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From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: the hierarchy and "serious" discusson groups
Message-ID: <46942@bbn.COM>
Date: 15 Oct 89 23:43:50 GMT
References: <8910132350.AA08591@helios.enea.se> <35637@apple.Apple.COM> <33610@looking.on.ca> <27837@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
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In article <27837@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>  The idea of the hierarchy system is roughly that high-quality,
>technical discussions should go in sci (and comp); slightly less serious
>discussions should go in rec and soc; and endless-flame discussions should
>go in talk.


Now wait a minute. Are you saying the structure of the hierarchy rules
out IN ADVANCE high quality, serious, but non-technical discussion
groups (soc being, by definition, "less serious" and by implication,
and in fact, lesser quality; while sci & comp are, by definition,
technically oriented)? No wonder I get so frustrated with the soc
groups....  Seriously, this seems like a major oversight in the
hierarchy structure. Where should a group that's just as high quality
and serious (and quite possibly more intellectually challenging) as
the sci/comp groups, but explicitly non-technical, go?  Definitely not
soc, at least not if intellectual wastelands like soc.singles or
soc.men are any indication of what soc is for.  Is there a presumption
being made here about what constitutes "high quality" discussion (i.e.
that only tech talk is truly serious)? Is there any place in the
hierarchy for non-tech groups which are at the level of the serious
academic journals?  I *know* that the soc & rec groups are no good for
this.  Should there be another top level category?