Path: usenet.mil.wi.us!milw
From: milw@usenet.mil.wi.us (Milw Hierarchy Administrator)
Newsgroups: news.admin.hierarchies,milw.general
Subject: milw.* administrative changes announcement
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 00:00:00 -0600

19981030 - milw.* Announcement - For Public Release

By consensus among the Milwaukee regional Usenet news providers, a 
charter for the Milwaukee Usenet news hierarchy is being created and 
implemented, along with appropriate support infrastructure.

In recent years, the utility of the milw.* newsgroups has become
questionable, as the group has been turned into a flamewar staging
area and battleground, a forum for personal political vendettas of 
no general interest, and general crosspost dumping grounds.

The presence of disruptive elements in the milw.* hierarchy appears
to have driven participation levels down, and the signal-to-noise
ratio is now very low.  Despite the immense number of new users who
have gained access to the Usenet via the Internet's explosive
popularity, legitimate traffic in milw.* is down substantially over
past years.

The purpose of a regional hierarchy is for the discussion of items
of specific local relevance to a specific geographic area.  If an 
item does not have any particular local relevance, there is almost 
certainly a much more appropriate non-regional newsgroup in which 
such a topic should be discussed.  If you have such a topic to 
discuss, you are more than welcome to discuss it - but not here!

An example of a topic that has specific local relevance: any of the 
numerous issues relating to the new Miller Park stadium.

An example of a topic that does not have specific local relevance: 
discussion of President Clinton's involvement with Monica Lewinsky
(unless they were at the Milwaukee Hilton during the time in question).

Specifics will be available in the charter for each milw.* newsgroup.

Thank you for your attention.

Your Milwaukee Metropolitan Usenet News Administrators
<milw@usenet.mil.wi.us>