HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: starfish@stein.u.washington.edu (Sarah Skovronsky)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: comp.society.folklore CFV:  Huh?!?
Date: 24 Nov 92 01:16:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Nov24.011617.25686
Organization: University of Washington

I am just a teensy bit confused by Mark Brader's CFV posting regarding the
comp.society.folklore group:

> At the start of November, I wrote in these newsgroups: 
> 
> | Now, I think alt.folklore.computers has been a pretty successful
> group, | and therefore I think it's long past time that it was moved
> onto Usenet-- | or, if you prefer, into the so-called "7 main
> hierarchies". I therefore | propose that comp.society.folklore be
> converted to unmoderated, and that | when this is done,
> alt.folklore.computers be aliased to it and thus | cease to exist
> under that name. 
> 
> The discussion period has raised a number of alternative
> possibilities, the most-discussed being "Do nothing; it is not an
> improvement to move a group out of alt.*". I now call for votes of
> Yes or No ON THE ABOVE PROPOSAL. If you prefer some other action,
> vote No; there can be further discussion on other proposals if this
> one fails.

Vote yes on WHICH above proposal?  Vote yes to moving afc into the "7
main hierarchies" or "do nothing"?  Could you please clarify this?  This
is a particularly important vote for quite a few people, and I don't
want some sort of after-the-fact debate going on resulting from an unclear
CFV and incorrect votes.

Apologies if I seem dense, but...

-- 
************************************************************************
*            Sarah Skovronsky     starfish@u.washington.edu            *
* "Don't worry, Mr. B., I have a cunning plan."  --Blackadder the Nth  *
**********fnord!********furrfu!********hi-keeba!********meep!***********
From: tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.games.netrek reorganization
Date: 17 Nov 1992 05:01:57 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <Bxu398.8oA.2@cs.cmu.edu> hill@norman.VI.RI.CMU.EDU (Robert Hill) writes:
)
)You didn't say that it was mainstream.  The fact that you took it this far  
)(i.e. a RFD) led me to believe that you thought you were correct.  If you  
)didn't, why bother with it?  Yes, I read your email, and I think the  
)discussion would've been better suited on rec.games.netrek NOT  
)news.groups.  How many people have responded to this?  Less than 10, i'd  
)say.  How many do you think would participate in this on rec.games.netrek?   
)I'd say MANY more.  Where do you think you get better information?
)
)I don't take this personally.  I never have.  I thought that the  
)discussion would be better if it was on r.g.n. and I still do.  Nothing  
)short of a post from the uunet gods about why the discussion is here would  
)convince me otherwise..

I don't have a copy of the Usenet group creation guidelines with me,
but they are quite explicit on this point; discussion belongs in
news.groups, not in the affected newsgroup.  A RFD should be posted
to all interested groups with followups set to news.groups.  This
is to allow people who aren't interested in the discussion to ignore
it, and to force people to work harder to get a successful CFV; the
newsgroup creation process is intended to make it as difficult as
possible to create new groups.

In short, Alan's procedures are by the book, except perhaps for 
his self-nomination for moderator.  The idea still rots, however.
 -Tom
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: quirk@pioneer.unm.edu (Gym Z. Quirk)
Subject: Re: rec.arts.fantasy
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 01:43:08 GMT
Organization: Nit-Pickers for a Better Tomorow Afternoon

In article <By4zHL.FB4@newcastle.ac.uk> Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>Re whether r.a.f is feasible and/or desirable:
>
>I'm not convinced by the argument that the dividing line is too
>hard to draw and would produce too many flames.  There are many
>groups that overlap and have fuzzy borderlines, and they survive.
>Why can't
>        a. clearcut fantasy threads be on r.a.f
>        b. clearcut sf threads be on r.a.sf.*
>        c. borderline threads be cross-posted
>?
>
>This is how (e.g.) comp.theory and sci.logic seem to work, and I haven't
>seen any real problems.  Or are f/sf advocates really that much more
>ornery and obnoxious than everyone else? :-)

Reference the 'Great rec.arts.sf-lovers Meltdown' of 1991. ;-)

-- 
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk  (Known to some as Taki Kogoma)  quirk@pioneer.unm.edu
 I'll get a life when someone demonstrates that it would be superior to
                          what I have now...
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: This whole "Ignorance is enforced" r.m-m reorg argument
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 21:27:04 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.104410.20730@abekrd.co.uk> graeme@abekrd.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths) writes:
>	It would appear that Dave Heyes (amongst others, I'm not picking on
>you Dave I just remember your name) argues that because people are
>ignorant of the news group structure, they shouldn't be penalised when it
>comes to voting on reorgs of their fave groups.

