On Jun 24, 6:37 am, Sevenhundred Elves
wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:37:21 -0700 (PDT), "

wrote:
Howdy,

There has been a lot of Interest in biofuels spread out over many
different groups lately. As a subscriber to this group, I hope you'll
assist me in creating a proper set of forums for these topics.

sci.energy.biofuel.* is a new hierarchy that is being discussed in
news.groups.proposals.

Please support this initiative by posting a few positive words to the
current thread.

Thanks in advance!

I'm against it. I'm not dead set against it like I'll vigorously
oppose it, but I do think sci.energy is large enough to contain
discussions of biofuel, and I have a hunch that most posters to
sci.energy find biofuels interesting at the moment and like to discuss
them right here. But if there was a separate newsgroup for biofuels
only, I'm not sure I'd find it interesting enough to seek it out. Too
narrow, you see. If you had proposed something at least a little
broader, like "sci.energy.fuel" I would have been more positive.
Comparisons of fossil fuels and biofuel are interesting, but a name
like "sci.energy.biofuel" might not attract those who would take a
stand against biofuel, thus discussions would be one-sided.

Fuel is still very much on topic for sci.energy.

S.

The hierarchy included groups for engineering chemistry, advocacy, and
agriculture. The charters were intended to provide a location for
collaboration for these disciplines as they relate to biofuels, not a
place to discuss fuel in general. So discussing an engine, or
titration, or soil chemistry would be on topic, but the good/bad of
biofuels would have definitely been off topic.

But it is a moot point. The big-8 board has quashed the initiative.