Anniversary (1)

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From: jor...@MCS.COM (Jorn Barger)
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.ascii,alt.ascii-art,
alt.ascii-art.animation,alt.ascii-art.pixellated
Subject: META A brief history of ascii-art groups on netnews
Date: 13 Mar 1994 13:24:54 -0600


A brief history of ascii-art groups on netnews:

Rumor has it that there was an ascii-art group on alt years ago, that
failed for lack of interest.  No evidence has turned up, though.  The
main purveyor of fine ascii-art-archives during the early 90s had
been Steven Sullivan, in his postings to rec.humor.

Alt.config folklore says proposals for a new group had been coming up
every few months, for some time before September 1993, when the
discussion that led to alt.ascii-art began.  Resistance in alt.config
was intense, led by Tim Pierce who argued that ascii-art was binary and
belonged in the alt.binaries.pictures.* hierarchy.  He got a lot
more support on this than seems credible, in retrospect.

After a month of pointless hassling, the gordian knot was cut by Joel
Furr newgrouping alt.ascii-art.  It was generally agreed that
alt.arts.ascii would have been the better choice (to keep the
number of new first-level hierarchies down), but the group took
off pretty quickly, so we decided to go with it.... except after a
month, when it became clear a lot of sites weren't getting a.a-a,
Tim took the opportunity to newgroup a.b.p.ascii, along with a
request to rmgroup alt.ascii-art, already a thriving subculture!

The tide of opinion turned against Tim at this point, and a rmgroup
for abpa went out, resulting in sites that carried both, neither,
*and* just one or the other-- but abpa has pretty well withered,
while a.a-a has grown to where a split has been seriously discussed,
and over-hasty newgroups posted for:

alt.ascii-art.pixellated (by people wishing ascii-gifs would go away)
and
alt.ascii-art.animation (ditto for ansi animations)

a.a-a.p seems to have vanished, but a.a-a.a gets occasional posts and
may well be revived at some point.  I wouldn't mind trying to move
the asciigifs over to alt.binaries.pictures.ascii, since it's a group
that won't go away...

The plan for the future, now, is to create a *moderated*
rec.arts.ascii (Bob Allison has volunteered to moderate).  Anyone with 
experience proposing and creating a moderated big-7 group, or other 
constructive ideas, should write Bob or me...  

jorn


=============
    NOTES     
=============

|  The unmoderated newsgroup, alt.ascii-art, was created by Joel Furr 
|  in September 1993.  

|  The moderated newsgroup, rec.arts.ascii, was created in June 1994
|  with Bob Allison ( Scarecrow ) as Moderator.

|  In July 1996 Don Bertino took over as Moderator of rec.arts.ascii
|  with Allen Mullen as deputy moderator.



========================
   Traffic Statistics
========================

                               +-- Messages per month
                               |
                               !      +-- Percentage crossposted
                               |      |
                               |      |     + Propagation:
                               |      |     | how many sites
                               |      |     | receive this group
                               |      |     | at all
                               |      |     |
                               |      |     |      +-- Share:
                               |      |     |      |   % of news readers
                               |      |     |      |   who read this group.
                               V      V     V      V

                            Feb 94
alt.ascii-art                733      2%    36%   1.4%


                            Mar 95
alt.ascii-art                600      8%    47%   1.0%
alt.ascii-art.animation      128     32%    35%   0.2%
alt.binaries.pictures.ascii  307     42%    37%   0.5%

rec.arts.ascii               217     13%    53%   0.3%

                            May 95
alt.ascii-art                413      9%    48%   0.7%
alt.ascii-art.animation       96     15%    36%   0.2%
alt.binaries.pictures.ascii  200     49%    37%   0.4%

rec.arts.ascii               180     11%    55%   0.3%

                           Sep 95
alt.ascii-art                905      8%
alt.ascii-art.animation       61     34%
alt.binaries.pictures.ascii  110    100%

rec.arts.ascii               309      5%

                           Oct 95
alt.ascii-art               1062     26%
alt.ascii-art.animation      152     16%
alt.binaries.pictures.ascii  123    100%

rec.arts.ascii               282     18%



                           Feb 96
alt.ascii-art                788     15%
alt.ascii-art.animation       53     12%

rec.arts.ascii               274     35%

                           Apl 96
alt.ascii-art                804     15%
alt.ascii-art.animation       74     76%

rec.arts.ascii               185     24%

                           Jun 96
alt.ascii-art                707     29%
alt.ascii-art.animation       89     68%
alt.binaries.pictures.ascii  104    100%

rec.arts.ascii                35     65%


                           Jul 96
alt.ascii-art               1100     23%
alt.ascii-art.animation       95     54%
alt.binaries.pictures.ascii  187    100%

rec.arts.ascii                81      9%



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