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From: coleman@unisoft.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: UUCP - USSR  and Barry's flame.
Message-ID: <8710282007.AA00269@barnard.UniSoft>
Date: Wed, 28-Oct-87 15:07:28 EST
Article-I.D.: barnard.8710282007.AA00269
Posted: Wed Oct 28 15:07:28 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Oct-87 13:50:26 EST
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A historical note first: for those of you not familiar with the history of 
info-future, it was originally a mailing list kept by Barry Shein.

I think going back to a mailing list is a bit premature at this time: sure,
the signal to noise ratio of the "UUCP - USSR" topic is much less then
that which most of were used to in the mailing list, but the topic is almost 
a religious one, and thus not subject to reason.  My hope is that it will
fade, given time.  Given the nature of a news group, it is more likely to
have this problem, and we will probably see it again(and those who didn't 
expect it, I think we're being a bit naive about news groups in general).

What we need to do is decide what this news group is actually about.  I
think comments/topics that are obviously political should be frowned on.
When people cross the line, we should deluge them with *mail*(not news), 
stating that we think they are drifting off the proper type of topic for 
this group.  We should first at least *try* some other solutions, rather then
just packing our bags and going back were we came from.

Messages with the words "right" and "wrong", or "bad" and "good",  in the 
political sense, should be red flags indicating possible problems.  This
is *not* a group for taking votes on US(or any other country's) policy;
nor is it the floor of the US senate.

If people truely feel they must discuss these issues, do it off-line via
direct mail, or move over to a more approprate news group.

With all due respect to Barry, and he is due some, he does not have
the power to disband this news group.  He could drop his subscription,
and try to convince as many other people as he can, to go back to a
mailing list(the previous type of forum for this topic, which I will add
was *not* edited, nor digestified; I do *not* like mailing lists that are, 
since they have a much longer turn-around time, are harder to sift through, 
and have various other problems like vacations/sicknesses of the digestifier).

don