wrote:

When I mention URG to people they are surprised that they haven't
heard of it (my enthusiasm is perhaps showing). Many talk about
Kitchen Garden something - which I don't know what it is, nor have I
heard of it.

Nor me.

A question from a naive computer user:- why are all our
posts shown on Garden Banter?! I don't understand this at all.

Usenet works by all the posts being shared freely amongst a number of
computers on the network. Some of these servers are very large,
transferring overwhelming amounts of data every day. But most are
smaller. It's more or less an anarchy - anyone can set up their own
server, and anyone is free to exchange messages ("peer") with anyone who
will have them.

By its nature, all the posts are public, and there's very little control
over where they go. Garden Banter is just taking them, and putting them
up on its website. Presumably they make money from the advertising.
Whether you like it or not, and by and large I'd rather it went away,
they're free to do what they like. It's not really any different from
what Google Groups is doing, except that Google doesn't index Google
Groups on its web search.

Why the upset of it from many here and why the 'allotment' group proposal
couldn't work similarly like urg/garden banter?! (And I did say escuse my
poor computer knowledge ...!).

It's not a technical issue - technically it would work just fine.

I don't believe it would attract any more people, and either all the
traffic would end up crossposted to urg, people would have to read both
groups.

In your ideal scenario, you get a thriving, active core or regular
posters on urga talking about groving veg on their allotments. Someone
like me comes along and wants to know about growing beans in my garden.
Where do I post? To urga even though I don't even have an allotment?
To urg and miss out on the expert advice available in urga? Cross post
to both?

I just don't think the division makes any sense with the current level
of traffic in here.

Peter