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From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: REC.ARTS.CINEMA -- drawing the discussion to a close?
Message-ID: <50756@bbn.COM>
Date: 11 Jan 90 15:01:42 GMT
References: <50608@bbn.COM> <1990Jan9.175821.19661@athena.mit.edu> <1990Jan11.033402.23405@sq.sq.com>
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Reply-To: rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro)
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In article <1990Jan11.033402.23405@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes:
>But then, I'd go for ANY semi-reasonable rec.arts.movies.something name
>in preference to the (my opinion) stupid misnaming as rec.arts.cinema.


Why is r.a.cinema a "stupid misnaming"? In what sense does this
proposed group seem to you to be a subgroup of r.a.m? Not the
theoretical group which r.a.m should be, but the real, working r.a.m.
I don't think it is a subgroup, and therefore I don't think it should
be named as one. Like it or not, r.a.m should really be named
something like rec.entertainment.movies, shouldn't it? Doesn't that
better capture the flavor of the group? And if it was named that way,
would rec.arts.cinema be a bad name? That's the question you need to
address. In a sense, the whole raison d'etre of this group is that
r.a.m is not living up to its name.

These are two parallel groups, one of which covers the subject as
popular entertainment ("the movies"), the other of which covers it as
an academic study topic ("cinema"). They should be named in a way
which shows this. The right solution is something like the one above
(r.e.m and r.a.c), but barring a rename, the best we can do is r.a.m
and r.a.c (and it's really pretty close to the ideal). The r.a.m.*
names just make the confusion worse than it already is, and perpetuate
the original error -- putting a "movies/entertainment" group under
rec.arts.

I'd like to hear the opinions of the Net Godz on this (if they're
following this thread). From my (user) perspective, it looks to me as
if the overall naming hierarchy is *better* served by rec.arts.cinema.
Have I missed something? What's wrong with my reasoning?

>I still want the opportunity to vote separately on the name, because I'm
>intending to vote for the group in any case.

The vote...As explained before, because of job change, I won't be able
to hold the vote myself. I have a volunteer to do it for me (I think
-- jbl, are you still willing?), and it will have to be his choice
whether or not to conduct the vote the way you suggest. I'm not
opposed to it. I think r.a.cinema is a better name in every way, but
I'll support the group under a r.a.m.* name as well.