Herman Jurjus wrote: >> My fear is that we'll end up with a junk group and a pedant group (and >> basically no other math groups). >
Bart Goddard wrote: > Right now, all we have is a junk group. So even if we add a pedant group, > it's an improvement. But I think you have no worry here. The only > way sci.math.moderated will turn sci.math into pure junk, is if it's > successful. And it won't be successful if it's a pedant group.
Sci.math is not a completely junk group. The fact that you and other math-worthy posters are here is proof of that.
That being said, it is undeniable that sci.math has an unacceptably large percentage of nonsense, troll postings, and spam.
Most of my enjoyment of sci.math is learning about math (as I am only an amateur mathematician) by reading the interplay between those in the know and those not. This includes the more interesting banter posts provided by the totally clueless cranks - but only the interesting and polite ones, a minority.
Of late I find absolutely no interest in the likes of James Harris, Archimedes Plutonium, et al, and most especially Musatov (who almost single-handedly has prompted this serious attempt at forming a moderated math newsgroup). It's bad enough that it's just clutter, but it's real sin is that it's just dull and boring.
So what I'm saying is that while I would certainly not miss most of the garbage and nonsense currently littering sci.math, I would in fact miss some of the, um, cream of the nonsense, for the entertainment value as well as the educational value (from the reasoned retorts). I worry that a pedant-only newsgroup would be simply boring by comparison.
