Difference between Usenet hardware groups

[Dixie UK]

What's the difference bewteen these PC hardware newsgroups:

alt.comp.hardware
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
and even:
uk.comp.homebuilt

I get tempted to crosspost questions because I don't know how one
these group's readership is different from another.

But ... I don't want to upset people whose newsreader doesn't
suppress posts they've already read in another group.

Thanks.

Dix

 

[Don Phillipson]

What's the difference bewteen these PC hardware newsgroups:

alt.comp.hardware
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
and even:
uk.comp.homebuilt

I get tempted to crosspost questions because I don't know how one
these group's readership is different from another.

You will find the same in your public library, viz. several books
on the same topic, say home-built PCs. There may be obvious
differences between them, as between newsgroups: but these
differences obey no rule, and to see the differences you have to
read the stuff. If any general difference can be specified, each
of us has to do that for ourselves, in our own minds.

 

[Jeff Gaines]

What's the difference bewteen these PC hardware newsgroups:

alt.comp.hardware
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
and even:
uk.comp.homebuilt

It's a matter of quality really, the last group you mention is clearly the
best because it is UK centric
That aside if you are in the UK it's probably best for you as there will
be references to UK suppliers, prices and specifications.

 

[Bernard Peek]

What's the difference bewteen these PC hardware newsgroups:

alt.comp.hardware
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
and even:
uk.comp.homebuilt

I get tempted to crosspost questions because I don't know how one
these group's readership is different from another.

If you don't know the readership of the newsgroup you shouldn't post to
it at all.

 

[John Weiss]

What's the difference bewteen these PC hardware newsgroups:

alt.comp.hardware
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
and even:
uk.comp.homebuilt

I get tempted to crosspost questions because I don't know how one
these group's readership is different from another.

But ... I don't want to upset people whose newsreader doesn't
suppress posts they've already read in another group.

alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt is the most active. You can crosspost to
uk.comp.homebuilt if they are active with a different readership.

 

[Andrew Smallshaw]

What's the difference bewteen these PC hardware newsgroups:

alt.comp.hardware
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
and even:
uk.comp.homebuilt

I get tempted to crosspost questions because I don't know how one
these group's readership is different from another.

But ... I don't want to upset people whose newsreader doesn't
suppress posts they've already read in another group.

You should try to find the charter for a group if you are not sure
what the purpose of a particular group is. Most groups have one,
although in the case of alt.* groups it may be somewhat informal
or only a single line description carried by your news server. If
you consult the charters you will find that alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
is the only _PC_ group that you have listed.

In general is it considered bad form to cross post between local
and regional and global newsgroups for two reasons. Firstly local
groups have far more implicit context - if you post to uk.comp.homebuilt
it is assumed that you are UK based, whereas this needs stating
explicitly on other groups, and turns of phrase or referencing e.g.
TV programmes may be appropriate on a local group but not elsewhere.
Bear in mind this affects not just you, but anyone that responds
to your posts.

Secondly, if a message includes local groups then respondents not
in that locality are probably using a server that does not carry
the local groups. This can cause all sorts of problems if it isn't
noticed before the post is attempted - depending on the reader the
message may be unsubmittable until the missing groups are removed
from the Newgroups: header, with no indication as to which of the
groups are causing the problem.

As to cross posting more generally, most newsreaders keep track of
posts by message-id and will only show the messages as unread (or
at all) in the first group you encounter and read them. This is
the source of all those flames about multi-posting (posting an
identical message to different groups) instead of cross posting
(posting the same only once, but to multiple groups), since
multi-posting breaks this behaviour.

 

[Rob Morley]

Best to read the questions and replies before posting...

And check on Google Groups to make sure the question hasn't been asked
a hundred times already.

 

[geoff]

The main difference is activity. Some are more active than others, more
postings, more answers, except for the uk.xxx, that is UK centric.

The second difference is college kids. Some groups, like this one, are
frequented by the college crowd who want to show how smart they are, bark
orders, and remind everyone else they are idiots.

--g

 

[Franc Zabkar]

What's the difference bewteen these PC hardware newsgroups:

alt.comp.hardware
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt
and even:
uk.comp.homebuilt

I get tempted to crosspost questions because I don't know how one
these group's readership is different from another.

But ... I don't want to upset people whose newsreader doesn't
suppress posts they've already read in another group.

Thanks.

Dix

AIUI, alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt was originally intended to cater for
those people who actually built, not assembled, their own non-PC
computers from individual chips. Nowadays it has been hijacked by PC
assemblers. Strictly speaking, PC assemblers should post to
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt, not alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt, but
nobody seems to care these days. In any case, if it wasn't for the OT
traffic, alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt would have died a long time ago.

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Andrew Smallshaw]

AIUI, alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt was originally intended to cater for
those people who actually built, not assembled, their own non-PC
computers from individual chips. Nowadays it has been hijacked by PC
assemblers. Strictly speaking, PC assemblers should post to
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt, not alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt, but
nobody seems to care these days. In any case, if it wasn't for the OT
traffic, alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt would have died a long time ago.

The original audience for a.c.h.h. mostly abandoned it a long time
ago in favour of a moderated big-8 grop - I was there at the time
and signal to noise ratio was pathetic. The group where they all
went is very quiet now though, although you do see some of the
characters of some of themore professioanlly orientated groups or
elsewhere on the net.

I'm aware there's several typos above. Can't be bothered sorting them
out since I'm on a painfully slow telnet link at the moment.