: Frankly, I would prefer sci.ag.beef too.. and perhaps in the future we
: can get a usenet group of that name. BUT, getting a usenet group in
: sci.xx is a very long, laborious process compareted to getting one in
: alt.xx and after looking through volumes of info on creating usenet
: groups and balancing our own time constraints we figured it would be best
: to start with this.. then if there's a need, try for sci.ag.beef later.
However, it can can often take 6 months or more for a new alt.* group to
get good propagation (meaning that there's an almost certain chance that
a post made on one site that carries the group will make it to all the
other sites that carry it). It will take less than half that time to
create a sci.* group (assuming that there's enough demand for it to pass
the vote), and once it's created it will get nearly complete propagation
in a week or so. "Shorter time to create" really isn't a valid argument
in favor of an alt.* group. If there's enough interest in a topic that
one could reasonably argue that any well-stocked news server should carry
a group on that topic, then you really should try for a Big 8 group first.