Xref: utzoo news.groups:4545 news.admin:2622 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!husc6!purdue!spaf From: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin Subject: Re: Democracy at work: Big brother is watching Message-ID: <4350@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 15 Jun 88 14:46:36 GMT References: <56436@sun.uucp> <15613@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <4342@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <44373@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU Reply-To: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University Lines: 100 In article <44373@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams) writes: >I'm still waiting for the answer to two simple questions: Both have been answered in postings and mail before. Either you haven't been reading that material or you have a short memory. Let me briefly answer them for you again (I'm not going to recreate all of the discussions): > 1) Why comp.women instead of comp.discrimination or some such? > Are women the only ones with these problems? If not, > why exclude the others. The group is not primarily for discussion of discrimination. The moderator has said that. There have been lists of topics posted that would be appropriate and interesting to discuss in the group once created that have nothing to do with discrimination. Some examples: How to encourage more women to enter the computing field? How do we encourage a higher percentage of women to go on for PhDs in the field? Are there certain kinds of areas in CS that women are predisposed to, either due to social or other reasons? (example, developing computer languages, AI work, ...?) Why aren't there more women hackers? Why aren't there more female backbone admins? Safety for pregnant women in computing occupations... (some studies seem to indicate a higher rate of miscarriages with VDT use) Can flextime and work-at-home schemes work well when raising kids? (Question for both spouses, actually) What to do about harassment on the job and on the net. Why do so many netters think the name of comp.women is more important than the content? Do professional organizations like IEEE-CS and ACM show appropriate amounts and types of support for women's issues in computing? Ergonometrics and design issues from a female point of view...(ex. does the choice of the command name "man" instead of "help" imply something? Does it matter?) ...and the list goes on. Trish can supply more, as can most of the people who have been saying all along that: 1) the group will discuss computing related issues; and 2) the group is not primarily intended to talk about discrimination (although it will be difficult to avoid completely since discrimination is so pervasive even in our profession). > 2) Is this problem unique to the computer industry. If not, > why not sci.women or soc.wgas What problem? If you mean discrimination, the answer is no. If you mean all of the above topics plus the others that have already been mentioned, then your question is nonsense. In the context of WHY you asked the question, it is meaningless. And what is wgas? >The proponents of comp.women continually dodge these simple questions. >This to me implys [sic] that they can't make a case for it. No one has dodged these questions. You've missed, forgotten, or ignored the postings and mail that addressed these earlier. >Any answers not directly addressing those fundamental questions >are irrelevant to the discussion. Irrelevant to you, Rick. Does this posting answer your questions satisfactorily? >The group could exist TODAY as comp.society.women or soc.women.computers, >so this absurd claim that the very idea of the group is opposed is >total nonsense. The only basic argument has been the name. If you'll look back over the list of topics I have above and that others have posted, you'll see that many (most?) are **NOT SOCIAL ISSUES**! The moderator has said that repeatedly as have many, many others (myself included). soc.* is totally inappropriate and comp.society is not completely appropriate for these topics since they are not all social issues. ...and the moderator will not allow discussions of sandals or college pranks in the group, unlike some other "comp" groups currently accepted by the majority, so it may be even *more* appropriate than many current groups. BTW, for those of you concerned about keep "comp" for "technical" groups only: Webster's Unabridged dictionary defines technical to be about or concerned with topics specific to and peculiar to an art or science. As I just explained, the group would have topics related specifically to computing and computer science. Thus, the group would certainly be "technical" in nature. Now could we please create the group and move on to arguing over what the hell to do with the binary groups? -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf