Xref: utzoo news.groups:16372 rec.arts.movies:28458
Path: utzoo!attcan!lsuc!sq!msb
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: REC.ARTS.CINEMA -- drawing the discussion to a close?
Message-ID: <1990Jan14.081527.2367@sq.sq.com>
Date: 14 Jan 90 08:15:27 GMT
References: <50608@bbn.COM> <1990Jan9.175821.19661@athena.mit.edu> <1990Jan11.033402.23405@sq.sq.com> <50756@bbn.COM>
Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto
Lines: 52

This is my last posting on this topic, and I'll try to keep it fairly brief.

> Why is r.a.cinema a "stupid misnaming"?

The words "movies" and "cinema" are synonyms in this sense, even though
they have somewhat different connotations.  One topic, one position in the
namespace.  You can't count to one? :-)

> 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").

Exactly.  Two aspects of one topic.  (Hmm, well, maybe this counting
business isn't as easy as it's cracked up to be.  "Stupid misnaming"
was an insufficiently considered opinion.  Make it "a misnaming showing
insufficient consideration", okay?)


> 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.

In the following sense.  Suppose someone had written an article in
anticipation of the new group being created, but then the group failed
its vote, or they decided not to wait.  I claim that they would without
hesitation choose rec.arts.movies and not rec.arts.misc as the right
place to post it.

If r.a.m "works" in a manner different from the way that you or I like,
it may be cause for moderating it or for splitting it.  But it isn't
necessarily cause for refusing to create subgroups of it, especially if
they are to be moderated.


> ... Like it or not, r.a.m should really be named
> something like rec.entertainment.movies, shouldn't it?  ...

Really rec.arts should be rec.arts-and-entertainment; those, while perhaps
not precisely a single topic area, are too intertwined to separate.  But that
name is simply too long.  (The original proposal was for rec.media, by the
way; I was the one who suggested rec.arts as more appropriate.  So you can
blame me personally if you don't like it.)

Could I interest you in rec.arts.movies.academic?


-- 
Mark Brader		    "Sir, your composure baffles me.  A single counter-
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	     example refutes a conjecture as ten. ... Hands up!
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com     You have to surrender."	    -- Imre Lakatos

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