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From: sa1z+@andrew.cmu.edu (Sudheer Apte)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,news.groups
Subject: Re: talk.politics.south-asia: CALL FOR DISCUSSION
Message-ID: <0ZtK56e00WB90MQJJ8@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 23 Feb 90 16:13:58 GMT
References: <sZsU89K00WB9MTUnAx@andrew.cmu.edu>,
	<5231@brazos.Rice.edu>
Organization: Civil Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 78
In-Reply-To: <5231@brazos.Rice.edu>

dorai@titan.rice.edu (Dorai Sitaram) makes some good points:
> 1.  South Asia is too much of a superset if you're only going to
> discuss politics in the subcontinent.  Why not call the group
> talk.politics.subcontinent or .subcont?  (Of course, people _could_
> confuse that with the other subcontinent, Greenland (where a lot of
> politics takes place!), and "Indian subcontinent" fails your
> neutrality test.)  How about talk.politics.gondwanaland? :-]

No problems with this name, either, except that "subcontinent" is, as
you yourself point out, hardly a unique region... (sigh) this name thing
is quite a problem.  Anyone else have any better ideas?  South asia
still seems like an imperfect but good enough solution.

> 2.  The anguish expressed in s.c.i. has been more over politics than
> over culture.  So what is a common _politics_ group going to solve?
> If we're combatting acrimony in newsgroups, why is shifting it from
> soc. to talk. such a win?

The idea is to *separate* political debates from the rest, because
political debates
1) tend to be especially acrimonious,
2) are disliked by a good subset of s.c.i.-ers,
3) are liked by another (disjoint) subset  (well... disjoint at a
   given point in time---I think you know what I mean, Dorai),
4) don't belong in a soc. group,  and
5) do belong in a talk group (I know these aren't rules, just
   Usenet guidelines, but see below for another justification).

> 3.  I find it hard to believe that postings by non-Indians "have been
> suppressed in s.c.i."  S.c.i. is an unmoderated group.  The presence
> of acrimony doesn't imply suppression of views, rather the opposite.

Yes, but when debates fall to slinging matches with personal
name-calling (which seems to happen particularly with political
topics), people aren't exactly being encouraged to post unpopular
opinions.  OK, maybe "suppressed" was too strong a word, so I'll
change that in the CFD.

> 4.  The almost ritual song of deprecation by Indians about other
> Indians in order to prevent s.c.i.-splintering seems out of place.

Hey, wait a minute---are you accusing me of deprecating other Indians?
And of *opposing* splintering?!  I'm proposing a new newsgroup!  (And
it's not just me---there was a long debate on news.groups, and I
finally said if it was just a question of somebody taking the
initiative I was willing, and there was plenty of support).

> 5.  If you're trying to halt the splintering of s.c.i. into national
> subgroups, the battle appears to have been lost.  Let's not be so
> deeply sensitive that some folks want to start their own group.  It is
> their prerogative.  And if you're trying to banish acrimony from a
> newsgroup, a newsgroup is not a pleasant soiree where everyone is
> expected to be nice over tea and crumpets, and it is unrealistic to
> hope for that.

I've already said your "if" clause is false---we're not trying to stop
splintering or anything.  Your other point about the net not being a
goody-goody place is well taken.  I love fierce arguments, too---only
soc.culture.indian is not the best place for it.  All we want is to
keep s.c.i. as free of politics as possible by setting up a separate
group where people can vent their fury.  The talk hierarchy is meant
for acrimonious debate; the soc hierarchy is not.  It's unfair on
those people who just want to read some news from back home and
exchange a little info and names of books, interesting cultural
events, etc., to have to go through truckloads of noise every day, and
it's also unfair on those people who really want to talk about
politics with others like them to have to use s.c.i. and get flamed
for posting political discussions.  A separate politics group sounds
like a win both ways.

So creating this new group still sounds like a good idea to me.  I was
hoping to clarify a few points to everyone and "win you over," Dorai.
Have I succeeded?

	Sudheer.
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