From: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Re: Newsgroup proposal: alt.amateur-computerist
Reply-To: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 02:25:18 GMT


In a previous article, elle@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher) says:

>In article <1992Aug27.161943.28125@news.ysu.edu> 
> ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben) writes:
>>              alt.amateur-computerist Charter
>                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Nineteen characters breaks the 14-character subhierarchy limit, by
>quite a margin.

Thanks for pointing this out. We did get another response via email
that pointed it out and thus are now proposing that the name be
     alt.amateur.computerist



>
>>"computers for the people" ...  Workers' computer literacy  ...  there is
>>currently no place on usenet that we know of where issues involving
>>computers and workers are dealt with.

The newsletter takes up issues from the worker's point of view -
and also the issue of denying computer programming to workers
-- these are not taken up anywhere on the net.

Job advertisements are not the same thing.

Also, this is an effort to have interaction between the writers
ofarticles and readers of the newsletter -

Your list below shows that there is no group that deals with the issues
and surely no group that will make it possible to have the kind of
discussion that the articles in the newsletter will make possible.

There is no place on the net that deals with the history of computers.

Editors of the newsletter have been participating in various areas of
the net for quite a while.

Also, the newsgroup will make available the newsletter when a new
issue appears. That does happen with other newsletters in their own
groups.

The list below shows that in fact the net doesn't have any place where
issues involved in workers and workplace are dealt with from the 
workers' point of view.



>
>alt.society.futures     The future(s) of society.
>comp.edu                Computer science education.
>comp.society.futures    Events in technology affecting future computing.
>misc.jobs.misc          Discussion about employment, workplaces, careers.
>sci.med.occupational    Preventing, detecting & treating occupational injuries.
>
>I suggest you try one of these groups before creating yet another.  If you
>must create one, please come up with a better name; "amateur computerist"
>covers just about every hobby machine and OS in the comp.* hierarchy.

The "Amateur" in Amateur Computerist is intended as opposed to 
professional - it is one who does computing for love, not for money.

It will provide an antidote to have alt.amateur.  in response to 
efforts to commercialize the net.

Also the most recent issue of the Amateur Computerist has the following
articles listed in its Table of Contents:

Impact of Computers on Society: Two Views
Letters to the Editor
Computers for the People: A History
Faces (Try this BASIC Program)
Magic Square (Try This C Program)
I'd Hate to be a Foreman (Poem)
On UAW-Cat Strike
America and the Dollar
Problem Corner
Interview with Staff Member

An upcoming supplement on Usenet News is planned for Fall 1992

                          Ronda
-- 
Ronda Hauben                    email address:ae547@yfn.ysu.edu
Amateur Computerist Newsletter              or
P.O. Box 4344                   rhauben@heartland.bradley.edu
Dearborn, MI 48126
Newsgroups: alt.config,alt.rave,rec.music.industrial