From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.arts.manga
Date: 10 Apr 92 13:43:38 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Apr9.175014.27982@midway.uchicago.edu>, mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer) writes:

>2) However, it's also true that anime is a subset of movies.  Yet
>we have rec.arts.anime, not rec.arts.movies.anime, despite
>the existence of an entire rec.arts.movies hierarchy.

>3) It's eminently clear that the people who are interested in
>the subject of manga do not, for reasons which are unclear
>to me, wish to be in the r.a.c hierarchy.  Fine.  No one who
>knows what manga are will be confused, no one who doesn't
>will care.

Point 1:
-------
The existence of errors in newsgroup naming in the current hierarchy is not
an excuse to commit even more errors in newsgroup naming.

Point 2:
-------
All anime are not movies, you can have shorts, Saturday-morning TV shows,
even late night anime TV.  Either you have a .anime under BOTH tv AND movie
OR you move it to rec.arts.anime.  There are no manga that is not a comic
book, no TV, no movies, etc, no other media in which this is expressed.  If
you want to recast the call for .manga has a different genre, which DOES
cross lines, then you have point.  Otherwise, it's still comic books, and
it belongs under r.a.COMICS.

>Finally, I do _not_ understand the vehemence that these bloody
>newsgroup naming/split issues generate.  You'd think that 
>we were discussing the naming or splitting of one's own
>child!

No, we're not.  We're floating in a vast sea of information, and we are trying
to find a few currents that we like.  We are constantly being joined by people
each with the same problem, to navigate a torrent of information.  To make
matters worse, we are dragging a pile of history behind us in the form of a
largely flat heirarchy, which makes it necessary to scan hundreds of newsgroups
instead of being able to zero in on a particular newsgroup by subject.

The heirarchy is an indexing mechanism, nothing more.  But nothing LESS, too.
I really don't understand the antipathy of people like the manga types arguing
here, people who seem to feel that the heirarchy is some kind of evaluation,
that they are somehow inferiors or subject to groups higher up in the heirarchy.
That is not the case, but with people like axolotl viewing the net as some
sort of repressive bureaucracy instead of what it is, near anarchy in it's
truest form, I can at least understand why people get the wrong idea.  But you
don't cure that problem by giving in.

Manga's, whatever the style or subject matter, are COMIC BOOKS.  We already
have a place to put newsgroups dedicated to specialized comic books, under
rec.arts.comics.  Trying to make out that manga comics are something different,
so you can get a place in the heirarchy that is somehow "better" by some
misinformed opinion of what the hierarchy represents is not just wrong, it is
stupid, and there are a lot of intelligent people on the net that will go
ballistic when they are subjected to something stupid.

My purpose in getting into this discussion is to make the manga people aware
that they must convince a lot more people than just the ones arguing with
them.  All of their arguments to date have come down to simple proof by
repeated assertion, or claims that people who aren't manga fans should butt
out and let them do whatever they please.  At this rate, the vote will FAIL
by a wide margin, alt.manga will continue, and they won't even get rec.arts.
comics.manga for another six months, thereby depriving many manga fans who
understand the net and who really don't give a damn about where the newsgroup
is, of a widely-available forum.  Does that make any sense?

Larry Smith
smith@ctron.com



  I've seen more bile and flamage on the subjects
>of splitting the frp and certain other groups and on the
>naming of groups relating to manga and (Asian) Indian-American
>culture than I've seen on anything short of the Turk-Armenian
>wars which rage across soc.history, talk.politics.soviet, etc
>ad nauseum.  It's _just_ a _name_, people!  No lives at stake,
>no livelihoods, no liberties.  Nomenclature and directory
>structures in the /news directory, that's all.  Will _someone_
>please tell me why it's worth all the storm and strife?
>
>Mike
>
>-- 
>Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Never let your sense of morality prevent
>mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 you from doing what's right!"
>mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 --Mayor Salvor Hardin of Terminus
>mss2@usite-next.uchicago.edu     Isaac Asimov, _Foundation_
>
Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com) No, I don't speak for Cabletron.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a "disgrace",
that two are called a "law firm", and that three or more become a "Congress".
Newsgroups: news.groups