I don't know about Dave, but I think they shouldn't be _selectively_
penalized.  If you want to penalize them, fine, but don't choose the ones to
penalize in a way likely to skew the vote.
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: tara@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Lady Johanna Constantine)
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.arts.fantasy
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 05:46:51 GMT
Keywords: fantasy RFD arts

Sounds good to me.  I get tired of scrolling through rec.arts.sf.written
for something that interests me.

You shoudl ahve cross posted it to rec.arts.comics.misc too.  Lots of
SANDMAN fans and Elfquest, Gamers, etc who might be interested.  I
don't check all my groups every day, except rec.arts.sf.tv and
rec.arts.comics.misc



LJC
-- 
Lady Johanna Constantine | "When you remove the pin, Mr Hand
tara@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu    |  Grenade is no longer your friend"
Founder of the Church of Our Lady of the Perpetually Clueless
Disclaimer: The U of I doesn't give a damn or blast WHAT I do
Newsgroups: news.groups,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.bangladesh
From: nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik)
Subject: Re: Controversy about Ahmadiyya Newsgroup
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 16:29:31 GMT

aftab@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov (Aftab Ahmad;MU-SPIN/CESDIS) writes:
: 
: 	Given all the controversy over the Ahmadiyya news group, my
: impression is that the news administration has a good chance to review
: the rules for allocating the new news groups.
: 
: 	While suggesting that I will cite about how matters are decided
: in our "other-than-newsgroups" world.
: 
: 	We obey two kinds of rules in making decisions - first the
: kind of rules that only affect us (life hereafter) and the second
: the kind of rules that may affect others too (traffic lights). And we all
: have to agree that there has been a dispute as to what matters should be 
: decided solely by the individual and what by the state through a vote.
: The varying forms of governments is a living example of controversy.
: 
: 	The news adiministration seems to have a rule according to which
: a news group cannot be constructed even if there are a lot of people
: interested in reading/writing to it because there could be another
: group of people who do not want it to be created - for reasons that have
: nothing to do with the Internet.
: 
: 	In Pakistan, and may be also other Muslim countries, Ahmadies are
: seen with hatered by many poeple. The contitution of Pakistan requires
: them to "annouce" themselves as not-Muslims. The government application
: forms require all "Muslims" to "declare" that the Ahmadies' prophet was
: indeed imposter. They are also forbidden to indicate through their behavior
: that they are Muslims.
: 
: 	This is the policy of the government of Pakistan towards Ahmadies.
: Constitutionally speaking, as soon as they step out of Pakistan, they
: become Muslim. What is the policy of the Internet administration, will
: indicate how far humans have gone in making "rational" decision - and
: NOT that who is right and who is wrong.
: 
: 	Now here is my suggestion: the administration may make a quota
: about how many groups it wants to create each "term".  The groups should
: be created based only on the readership and not on the opposition. Software
: can be written to monitor which group is surviving and which not. Those
: who do not survive should be simply taken out. 
: 
: The purpose of this posting is to take my views to the forum and not to
: inform anyone about the condition of Ahmadies in Pakistan - for that
: purpose the Pakistani Constitution Amendment number 2 and the president 
: ordinance 298C will be more helpful.
: 
: Sincerely
: 
: aftab ahmad			"who else's views these can be"

This is actually a very good and thoughtful article. The principle of 
establishing newsgroups solely on basis of readership is indeed a powerful
one. I congratulate Aftab Ahmad on an intelligent observation which would
undoubtedly resolve the present crisis of representation.

Nadeem Malik
nadeem@p.igp.ethz.ch
Xref: sparky news.groups:22095 soc.culture.indian:37239 soc.culture.pakistan:16775 soc.culture.bangladesh:5984
From: ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Waiz Ahmed)
Newsgroups: news.groups,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: CFV: soc.religion.islam.ahmadiyya moderated
Date: 16 Nov 1992 22:36:06 -0500
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: curie.systemsy.cs.yale.edu


In article <1992Nov17.025922.10953@cis.ohio-state.edu>, chandra@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
> In article <1e9mj8INNm7f@CURIE.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU> ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Waiz Ahmed) writes:

> >Then please explain the contradictions I have pointed out.  I gather
> >you are a knowledgeable authority on this issue?  So please be so kind
> >as to explain the obvious contradictions.

> I don't have to be a knowledgeable authority.  All it is necessary for me
> to note is that there are millions of educated Ahamadias who have read
> the Quran and call themselves Muslims, and another group declaring that
> they are not is just the latter group's opinion, not God's.  

Why is it that I have not yet seen a single rebuttal of the
contradictions I have pointed out?  You are basing your comments on
something you cannot even prove, and by your own confession, do not
even have the knowledge of????  Impressive...  I suggest you stick to
posting about things you *do* know about -- it looks better that way,
and might even appear credible!

