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From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: What is net.women for, anyway?
Message-ID: <1721@hao.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 18:37:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: hao.1721
Posted: Tue Aug 27 18:37:24 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Aug-85 23:30:30 EDT
References: <169@gargoyle.UUCP>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 36

> The description of net.women in the list of newsgroups posted in
> net.announce.newusers reads in its entirety, "Women's rights,
> discrimination, etc."  This isn't a terribly clear description of the
> purpose of net.women.  I think it should be clarified whether
> this newsgroup is intended to be:
> 
> A.  A support group for women, to which (primarily or exclusively)
>     women post articles to share experiences and encouragement,
>     and for others to listen in to educate themselves about what 
>     women are thinking, feeling, etc.;  or

   A very nice ideal, but impractical. Aside from the issue of whether we
SHOULD have a newsgroup from which some people and/or viewpoints are barred
from posting, the FACT is that WE CAN'T. net.women was originally set up
with a charter very similar to this. It failed. So, net.women.only was
created. It failed. YOU CANNOT STOP ANYONE FROM POSTING WHATEVER THEY
WANT. This is a fact of the net. If you want a support group, you have
to create a moderated newsgroup or a mailing list. Wake up and smell the
coffee. Asking people who oppose your viewpoint to stay out of a newsgroup
is just inviting the flames. This is the primary reason why the MODERATED
feminist mailing list was created. It has proven quite successful, and
from what I understand, there hasn't even had to be much censoring done.
The fact that there IS a moderator who COULD prevent flames from getting
posted keeps most of the flames out.
  If you want a group composed solely of people who share the same viewpoint,
you have to have a moderator. And that's the way it is, Tuesday, August 27,
1985... :-)

--Greg
--
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       		        !hao!woods

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"Comes a time, when a blind man takes your hand, says don't you see..."