On Tue, 23 May 2006 17:45:32 GMT, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

Back during _THE GREAT RENAMING_ that created the Big 8
in the first place one of the most contentious arguments
was where to put fishing. Back then I was one of those
who did not want to see fishing split off into outdoors.

rec.outdoors.fishing was created after the Great Renaming.

The main purpose of the Great Renaming was to separate the fluff from the
computer and science groups, so that distribution of groups could be better
controlled.

The fluff groups were categorized as:

rec.* Recreational.
soc.* Socializing (eg. soc.singles)
talk.* Pointless gibberish about politics and religion.
misc.* Everything else.

Groups for serious topics, such as the law (misc.legal) and parenting
(misc.kids) were stuck in misc.* because they were fluff from the
perspective of someone interested in discussing Unix, they weren't
recreational or socializing, and they were too few in number to identify an
organizational theme.

Before the Great Renaming, there were some sub-hierarchies in net.* that
were moved into rec.* such as net.music.*, net.sport.*, and net.games.*.

There was also a net.rec.* sub-hierarchy, but it had no real theme (it
included groups for the card game bridge, coin collecting, photography, and
skiing, scuba, and skydiving. There were also many net.* groups that were
moved into rec.*. Rather than trying to introduce a new second level
organization most groups were simply moved from net.* to rec.*, or
net.rec.* to rec.*. In many cases, single groups such as rec.audio or
rec.auto have spawned whole new hierarchies.

An exception was the rec.arts.* hierarchy which collected a number of
groups, but that was partly to separate them from the other groups in
rec.*.

rec.outdoors.fishing was first proposed as rec.fishing. This would have
fit the pattern of existing groups, but there was a desire to produce more
organizational structure in rec.* rec.sport.fishing was rejected, so the
only alternative was to create a new sub-hierarchy and place
rec.outdoor.fishing as the initial and only group. "outdoor" was not
intended to distinguish it from indoor fishing, but as providing a place
for groups that provide a way to enjoy the Great Outdoors.

At one time (when the only rec.outdoors.* group was rec.outdoors.fishing),
there was a proposal to rename rec.boats, rec.climbing, rec.scuba,
rec.skiing, rec.skydiving, and rec.windsurfing into rec.outdoors.* but this
apparently never went anywhere. The presence of rec.outdoors.* created by
rec.outdoors.fishing may have helped trigger creation of other groups.

Most groups are not formed from splitting of a busy main group, but are
created by someone who sees another group, and decides they want the same,
only different.

Who in the hell ever fishes *indoors* ? But our side lost,
fishing was put in outdoors and that was that. Until now
apparently. I don't see any reason to revisit a 20 year
old argument again. rec.outdoors.fishing.tournaments sounds
fine to me although I won't vote for it or against it and
I have absolutely no interest in ever reading it.

There are no votes any more.
--
Jim Riley