From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: off-topic discussions (was Re: Novelty time!)
Date: 12 Nov 92 16:01:42 GMT
Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (God)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco

In article <1992Nov5.115621.9165@Princeton.EDU> spencer@phoenix.princeton.edu (S. Spencer Sun) writes:
>
>
>As implied before, I don't agree with the idea that "Anything a motss
>person says is motss relevant."  Is there any good reason that interesting
>music lyrics e.g. have to be correlated with sexual orientation?  If so,
>fine, I guess it belongs here, but explain the correlation if it isn't
>obvious.  If not, well, why not use a music group then?

I'm the person who said ``anything a motss says is motss relevant''.
I don't need a correlation.  I'm sure there is none.  I helped
create this group so that Gaypeople could have a place to talk
about *anything*.  This is what I wanted, and this is what I've
got.

Why not use a music group?  Because I might be interested in
the opinions of people who regularly read this group, and not
the regular music group.  

This newsgroup is not a pigeon hole created by some God on
high to manage things.  This newsgroup was created by an
effort of the incredibly brave Steve Dyer, and those of us
he told about it who worked hard at it, and those of us
who heard about it second hand and fought for it.  (Maybe
Steve can tell me whether it was his own idea or a shared one,
and whom else I can thank for it.)

My part in the whole thing was limited, but active.
I was living in Toronto at the time.  The overwhelming
expectation was that a Gay list would be lewd and criminal
pornographic discussions of who fucked whom and when.

We gaypeople had nothing to talk about but our amourous 
activities.

And this would not be permitted to cross the borders into
saintly, Gay-and-lesbian free Canada.  Pornography.  We
have laws against that stuff.

I helped quash the `can't pass to Canada ban on the group'.
(Of course, we were getting it anyway -- the idea was to
make utzoo not transmit or receive the stuff.)   I let a
Ontario judge read over my shoulder.  To his surprise,
instead of finding ``who fucked whomed'' he found a good
deal of ``wow!  we created this !'' notices, and ``how do
you set up a gay student centre'' notices and various
movie reviews -- and I forget what else.

He said ``doesn't seem pornographic to me'' -- and left.
Next day, he dismissed the pronography suit, and we 
could get (actually continue to get) motss.

I'm not nearly as angry as I was 4 hours ago when
I posted the most toasty flame about it.  But I am still
angry.  

I know that you have too much to read.  I have too
much to read.  We all have too much to read.

Aside from the sarcastic proposal I made before,
the idea of making this ``motss-relevant'' sickens me.
If you want a more focused group, define it, and
then get it created.  I am fairly certain that you
would win whatever you came up with. I'll back you
unless it is totally unreasonable.
>
>I'm a very busy junior in college.  I generally enjoy the things I
>choose to read in this newsgroup, but.  What's the group get, 200-400
>messages a day?  I read maybe 20 of them.  Culling a few threads out of
>the vast number that arrive in the news spool can be tedious at times.
>After a certain point, and considering that I read other high-volumne
>newsgroups, "just avoid the ones you don't want to read" is not an
>efficient strategy.

Let's all shut up because you might not be interested is not
an efficient strategy for us.
>
>This is not a BBS.  This is USENET.  Some structure has been set up to
>try and partition the myriad discussion topics into manageable
>divisions.  It would be nice if people followed them more accurately.

Usenet was not ``set up''. We set it up.  I set it up.
I was in on the 27th (or 29th) usenet site.  I've been here for
the whole deal, and I guarantee that it was not ``set up''.
>
>Of course, by the same token, this is USENET.  I certainly am not in a
>position to dictate to other people what they will do, but I can hope they
>will read what I say and at least think that I'm not completely insane.
>Most of you will probably ignore me, and half of those that are still
>reading this far will probably flame me.  That's life on the net, I
>guess...  :-)

I'm not ignoring you, nor thinking that you are insane.
I think that you want a more limited focus motss newsgroup.
So go build one.

Good luck and I will help you if I can.
Newsgroups: soc.motss