Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!bu.edu!bu-cs!buengc!bph
From: bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: rec.arts.cinema: moderated or not?
Message-ID: <5246@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 12 Jan 90 06:25:54 GMT
References: <50437@bbn.COM> <5200@buengc.BU.EDU> <50487@bbn.COM>
Reply-To: bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 126

In article <50487@bbn.COM> rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes:
>In article <5200@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>In article <50437@bbn.COM> rshapiro@bbn.com writes:
>>>Briefly,
>>>the example of r.a.m demonstrates what happens to a 'movies' group
>>>when it isn't moderated.
>>
>>You mean, it discusses MOVIES?
>>Sorry to say, rs, but r.a.m is one of the few groups that actually
>>does do what its name implies, and does it both broadly and deeply.
>
>It discusses a handful of movies in a highly restricted way (but in

No, it discusses all movies (more than 30,000 of them, if you're
still watching MPAA numbers) and in whatever way happens to slip
past the gestalt-dazed freely associating minds of its readers.
Recent topics range from Vangelis soundtracks to the feasibility
(tongue-in-cheek or otherwise) of using actual magnetic repulsion
to make a simulation of antigravity reasonable enough to be filmed
and post-produced into the history of "movie magic."

>tremendous volume). It doesn't come close to living up to its name
>(the art of cinema is not exactly a topic of choice on r.a.m). It can

I don't know a student of film and/or cinema who doesn't make that
very obvious distinction between the high art of the medium (usually
called "films") and the supporting bulk of the medium (always called
"movies").  It's stuffed in there with the "arts" because of denotative
technicalities, like rec.arts.tv... (0.015625 :-))

>hardly be called 'broad' when 90% of the postings cover this week's
>hot movie;

As well it should.

In many ways, in _very_ many ways, rec.arts.cinema will be _very_
much less broad than is r.a.m.  I personally will be concentrating
on Renoir and Woody Allen (but damn you if you want a list... :-)).
There are probably fewer than a hundred films that fit into anyone's
categorization of serious cinema.

>it can hardly be called 'deep' when major topics are "who
>would make a better Batman than Michael Keaton" or "in what movies
>does Michelle Pfeiffer appear nude".

Let's put that one into the "broad" category (pun recognized, you
worry about intentions).

>There are things r.a.m is useful for (lists of various kinds, simple
>factual queries, casual reviews of very current movies). General,
>substantive, historically informed discussion of cinema is not
>something r.a.m is useful for.

Sure it is.  Rec.arts.cinema would be better, is all.

>>there's no way I'm going to unsubscribe r.a.m
>
>Of course, no one suggested that you should. Ideally, there will be no
>overlap between the two groups. 

Gak!  Death.  I'll crosspost on those infrequent occasions
when it makes sense to do so, and I'll thank the r.a.c
readers (this includes the inevitable moderator) to
appreciate it.

>>More important, what happens to the two-thirds of a group
>>that leaves frustrated during the initial year of its
>>existence, which will be spent crossposting to news.groups
>>argument of proper method for moderation of spoilers and
>>spoiler warnings, and what to the further one-sixth who
>>abandon it because of the eventual choice of methods?
>
>This is an interesting hypothesis. Is there any real basis for it? One
>fact I do have: a significant number people have *already* abandoned
>r.a.m, in frustration.  What happens to *those* people?

That's their choice to deny their interest in the subject.
You have to be a self-made usenet martyr to cut out the
net's only source of information on what you would now
claim to be so important that you would heft the opprobrium
of politicking for it.                           ^--------^
                                                (Daffy bait.)

>This proposal is trying to address their concerns.
>Speculaton about people leaving a group that doesn't even
>exist yet seems a bit premature, to say the least.

Speculation about needing a moderator for a group that doesn't
even exist yet has been demonstrated to be premature, and has
even been claimed not to have been controversial (re earlier
reports that there had been no good arguments against it, and
more recent assertions that those reports were damn lies.)

I would be much more comfortable with something that resembles
comp.unix.wizards, where the sheer inapproachability of the
discussions keep the neophytes and lurkers out of print, and
the occasional infestation (e.g., c.u.w's bout with "what
makes a wizard / how do you pronounce *") can be dealt with
by quietly admonishing the transgressors through email.

>The evidence at hand is this: r.a.m is not meeting people's needs, in
>part because it's unfiltered. A new, moderated group can help fill the
>gap. 

R.a.m is not moderated, and there's been no evidence that
anyone's asked for it to be.  There's never been much more
than cursory complaint regarding the volume of the group.
The fact that it's not meeting a need is separate; it isn't
constructed in a manner that would encourage more
intelligent discussion, but it's never actually discouraged
it.  I've written some long and rather involved postings to
it on such things as Renoir's oeuvre and a rational,
consistent interpretation of Tampopo.  They were ignored,
but not any more than they would have been if they had been
posted into rec.arts.cinema.


Frankly, I don't understand your apparent need to
denigrate rec.arts.movies.  There is no need to do so
as justification of rec.arts.cinema.  Rec.arts.cinema
is justified by its definition.  Throw off your insecurity
and lets get on to the damn vote.

				--Blair
				  "But I still think cahiers.cinema
				   is the newsgroup name not to be lost."