"Philip Eden" philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom wrote in message
...
Not quite a birthday, but today marks the 10th anniversary of
this newsgroup's conception when I submitted a "request for
discussion" and the proposed newsgroup charter to usenet
uk-hierarchy admin. This was the culmination of several weeks
of toying with the idea, discovering how it was done, talking
to the people who had set up other newsgroups, and so on.
Had I known how much aggro that creation process would
bring, I would never have started!

I hope that you will excuse me if I become ever-so-slightly
proprietorial ... it is, after all, the first time in ten years.

Firstly I need to acknowledge the half-dozen or so who
readily and enthusiastically lobbied for the fast-track
(oxymoron, that ... it took six weeks!) creation of the newsgroup.
And the biggest bouquets go, of course, to Martin for creating
and maintaining the FAQ pages so effectively.

It's funny to recall that, way back in 1996, I feared that the group
might be a damp squib. There were days in the first few months
when no-one posted at all, and six posts in 24 hours was
regarded as busy.

The Met Office quickly discouraged its employees from
contributing, although I was never quite sure whether that was
because the newsgroup was created by that evil Philip Eden
and therefore must be inherently evil itself, or just because
they simply feared the freedom it provided. Whichever, they
still actively discourage involvement, which I think says more
about them than it does about us. And more power to the
dozens of MO folk who do post here but still feel the need
to do so anonymously. Exeter, evidently, is still a Warsaw Pact
country.

But I wonder if I am alone in thinking that uk.sci.weather's
best days are behind us. People come and people go, but we
have lost many regulars in the last 2 or 3 years, and several of
them have let me know the reason for their departure. I almost
followed the same route last year for the same reason. Others
prefer to use their kill-files.

It is not the village idiots who irritate, it is the pub bores.
Just one or two ... ego-trippers, grandstanders, self-obsessed,
self-justifying, verbally incontinent, and like most pub bores
they probably won't even recognise themselves from this
description. That they might be widely kill-filed would
astonish them.

This might, therefore, be a good opportunity for everyone to
re-read the newsgroup's charter. It is absolutely not a list of rules
which must be obeyed; rather, it is a set of guidelines whose
objective is the happy continuance of this newsgroup:

quote
This group is essentially for the discussion of daily weather
events, chiefly affecting the UK and adjacent parts of Europe,
both past and predicted. The discussion is open to all, but
contributions on a practical scientific level are encouraged.
It may also contain postings of observations during
interesting weather episodes. The group is expected to be
patronised by both amateurs and professionals (including
academics), but it is primarily for weather enthusiasts rather
than research scientists. Any discussion of climate issues
should be from a scientific standpoint and not a political
(environmental-activist) one.
unquote

By all means criticise me or my words, but please be
constructive in your criticism. And if the end result is that
uk.sci.weather returns to its best, and old friends turn up
again, I shall be happy. And I promise no more proprietorial
throwing my weight around for another ten years.

Philip


For an unmoderated group I think that the content is remarkably free of
irritating posts and I think that it is a pity that valued contributors no
longer post due to a very few annoying contributors. I have just looked at
a list of the last fifty or so topics and nearly all seem to fit in
reasonably well with the group's charter apart from one obvious spam item.

Surely the use of a killfile and ignoring topics of no interest is a better
way to deal with irritating posts. Perhaps some of these old friends could
be encouraged to return.

It would be possible to set up a weather forum with the same charter as this
newsgroup but administrators and moderators would be required to keep it
going and I don't think that the posting signal to noise ratio justifies
such a step. Forums of this type are a lot of work to keep running.


Alan Gardiner
Chiswell Green, St Albans