From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: fj.misc
Subject: Re: No Response to English Articles? [English]
Date: 29 Jul 92 13:05:16 GMT
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

claude@trc.mew.mei.co.jp (Claude Huss) writes:

>Of course some japanese will not see any kind of relationship in what
>I am going to say, but this reminded me when I was looking to rent a
>new apartment... Everybody refused me "only" and "only" because I was
>a foreigner. 
[* gory details omitted *]

I've heard such stories but I myself have never had such a problem.
The closest would be how sales ladies would shriek and run into the
back room when I walked into a shop, but that seems be a thing of
the past. 

> Are not some people acting like
>my landlady and overprotecting "fj"??? Are the foreigners lacking
>common-sense??

IMHO this is hard to tell. Is there a strong history or convention
of people on fj making sure to cross-post correctly? The only
mention I've seen on the rest of USENET is to *stop* cross posting a
thread that has ceased to be relevant. 

>I would like to remark, but "freedom of speech" is not to "hear
>what you want", but to permit any minority group the right   to
>say anything and have the responsability for it, IMHO. 

As far as I know 'rights' aren't involved. Only history and convention.

>I would like to say it again, but I don't think this have to be a MUST.
>It's not only a question of be happy or not. IMHO, it's impossible to
>force this condition for all users. I think when users think the post
>need to be crosspost, they will do. It's not a question *EXCLUSIVELY*
>for the foreigners NG.

One would think. After all, how would one actually go about forcing
anybody to do anything on the net? For example, it's not possible to
stop people from forging all kinds of weird control messages and
distributing them all over the world! (I'm thinking of the recent
bunch of weirdness with respect to soc.culture.indian).

>I'm for a mailing list, TOO. However, I think it will very important
>to have a minority newsgroup inside JP. This will be useful for everybody.

I agree completely that having a newsgroup inside .jp is important.
Only I wouldn't call it a 'minority'. For example, look at the number
of articles currently on Aegis in these newsgroups:

       1  fj.comp.music (347-347)
       1  fj.lang.ada (13-13)
       1  fj.lang.awk (11-11)
       1  fj.lang.forth (2-2)
       1  fj.lang.mod2 (2-2)
       1  fj.os.minix (264-264)
       1  fj.sci.chem (208-208)
       1  fj.sys.rs6000 (48-48)
       2  fj.binaries.x68000 (80-81)
       2  fj.comp.arch (118-119)
       2  fj.comp.printers (186-187)
       2  fj.comp.text (44-45)
       2  fj.kermit (121-122)
       2  fj.lang.lisp (244-245)
       2  fj.lang.prolog (64-65)
       2  fj.news.lists (289-290)
       2  fj.os.misc (314-315)
       2  fj.papers (39-40)
       2  fj.rec.aerospace (278-279)

Looks like we have quite a few 'minorities' :-)

Dave

--
Dave McLane                                       davidg@aegis.or.jp
Sorry, I can only understand replies in English (or a little French).
You're free to copy/quote/translate this as long as credit is given. 
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087