From: conty@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Conty)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Some comments on this rec.arts.{whatever}.manga
Date: 9 Apr 92 23:35:26 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories



In the following discussion, Western means "Not asian".

Fact 1:	USENET started in the US, and most of the USENET newsgroups are in
	the US, Canada, and UK.

Fact 2:	Because of Fact 1, the "common" language for USENET is English.
	There are some exceptions (soc.culture.latin-america, for example),
	but the unofficial convention is to use English.

Fact 2a:Newsgroups are named in English (see fact 2, above).  Even
	the Japanese-language fj. hierarchy is named in English.

Fact 3: "Comics" is the English word for comic books, regardless of the
	country of origin.

Fact 4: "Manga" is the Japanese word for comic books, regardless of the
	country of origin.  "Manga" is also used in the West as fandom
	jargon to refer to Asian comic books.

Fact 5: In the rec. hierarchy, the newsgroup for comics is rec.arts.comics.

Fact 5a:Due to Fact 1, most of the comics discussed in rec.arts.comics are
	Western comic books.

Fact 5b:Due to Fact 2, most of the comics discussed in rec.arts.comics are
	English-language comic books.

Fact 5c:Western comics which are not in English have been discussed in
	rec.arts.comics.  Examples include the TINTIN discussion, and some
	posts about Bilal from some time ago.  Postings about non-European
	non-English Western comics are very rare, due to the small comics
	output of such regions (I'm thinking of South America, Africa, and
	the Middle East).

Fact 5d:There has been discussion of Asian comics on rec.arts.comics.
	Examples include the discussion on the translations of AKIRA
	or APPLESEED every time an issue comes out, and manga for-sale
	postings on rec.arts.comics.marketplace.  Before the creation
	of rec.arts.anime, most of the discussion on Asian comics was
	done in rec.arts.comics.

Fact 5e: Most of the discussion on Asian comics has been on either
	alt.manga (which is the newsgroup to be replaced) or rec.arts.anime
	(for reasons too lengthy to explain here).  That's why there currently
	isn't much Asian comics discussion in rec.arts.comics.

Fact 6: Fact 3 proves that "comics" does not refer just to Western comic
	books.  Facts 5c and 5d proves that rec.arts.comics is NOT limited
	to American or Western comics.

Fact 7: There have been several instances where a user comes in to
	rec.arts.comics, and asks about a newsgroup for asian comics.  No
	such thing has ever happened in rec.arts.anime, to the best of my
	knowledge.

Observation 1: This would suggest that new users who don't know better would
	assume Asian comics to be a subgrouping of comics.  I've seen Asian
	users ask these kind of questions, so it is not limited to
	English-speaking users.

Observation 2: Given Fact 6 and Fact 2, the logical naming for an Asian
	comics newsgroup would be rec.arts.comics.japan.

Observation 3: I think we can leave it rec.arts.comics.manga.

Observation 4: Given Observation 1, we can infer that this naming is
	intuitively logical to a casual observer.

Fact 8: alt.manga (the newgroup to be replaced) is a spinoff from
	rec.arts.anime.

Fact 9: Animation and Comics are two different mediums of expression.
	The discussion about one is not a subset of the discussion about
	the other.

Observation 5: a newsgroup on Asian comics should not be a subgroup of
	rec.arts.anime.

Observation 6: as animation and comics are two instances of "medium of
	expression", they should have equal hierarchy levels.

Observation 7: Given Fact 8 and Observation 6, the appropriate name for
	the new newsgroup should be rec.arts.manga.

Observation 8: Given Fact 7, Observation 1 and Observation 4,
	rec.arts.comics.manga is more logical than rec.arts.manga.

If you disagree, please refute the appropriate Facts or Observations
above to prove that rec.arts.manga is a more logical choice.
-- 
			    E n r i q u e  C o n t y
			      jester@ihlpl.att.com
		   Disclaimer:  You're not dealing with AT&T.