Evils of crossposting to rec.avionation NGs

Please understand, I'm NOT trying to begin/continue any kind of arguement.
This is a serious attempt to gain understanding.

What a great post! I, too, have wondered why so many people actually
care -- or even *notice* -- when something has been "cross-posted" to
several newsgroups. Why this practice is a "problem," or even worth
commenting on, has been an eternal source of chagrin and wonder for me.

Some pilots hang out in ".piloting." Others prefer ".owning." Folks
building airplanes tend to hang out in ".homebuilt." If you want to make
an announcement to ALL of them -- or if you wish to query ALL of them, why
wouldn't you cross-post your message?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"
"VideoGuy" gkasten at brick dot net wrote in message
...



As I've only been lurking around aviation newsgroups for a little more
than
a year, I'll readily admit a lack of understanding of the finer points of
R.A.O "netiquette". It seems there are some members of this group who are
1.) Adamantly opposed to Jay Honeck and anything he does; 2.) Unequivocal
supporters of Jay, and 3.) Occasionally some appear to be both.



I mention this first part only because it is the kernel of my question.
Quite a few of the posts complaining about Jay also refer to the "vile"
practice of crossposting. I understand what crossposting is- I don't
understand how it causes such ire.



First, allow me to be forthright and admit that recently I utilized
crossposting when asking for help to identify a photo of an airport. I
felt
that by posting to four aviation newsgroups at once I'd reach a larger
audience. I didn't see how this caused any harm. What would be the
difference if I listed four groups in the header, or I posted the same
request in four different groups? Is a poster limited to only one NG?



In fact, I considered crossposting preferable. Why? Because my
newsreader,
(MS IE 6.0) will mark a cossposted article as read, in all groups, once I
read it in one. Thus, SAVING, not (as several have decried) wasting time.
In an attempt at humor, I even apologized for the crosspost, and offered
to
come to the homes of those offended by the practice and personally delete
the offending posts. Apparently, my attempt at humor fell somewhat flat.



I've searched the rec.aviation FAQS and couldn't find anything pertinent
to
the evils of crossposting. Am I missing something important here, or is
this just a lot of smoke by people who just don't like Jay?



Thanks,



Gary (promising to crosspost ONLY when necessary) Kasten

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 22:31:04 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

Some pilots hang out in ".piloting." Others prefer ".owning." Folks
building airplanes tend to hang out in ".homebuilt." If you want to make
an announcement to ALL of them -- or if you wish to query ALL of them, why
wouldn't you cross-post your message?

The dislike of cross-posting may be mostly a holdover from the old days...
the early news-reading programs even gave you a warning if you listed more
than one newsgroup as a destination. The early programs didn't "weed out"
the messages from subsequent newsgroups...heck, I still see them all when I
use Forte Agent. I've probably got a setting wrong, but it doesn't bother
me to the extent that I'll spend time chasing it down.

Crossposting probably got its bad rep back in the days when there weren't a
wide expanse of sub-groups... it was obviously bad form to post the same
message to net.aviation and net.autos. Yet even then, there were those who
were able to rationalize it.

Back when the sub-groups popped up, the general philosophy seemed be that
every group hierarchy would include a "*.misc" newsgroup that would be used
for items of general interest. Nominally, then, a general question should
be posted only to rec.aviation.misc. But there's nothing that forces
people to subscribe to that group, hence a "to everyone" posting done in
r.a.misc doesn't get the widest readership.

Being one who grew up feeding the line eater, I crosspost extremely rarely.
When I reply, I almost always reply only in the newsgroup in which I first
saw the message. So if you *do* crosspost to multiple groups, do readers
the courtesy of at least posting only to groups that you subscribe to.
Otherwise, you might be missing answers to your question.

Ron Wanttaja