From: joe@sfbooks.com 
  
 Like Ru Igarashi and Penny Gaines, I'm posting this as a news.groups 
 reader unlikely to vote on the proposal (unless I decide it's worth 
 bothering to ABSTAIN) and unlikely to use the proposed group if it 
 passes.  I'm not familiar with the misc.invest.* groups except from 
 the list of them, which I thank the proponent for posting in this 
 thread; I am, however, moderately familiar with investment vehicles 
 from years as an accounting clerk, and in particular, as a trust clerk. 
  
 Perhaps Ru Igarashi, at least, will find the rest of this post more 
 comprehensible if I open by saying that "stocks and bonds" is at 
 least as ordinary a phrase in the Anglophone investment world as 
 "day and night" in everyday life, and that I therefore find a 
 number of the arguments he's making entirely implausible.  Enough 
 of this post is addressed to the proponent that I hope she reads it, 
 but much of it is addressed to what I see as an excessive grilling 
 of her by Ru Igarashi (one that has continued for at least one 
 iteration beyond the post to which I'm following up, and yes, I've 
 read those next three posts). 
  
 In article ,  wrote: 
  
 > Irene Waters  wrote: 
  
 > > wrote 
  
 > >> In news.groups Irene  wrote: 
  
 > >The problem, based strictly on anecdotal observation and, inevitably, 
 > >some subjectivity: Most regular participants in each of the above 
 > >groups are specialized in the particular investment vehicle. When 
 > >someone wants to ask a question about bonds, he or she typically goes 
 > >to one of these groups and gets an answer that may reflect (1) bias; or 
 > >(2) lack of study on bonds. If the expertise can be directed to a 
 > >single group so that it's not so dilute by biased posters and posters 
 > >with minimal expertise, then consumers with questions will be more 
 > >likely to get a collection of "expert" responses from which an optimal 
 > >answer may be derived. 
 > 
 > It wouldn't hurt to include the above in your next draft of the RFD. 
  
 I strongly concur. 
  
 The list of misc.invest.* groups provided appeared to me to include 
 a couple of predictably low-traffic all-purpose groups (.marketplace 
 and .misc), a low-traffic regional group (.canada), and a bunch of 
 vehicle-specific or topic-specific groups.  This list strikes me as 
 an absolute no-brainer for the extension you propose, and the 
 results you describe above are a strong argument for that extension. 
  
 (Um, to translate.  If I see "stocks", "mutual funds", and so forth 
 in a list that doesn't include "bonds", I'm pretty certain to wonder 
 why it doesn't.  I should think people likely to post to the 
 misc.invest.* hierarchy would have the same reaction.  So really, 
 the only reason this group should *not* exist is if not enough people 
 can be found who want it to.  Period.  If the description of 
 misc.invest.* above, suggesting that there are a significant number 
 of well-informed posters in those groups, is true, then this probably 
 *IS* an example of "Build it and they will come."  That said, the 
 argument that the number of posts you're finding is not indicative, 
 precisely because without the group, the discussions aren't happening 
 as they should, is a key point.  Centralising discussion is a perfectly 
 legitimate reason to create a group, as I should know, having helped 
 create soc.history.ancient for partly similar reasons.) 
  
 Bottom line:  The Rationale is where you convince the person reading 
 the CFV that they should really take the extra time to finish reading 
 and vote YES on your group.  You should put your strongest arguments 
 into it.  "Right now, people already post bond questions to Usenet, 
 but they get bad answers; with my proposed group, they will get more 
 answers, and the answers will be good, and world hunger will be cured" 
 is the kind of thing you want to be saying in a Rationale.  Make your 
 reader think "My God, when I next have a bond question, where will 
 I turn if I don't vote for this group?" 
  
 > >> How much of the 
 > >> discussion involves bonds? 
 > 
 > >Do you mean what fraction of the total posts at each group involves 
 > >bonds? 
  
 > >I'm not sure how this is meaningful.  If it's a large fraction for, say, 
 > >misc.invest.stocks, what is the signficance of this? If it's a small 
 > >fraction, same question. 
  
 > The relevance comes from the degree of usage.  If a particular 
 > subtopic starts to overwhelm the other subtopics, particularly, 
 > becoming a burden, then that can be an indication for a need 
 > for change (i.e. a new subgroup). 
  
 This is, however, inappropriate for this kind of situation. 
  
 There does exist an underused .misc group, but .misc groups are 
 normally underused, and I'm totally unimpressed by arguments that 
 people shouldn't try to get groups without trying .misc groups first. 
  
 It is not rational to expect bond discussion to go on in groups 
 dedicated to stocks, mutual funds, etc.  These are *different topics*. 
 True, some people are familiar with all of them, but just the same, 
 what I think you should be looking at instead is the traffic numbers 
 for these similar groups.  Those numbers suggest that there could, 
 and perhaps, with appropriate publicity, *would*, be similar traffic 
 in the bonds group. 
  
 I haven't heard that day-trading and similar activities that would 
 result in a large bunch of amateurs looking for online help occur 
 in the bond market.  However, the bond market *is* noted for its 
 appeal to people looking for stability.  As a result, small investors 
 looking for somewhere to put a few thousand dollars do routinely 
 invest in bonds, and may well want a place to get information other 
 than their brokers, who are motivated at least partly by their own 
 fees.  (My mother is such an investor; so are various of the trusts 
 I worked on, though in their case, the trust departments I worked in 
 would be the investors, and probably would not rely on Usenet for 
 advice...  On the other hand, I know I occasionally had reason while 
 working in those departments to consult prospectuses, and a Usenet 
 group to ask questions in could have been useful to me.) 
  
 I don't recall the RFD having been cross-posted to soc.seniors.  May 
 I suggest to the proponent that she look in there, and decide whether 
 a pointer would be appropriate based on what she finds?  The 
 stereotypical bond investor is a senior citizen, is why I make this 
 suggestion.  (Ah.  I see soc.retirement and alt.military.retired 
 in the pointer list, but not soc.seniors.  If that means you already 
 considered the idea and rejected it, OK, but if not, please consider 
 it.  I also see that misc.invest.stocks, much the busiest group in 
 the topic area, is in the pointer list.  Why didn't it get a full 
 copy of the RFD, but the least busy groups *did*?  This makes no 
 sense to me.  If you do a second RFD, I suggest multi-posting so 
 you can hit all five of the specific-vehicle groups, or at least 
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)