Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!tank!tank.uchicago.edu!mitchell From: mitchell@tartarus.uchicago.edu (Mitchell Marks) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: A Hum Domain (also: how about a hum charter?) Message-ID: Date: 15 Feb 90 18:19:09 GMT References: <3284@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <3285@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <1990Feb7.183055.25715@everexn.uucp> <10692@june.cs.washington.edu> <1990Feb12.205140.1250@everexn.uucp> <148@uncmed.med.unc.edu> Sender: news@tank.uchicago.edu Organization: University of Chicago Computer Science Lines: 39 In-reply-to: unccab@calico.med.unc.edu's message of 14 Feb 90 20:50:25 GMT >>>>> In article <148@uncmed.med.unc.edu>, unccab@calico.med.unc.edu >>>>> (Charles Balan) writes: CB> I *think* I saw someone suggest human.* for a new domain name. I think CB> that might be a slightly better name than hum.* and much better than CB> hss.* I tend to think like a new user and if I was searching through a CB> domain and seeing hum.history I might tend to think it was MUSIC THROUGH CB> THE AGES or something like that, although a logical thought process CB> should make me realize that hum.* had something to do with humans. I CB> just think human.* will be a little more clear. So what if it isnt as CB> short as alt.*, rec.*, soc.*? Don't we have clarinet.*? CB> I just think that more clarity is better than less clarity. But it's not as though "Hum" as a short form for "Humanities" is new and unfamiliar. Have you really not seen this frequently before? It's not an arbitrary computer-oriented shortening originated by oddballs on the net; it's a perfectly ordinary abbreviation that you're likely to see in many university catalogues/timeschedules etc. I reiterate the point that it can be pronounced like the name "Hume", and in fact is widely so pronounced. Does this help anybody who is worried about confusion with wordless-nasal-singiing? But a top-level Hum SHOULD NOT become a shapeless container for BOTH Humanities and Social Sciences. [The idea that these are all the Human Sciences is useful in a few contexts, but not here.] Put the social sciences in Soc. There's no harm in having them coexist there along with the current Soc groups (for some of which "soc" is understood as "socializing", and for some of which -- soc.women for instance -- the "soc" could indeed be understood as informal work in some social science, maybe sociology / anthropology / psychology). Then the sci/hum/soc portion of the top level would very nicely echo a typical and useful way of dividing up academic subjects. -- Mitch Marks mitchell@cs.UChicago.EDU [this space available]