On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 09:39:47 GMT, Andrew Thompson <Se********@www.invalid>
wrote:
[snip]
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, Mike!
Ever so sorry! :P
(My excuse/question, apart from the above is.. on which
group do you get a higher S/N ratio?*)
Probably ciwah, but the focus is different.
[snip]
* My overall view is that while you might find good advice
in the 'alt' groups, you are also more likely to get long
posts from people claiming that the web-pages they are
viewing are beaming secret messages into their subconscious.
LOL
Of course, you know more about the 'alt' groups than I,
What on Earth gave you that idea?
so I would be interested to hear your assessment of them.
I don't have much of an opinion on alt.* groups, except that the alt.*
hierarchy seems to be a dumping ground for any random group that someone
can think up and have added. However, as I said above, there is a
difference in purpose between ah and ciwah (which I assume you know, but
I'll state anyway).
The *only* focus of ciwah is authoring for the Web. A recent example of
the implications of that is Matt Kruse's post regarding shading alternate
table rows[1]. This particular "solution" (as Matt described it) provided
functionality for IE only. Whilst it had its merits, the fact that it had
no application for the Web as a whole meant it shouldn't have appeared in
the ciwa.* hierarchy, and Matt was subsequently berated.
ah has no such restrictions. In fact, the ah FAQ
(<URL:http://www.html-faq.com/>) states that questions regarding related
topics such as CGI, stylesheets, and Javascript are as welcome as those on
HTML.
Oddly enough, I just noticed this in the FAQ:
"This group was neither proposed nor discussed on alt.config. If it
had been, the proponent would have first been directed to the alt
creation guidelines where he could learn why the name is so poor.
Then he would have been directed to the comp.infosystems.
www.*
hierarchy, where there are many groups on this topic, including one
specifically devoted to writing HTML."
Seems you're right about the illegitimacy.
Mike
[1] This actually went to ciwas, but the reason for the inappropriate
location was the same.
--
Michael Winter
Replace ".invalid" with ".uk" to reply by e-mail.