-- Shakil
From: pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za (P A van Heusden)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.arts.fantasy
Keywords: fantasy RFD arts
Date: 18 Nov 92 17:35:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: frodo.pvanheus.722108122
Organization: Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town

After reading the criticism, I have 2 points to make. 1) I did not realise
sf stood for speculative fiction, and having read the rec.arts.sf FAQ,
where domain is specified even to the detriment of some definetively sf
schools of writing, eg. Cyberpunk, I thought a new group, rather than
invasion of the existing structure was in order. On this count, I admit
I was mistaken.

2) Rec.arts.fantasy gains largely by being more visibly fantasy orientated
tahn rec.arts.sf.*. I have been on the net for a while, yet no one in the
groups I read pointed me towards the .sf hierarchy when I was looking
for fantasy discussion, (I looked in groups such as alt.mythology) and I
had skipped the .sf stuff, as I am not a science fiction fan. (I find it
hard to call eg. Tolkien science fiction, however hard you try.) So,
by making a rec.arts.fantasy group, users can look at the group listing
and easily see where to go. Its up to you if this merits a new group, of
course. If you do not wish to have a new group, (I'm also backing off the
idea given people's response.) how about change of name from rec.arts.sf.*
to rec.arts.spec_fic.* or something more explicit?

Re Dani Zweig's comment about my RFD procedure: As pointed out above, I did not
believe that there was a valid forum for prior discussion, and I believe this
RFD should not be cancelled for the reasons he gives. After all, I'm was not
really trying for a improvement on an existing hierarchy, but rather a new
group entirely. This makes a forum for prior discussion difficult to create.

Unfortunately I am not able to quote and respond to each article about r.a.f,
as I'm typing all this on 300 Baud, and that would take too much time.

Thanks,
 Peter

--
*******************************************************************************
Peter van Heusden              "The extreme always makes an impression"
CS2, UCT, Cape Town, RSA             J.D. - Lethal Attraction 
pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za              
Xref: sparky news.groups:22142 soc.culture.indian:37281 soc.culture.pakistan:16791 soc.culture.bangladesh:5997
From: jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed Ahmed Khan)
Newsgroups: news.groups,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: CFV: soc.religion.islam.ahmadiyya moderated
Date: 17 Nov 92 06:13:51 GMT
Reply-To: jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed Ahmed Khan)
Organization: Iowa State University

========================
Shakil Ahmed writes:

Actually, it *is* that simple, and you have yet to show why it isn't.
The fact of the matter remains that the Qur'an is clear in stating
that prophet Muhammed (pbuh) was the last prophet, that the Qur'an
will be protected by God, and that anyone who deviates from this and
forms their own sects is on their own and not part of Islam.  Since
the Qur'an had been around for ages before the Ahmadiya sect was
formed in violation of all the above conditions, it follows that
anyone who believes completely in the Qur'an (by definition a
condition for being a Muslim), cannot agree to the notion that
Ahmadiyas are Muslims.
=======================


Your argument rests on the premise that since the ulema among the non-ahmadi
muslims believe the interpretation of "Khatm-n-Nabiyeen" as the "*Last* of the
Prophets" rather than "*Seal* of prophets", its valid to claim that the first
interpretation is what God intended. The fact remains that the Arabic meaning of
the word does lend itself to interpretation in both senses but has been fiercely
rejected by these scholars. Unfortunately as is always the case we dont have
prophet Muhammad to help us out but are stuck with a bunch of "scholars" of
Islam to lead our way.

A convincing argument in their favour was never established though. A raging
debate did take place on this net several months ago on the same issue and I
didn't see either side convincingly prove either way but only reinforced the
fact that either interpretation was plausible.I doubt if we'll ever establish
which one was intended. But claiming that a "billion" muslims believe in one
interpretation doesn't make them right because of their numerical strength. 

In any case I think its a waste of time trying to engage ourselves in a debate
which only seems to be exacerbating positions on either side and achieving
nothing.

--Javed.

  
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik)
Subject: Re: CFV Ahmadiyya
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 17:49:10 GMT

I have just seen a post by Jaffrey on soc.culture.pakistan that he intends to continue
collecting votes and that he has collected 200 so far!

Something has to be done to stop this indecent activity!

Nadeem Malik
nadeem@p.igp.ethz.ch
From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 18 Nov 92 02:12:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: talon.1ec8q2INNn5b
Distribution: usa
Organization: Oregon State University, College of Oceanography
NNTP-Posting-Host: skyking.oce.orst.edu

In article <1992Nov13.075835.720@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>> 
>So why in God's name don't you (and other people who claim seem to be  
>interested in being net authorities) start to HELP to make it possible so  
>that more people CAN particpate instead of torpedoing negative comments  
>about the current process? 

