Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl From: karl@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Proposed Guidelines Change Message-ID: Date: 22 Nov 89 19:03:17 GMT References: <36393@apple.Apple.COM> <3503@kitty.UUCP> <45039@sgi.sgi.com> <36675@apple.Apple.COM> <5969@unix.SRI.COM> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 54 maslak@unix.sri.com writes: The truth is that the proposers and the voters thought that comp.women was a fine group name that made sense in the hierarchy. When the point was made that many people thought that the name was positively atrocious within the comp hierarchy, politics were simultaneously injected by both sides. Anyone trying to fix blame on "the other side" is completely off the mark. (I remember very clearly the first article which arrived here in response to the initial request for discussion, which was about 3 lines long from a person I'd never heard of, before or since. It said something to the effect of, "`comp.women?' Do you really think that's good placement?" Politically neutral. That poster was flamed into oblivion, for daring to suggest that the initial choice might need reconsideration.) I, for one, thought that comp.women was an atrocious name, and comp.society.women is just barely acceptable as a compromise. But it _was_ a compromise. (I newgroup'd c.s.w, to the seemingly undying flames in my mailbox, notwithstanding that skyler@violet.berkeley.edu herself had offered it as an acceptable compromise.) Certain members of the junta didn't agree. THEY injected the politics. Yes, they did. So did the champions of the proposed group. It was in approximately equal proportion, from my perspective. Chuq refers to guidelines versus rules. IT SEEMS THAT HE AND A FEW OTHERS CAN MAKE RULES; the rest of us have to settle for guidelines. Please stop yelling. I don't hold to _any_ of the rules/guidelines. Not one of them makes any sense when forced to the boundary conditions that tend to rule the Usenet. I honor and generate newgroups when I, personally, feel that they make sense. If comp.women had been newgroup'd, I would have ignored it. I would have preferred a name outside comp entirely; but the compromise offered made sense to me, and that was sufficient. chuq@apple.com writes: And, if I recall, I sat out comp.women anyway. I beg to differ. I distinctly recall writing a somewhat toasty note in response to a similarly toasty note from yourself regarding the fact that you had been forwarded a(n apparently lopsided) pile of mail from the backbone mailing list. If I recall, you flamed about the internal politics of that list, based on what was clear to me as being only half the discussion. Until that note, I had sat out the discussion. It didn't matter enough until semi-private mail was treated to public abuse. Then it mattered, and I got involved. --Karl