on Usenet since 1985). This group has been around
for well over a decade (that's how long I've been participating
and there are several here that were around long before I). I
don't want to discourage you from particpating but it's not wise
to jump into a group that's been around for a long time and
dictate to those that have been partipating in it for many years
how to use the group.

How does one add keywords to a Usenet group? It must be possible,
because I see (some) group descriptions in my newsreader.

I'm not sure what 'adding keywords to a Usenet group' even means.
There are some places in different websites and newsreaders where
there is a description of the newsgroup, but those are external
things, like wrapping paper. The group itself doesn't have a
structure that would have keywords, etc. Your newsreader is
google.groups, so you are seeing the web interface that Google puts
on Usenet. THEY provide a description of the group, but if someone
is accessing through some other medium or even another website, they
won't see the same descriptions.

Try putting 'rec.boats.paddle' into google. You'll get hit after
hit, all describing the newsgroup, but none of them will be the
actual newsgroup itself; you need a newsreader to access the group.
Each of these different newsreaders will have their own description
of what the group is, does, discusses, etc. Each of them will enable
you to post messages, but none of them are THE place where the
messages are posted.

HTH

BTW: Moby--don't stop posting on this thread. This is an excellent
way to learn some Usenet etiquette and meet the various folks who
hang out here. This is a good forum to ask all sorts of silly
questions, like "What does 'HTH' and 'BTW' mean?"

--riverman

So far the usenet etiquette strikes me as bizarre. However, I'll
continue posting. I've been posting to rec.woodworking (through the
Google font end) for years (although not as far back as "1985.") I
also moderate a Yahoo! group called signal and image proccessing. So I
know a lot of the acronyms like BTW. I'll DAGS HTH to see what that
means......

First of all, congrats on the new job offer.

Seems to me that if you've been posting in rec.woodworking that the may be a
cedar strip built kayak in your future. Here's the model that I built
(http://www.outer-island.com/) . You might want to check out the definitive
kayak building site at: http://www.kayakforum.com/

Ahh. HTH = Hope this helps.
BYW, DAGS = Do a Google Search.
IMHO, the Google interface is quite nice. You can rate posters and see
ratings of post so you don't waste you time with spam-like postings.
You can see the reply tree, too.

Most good news readers will do that as well. The one I have has a scoring
feature that allows you to filter out or hightling posters (or subjects) and
will thread responses as well.

Plus, you don't have to load any
special readers and junk.

My take on that is that the alternative is trying to use one application
that tries to do web browsing, usenet reading/posting, email, etc, which
tends to bring in a lot of overhead that I don't need at the time. But I'm
a programmer analyst/systems architect so I'm a bit more sensative to that
sort of thing.

But of course, there's the tempation to top-
post.

As you can see from my response, I neither top posted nor bottom posted but
posted all my content inline. I prefer that approach as it puts the new
content I am adding in context.

Yes, usenet etiquette is a bit bizarre, and it is somewhat antiquated, but
it still works and in many ways I prefer it to web based forums and email
lists. I don't see nearly as much spam on usenet anymore as I used to and
it's far less than what I see in the dozens of mailing lists I'm on.

Good luck in your quest for a new kayak. If you have any questions about a
specific model you encounter, let us know.

On Feb 13, 5:07 am, John Fereira wrote:
"Moby Dick" wrote roups.com:



On Feb 12, 8:36 pm, "Moby Dick" wrote:
On Feb 12, 8:12 pm, "riverman" wrote:

On Feb 13, 2:40 am, Bill Tuthill wrote:

John Fereira wrote:

Thanks Mike. If the group is for more than kayakers (and that's
fine), then use all the dang keywords: "kayaking", "canoing",
"paddling". That way people searching for any of the above
stumble upon the group.

This group isn't a Google group or Yahoo group in the same sense
that you may be familiar with. It's a usenet newsgroup and
doesn't have any associated keywords. Usenet was around long
before Google or Yahoe or any other web site (I've been
participating on Usenet since 1985). This group has been around
for well over a decade (that's how long I've been participating
and there are several here that were around long before I). I
don't want to discourage you from particpating but it's not wise
to jump into a group that's been around for a long time and
dictate to those that have been partipating in it for many years
how to use the group.

How does one add keywords to a Usenet group? It must be possible,
because I see (some) group descriptions in my newsreader.

I'm not sure what 'adding keywords to a Usenet group' even means.
There are some places in different websites and newsreaders where
there is a description of the newsgroup, but those are external
things, like wrapping paper. The group itself doesn't have a
structure that would have keywords, etc. Your newsreader is
google.groups, so you are seeing the web interface that Google puts
on Usenet. THEY provide a description of the group, but if someone
is accessing through some other medium or even another website, they
won't see the same descriptions.

Try putting 'rec.boats.paddle' into google. You'll get hit after
hit, all describing the newsgroup, but none of them will be the
actual newsgroup itself; you need a newsreader to access the group.
Each of these different newsreaders will have their own description
of what the group is, does, discusses, etc. Each of them will enable
you to post messages, but none of them are THE place where the
messages are posted.

HTH

BTW: Moby--don't stop posting on this thread. This is an excellent
way to learn some Usenet etiquette and meet the various folks who
hang out here. This is a good forum to ask all sorts of silly
questions, like "What does 'HTH' and 'BTW' mean?"

--riverman

So far the usenet etiquette strikes me as bizarre. However, I'll
continue posting. I've been posting to rec.woodworking (through the
Google font end) for years (although not as far back as "1985.") I
also moderate a Yahoo! group called signal and image proccessing. So I
know a lot of the acronyms like BTW. I'll DAGS HTH to see what that
means......

First of all, congrats on the new job offer.

Seems to me that if you've been posting in rec.woodworking that the may be a
cedar strip built kayak in your future. Here's the model that I built
(http://www.outer-island.com/) . You might want to check out the definitive
kayak building site at:http://www.kayakforum.com/



Ahh. HTH = Hope this helps.
BYW, DAGS = Do a Google Search.
IMHO, the Google interface is quite nice. You can rate posters and see
ratings of post so you don't waste you time with spam-like postings.
You can see the reply tree, too.

Most good news readers will do that as well. The one I have has a scoring
feature that allows you to filter out or hightling posters (or subjects) and
will thread responses as well.

Plus, you don't have to load any
special readers and junk.

My take on that is that the alternative is trying to use one application
that tries to do web browsing, usenet reading/posting, email, etc, which
tends to bring in a lot of overhead that I don't need at the time. But I'm
a programmer analyst/systems architect so I'm a bit more sensative to that
sort of thing.

But of course, there's the tempation to top-
post.

As you can see from my response, I neither top posted nor bottom posted but
posted all my content inline. I prefer that approach as it puts the new
content I am adding in context.

Yes, usenet etiquette is a bit bizarre, and it is somewhat antiquated, but
it still works and in many ways I prefer it to web based forums and email
lists. I don't see nearly as much spam on usenet anymore as I used to and
it's far less than what I see in the dozens of mailing lists I'm on.

Good luck in your quest for a new kayak. If you have any questions about a
specific model you encounter, let us know.


Wow, I'm impressed with the beauty of the cedar strip kayaks! A friend
of a friend of mine build sea kayaks. I visited his shop two years
ago. IIRC, he had a light wooden cover which he then covered with a
fabric and then soaked it with some sort of epoxy. The epoxy basically
made the fabric transparent making the beautiful wood show through. I
thought then that I'd love to do that. However, the resulting boats
seemed more of an artwork than a functioning boat. I'd be afraid from
scratching or bashing it on rocks.....

Thanks for the link to kayak forum. I've bookmarked it.

Cheers