On 03-03-97 GEORGE ERDNER wrote to PEDRO SENA... 
 
 GE> Frankly, this echo seems to suffer from what I've heard described as 
 GE> "Usenet Disease". That's where topics enough people want to talk about 
 GE> to make nothing more than a decent message thread get an entire 
 GE> conference. 
 
        Oh nonsense George. Has a moderator here ever called you 
        off-topic? Any official messages to that effect? All 
        you've found is normal resistance to topic drift. If you 
        want to talk about progrock, this is the place. If you 
        want to talk about the Beatles there's a great _BEATLES_ 
        echo, ditto for Pink Floyd. If you want general music 
        discussion there's _MUSIC_ or the very fine _CD_ECHO_. 
 
        What seems to be the problem? It seems you are 
        complaining that you can't talk about things thatt are 
        clearly off topic, or determine for yourself what the 
        echo topic is. Is that reasonable? 
 
 GE> On Fido, it seems that natural digressions of message 
 GE> threads into areas close to the main topic get cut off instead of 
 GE> wandering wherever they may. 
 
        That's absolutely correct. Fido is moderated. For most 
        people this is one of its attractions. 
 
 GE> I've lurked in here for a long time before speaking up. And I've 
 GE> noticed that there are a relatively few people actively participating. 
 
        Relative to other echos devoted to obscure and obsolete 
        musical genres? Probably not. Furthermore, it doesn't 
        particularly require a lot of participants to be 
        worthwhile (though that would be nice and welcome). What 
        is required for the echo to be viable is that the number 
        of messages not dry up (as little as 5 a day is a nice 
        minimum), that the echo stay focused and that people 
        enjoy it. So far so good. 
 
 GE> Those who 
 GE> own the echo seem to want to keep it extremely narrow and focused. 
 
        That is correct. This echo is for the discussion of 
        progrock. That's what it was set up for years ago and 
        that is what it has always been. I'm the acting moderator 
        and I don't have the authority to change this even if I 
        wanted to. But I might remind you that 
 
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        Official Moderator-type Communication: 
 
        what is on-topic 
        here (and consider this official) includes all of 
        progrock (thousands of bands and tens of thousands of 
        records listed in the GEPR plus many others), all jazz 
        and classical music (by tradition), a few "honourary 
        mentions" (Queen, Zep, the Beatles, Deep Purple), and 
        temporarily during my interregnum all psychedelic music. 
 
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        Now, if that to you is "extremely narrow" then maybe your 
        definition of "extremely narrow" is itself extremely 
        narrow. 
 
        As for "focused" I plead "guilty guilty guilty" and take 
        it as a compliment. Focused is precisely what a Fido echo 
        is supposed to be. 
 
        The band Focus is also on-topic. 
 
 GE> If they succeed (and I'm sure that they will) and the narrow 
 GE> defintion of what is and is not on topic is enforced, the 
 GE> number of new participants in here will diminsh to nothing, 
 GE> and with a limited amount of message traffic, the 
 GE> participants will eventually move over to Usenet, and this 
 GE> will become yet another dead Fido echo. 
 
        Well, maybe so maybe not. That's the risk we take, though 
        in general we gain more refugees from a.m.p./r.m.p than 
        the other way around. My general impression is that we 
        are a bit more tolerant and easygoing than our Usenet 
        counterparts, but folks might want to check that out for 
        themselves. They certainly welcome interminable tyhreads 
        on the meaning of progrock, whereas we tend to get bored 
        with that question here after a couple of weeks. 
 
        Hope this clears up a few things, though except for the 
        official ruling above on what is on-topic here this is 
        not a a message from the moderator but just from another 
        echo participant. 
 
                                Cheers, 
                                Kenneth 
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