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Xref: sserve gnu.misc.discuss:6142 comp.org.eff.talk:8950 comp.unix.bsd:4613 comp.os.mach:2075 news.groups:49729 Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!darwin.sura.net!haven.umd.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!stl!robobar!ibmpcug!mantis!mathew From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.mach,news.groups Subject: Re: AT&T Long Distance Boycott (was: BNR2SS, Mach, and The Lawsuit) Message-ID: <aH6iqB23w165w@mantis.co.uk> Date: 3 Sep 92 14:44:45 GMT References: <1992Sep2.171951.22044@gateway.novell.com> Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK. Lines: 36 terry@thisbe.Eng.Sandy.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert) writes: > I think we are all aware of the failings of usenet as a political > organizational tool, or as an organizational tool in general. People will > read only the topic categories in which they are interested in, and it is > this categorization (and the [mostly academic] pressure to keep it) that > prevents it from being used this way. To be more precise, people who are in a position to help rarely read the obvious newsgroups where one might post a plea. I've found that the most effective way to organize or find something via Usenet is to stick an advert in your .signature and carry on posting to a wide range of newsgroups about unrelated matters. For example, cross-posting to the rec.music groups in search of John Foxx fans had only limited success. But sticking a message in my .signature saying "If you're a fan of John Foxx, please send me mail" got me about one response a day. A list of people was put together, letters sent to some record companies, and now the first three Ultravox! albums are out on CD. Posting to rec.music saying "I'm looking for the U2 Negativland CD" didn't even get me a single reply. But a .signature advert worked, I got about ten helpful pointers, and a reader of alt.atheism found me a copy. So if you want to organize a boycott of AT&T for some reason, say why and mention who to contact for more information. Express it in four lines or less, and make it your .signature. If you can't convince people it might be important in less than four lines you don't have much hope of convincing anybody anyway. mathew -- "Even the most bizarre of the unions (probably that between a cat's gall stone and a single note 'G' from CNN's ident theme) managed to convey a sense of rampant impropriety." -- 'Fortran Five', Simon G. Lawrence Leonard