Here is the word from RCN on ARBR as found on page 25 of the latest issue,
Nov/Dec 2004:
"This was once the most popular recumbent newsgroup, but it turned into a
soap box for personal opinion and politics for a select few. On any given
topic, about 10% of the posts contain good information."
Mr. Robert Bryant, the publisher and editor of RCN (Recumbent Cyclist News),
has only got it partially right. A thread that is off topic will normally
not even have 10% good information, at least not on the subject of
recumbents. On the other hand, a thread that is on topic will have about the
usual amount of good information that is to be found on any newsgroup or web
site. Fully 95% of the threads will be on topic almost all of the time. Mr.
Bryant is confusing the number of posts on a newsgroup with the number of
subject threads on a newsgroup. They are not the same thing. If some of us
like to post more to off topic than to on topic, how does that effect the on
topic threads? Not at all I would claim. When I go to a newsgroup, I do not
look at the number of posts, I look for the threads that I might be
interested in and then and only then do I look at the posts.
Even Mr. Bryant gets off topic every now and then in his magazine. But even
so, it is the best publication around on the subject of recumbents and
anyone here who is not subscribing to it is seriously remiss. What you find
on the Internet on all those web sites having to do with recumbents is a
mish-mash of information, much of it wrong and much of it stupid. What you
find in RCN is recumbent information which has been sifted through an
intelligent mind and therefore has some sense to it.
There is one last point to be made here as far as I am concerned. I have
noted that many of those who formerly posted here would post some good
recumbent information, but they also were including lots of political
remarks along with it. I had to decide whether I wanted to put up with their
political remarks for the sake of their recumbent information. I decided no.
I have never regretted that decision. This newsgroup is no longer lop sided
with liberal political comments like it was in the bad old days when it "
.... was once the most popular recumbent newsgroup."
--
Regards,
Ed Dolan - Minnesota