Because there is nothing that needs to be done to make it possible for
more people to participate. You can't do better than EVERYONE.
From: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr (Christophe Wolfhugel)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: comp.sys.sony
Date: 19 Nov 1992 18:29:47 +0100
Organization: INSA Informatique, Lyon, France
NNTP-Posting-Host: grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr

In article <1egbedINNpg1@rodan.UU.NET> werner@dirac.physics.uq.oz.au (Michael Werner) writes:
>Charter: comp.sys.sony is for discussion of all aspects of using the
>Sony NEWS workstations. This would incorporate system administration,
>porting and using GNU software on these workstations, 
>problems incurred with Sony NEWS OS and fixes.
 
I like this idea -- mainly because from my experience with Sony's SVR4
it's highly specific and I don't remember having much success for questions 
posted in the comp.unix groups. This would be a good way of having
people interested in the subject without having to spread around in many
other groups.

-- 
Christophe Wolfhugel    |    Email: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr
  "Pour le bien-etre de tous, il est interdit de pisser dans le metro."
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Subject: Re: Usenet Culture, Part 2
Reply-To: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Organization: Metrosoft
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 17:38:37 GMT

In article <1992Nov23.044315.11234@bagend.uucp>
jan@bagend.uucp (Jan Isley) writes: 
> Gordon, are you familiar with the "newsgroups" file?  It
> is usually found in your NEWSCTL (that is C news lingo)
> directory.  It should contain a list of newsgroups with
> short descriptions of the type of topics appropriate for
> each newsgroup.  Here are a few entries from it: 
> 
>  news.groups     Discussions and lists of newsgroups.
>  news.misc       Discussions of USENET itself.
>  alt.flame       Alternative, literate, pithy, succinct screaming.
>  talk.bizarre    The unusual, bizarre, curious, and often stupid.
 
I actually am quite familiar with it, but thanks for
pointing it out. I started reading it and Usenet
documentation six months prior to obtaining a feed and
have continued to maintain an interest in it. 

I am currently not heeding your humorously framed
request that I take the conversation elsewhere,
complete with a re-directing follow-up, in that this
conversation is a direct outcome of events in
news.groups and I am addressing people in that group who
will be a factor in any possible changes to the guidelines
or documentation. 

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Van Huizen           vox: 619.488.9411  fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft                   gvh@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]
----------------------------------------------------------------
From: mshute@cs.man.ac.uk (Malcolm Shute)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.arch,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Is there a general fault-tolerance news group?
Keywords: fault tolerance
Date: 17 Nov 92 12:17:47 GMT
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <BxMq98.6Ln@rice.edu> retrac@vesuvius.cs.rice.edu (John Carter) writes:
>However, I'd like to propose that it be called "comp.fault-tolerant" so as
>to not appear to be solely for hardware fault tolerance.  If you look [...]
>you'll find that there is plenty of work being done in the area of software
>related fault tolerance.

I agree... but for the opposite reason :-)
comp.arch.fault-tolerant would exclude hardware fault tolerance (e.g. at the end
of fabrication stage), whereas your proposed name  comp.fault-tolerance  would
have a much larger catchment area.
--

Malcolm SHUTE.         (The AM Mollusc:   v_@_ )        Disclaimer: all
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: ksdavis@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Karleenus Schwartz Davis)
Subject: Should there be Pre-RFD discussion? (was Re: RFD: rec.arts.fantasy)
Keywords: fantasy RFD arts
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 22:04:20 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.052500.2636@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>Isn't there something in the newsgroup creation procedure about
>issuing a formal RFD *after* there's been enough discussion to
>show that it's worth pursuing?  
>
>In the absence of such prior discussion (and I'm not aware of
>any in the case of this proposal) it only takes one person to
>initiate the consumption of thousands of hours of people's time
>in discussion of a group that hasn't a snowball's chance of
>passing.

Sounds like etiquette to me -- don't issue a formal RFD until you've
quietly mentioned your idea in the group where the topic now resides
and gotten some healthy support.  That would certainly save us time on
more than one proposal currently being discussed here. . .

However, I don't think something like this can be formally codified;
the interpretation of what "enough pre-RFD discussion" is way too
subjective.  I do believe that it should be mentioned somewhere
important as an etiquette tip, though, so people stop wasting time and
money.  (Apparently, the suggestion that someone wait 6 to 12 months
before proposing a new newsgroup is not enough.)

-sz
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.arts.fantasy
Keywords: fantasy RFD arts
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 05:25:00 GMT

Isn't there something in the newsgroup creation procedure about
issuing a formal RFD *after* there's been enough discussion to
show that it's worth pursuing?  

In the absence of such prior discussion (and I'm not aware of
any in the case of this proposal) it only takes one person to
initiate the consumption of thousands of hours of people's time
in discussion of a group that hasn't a snowball's chance of
passing.

If I'm right -- that some prior discussion is required and that
said discussion didn't take place -- could we please save a lot
of people a lot of time by cancelling this RFD?

-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com

   God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser
Newsgroups: news.groups