From: kazi@brahms.udel.edu (Zunaid Kazi)
Subject: Re: On futility of religious palavers. Was Re: Religious Tolerance and
Keywords: Religion, Futility
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 16:47:30 GMT


In article <1ek4obINN51a@CURIE.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU> ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Waiz Ahmed) writes:
>
>In article <By00Bq.7tu@news.udel.edu>, kazi@brahms.udel.edu (Zunaid Kazi) writes:
>

 [Generally agreed to stuff deleted]

I just wish to make a comment here. From the tenor of your post it
seems that you might be thinking that my criticism was being directed 
towards certain individuals. If you harbor such thoughts, declare
them personae non grata. :-)

I used third person (he/she, they) or impersonal (one, someone) pronouns,
and the implication is that I am referring to my perceptions of
the general trends discussions on religion on SCB appear to follow.

>>The interest or lack of interest isn't the issue here. The issue is
>>the relevance to the pertinent news group. I am sure the participants
>>would receive supportive emails. But there has also been a host of
>>postings on SCB questioning the relevance of some of the discussions.
>
>Here is where we have a serious disagreement.  If we screened all
>articles according to the original charter of the group, 90% of SCB
>articles would have to be filtered out.  Clearly, if the group serves
>those who have an interest in discussing things related to Bangladesh
>and Bangladeshi culture, it makes sense to discuss what readers *want*
>to discuss.  Now who defines what readers want to discuss?  I would
>say that a flow of articles on any particular topic shows interest in
>something and regardless of topic, is generally more constructive than
>the occasional criticism of topics as being irrelevant to the
>newsgroup simply because some individuals may not want to see them.

I agree with most of what you say here, except that I believe that
on occasions certain discussions would be more effective if they
were carried out in news-groups which are geared towards such topics.
In such a case the discussions would be more productive, there would 
be greater interactions, and free of un-constructive criticism of
irrelevancy of the discussion in the originating news-group. And
it is a simple matter to subscribe to wherever the discussion is
taking place.

You ask: "Now who defines what readers want to discuss?"

I agree that in a un-moderated news-group like SCB, there is no arbiter 
(which is as it should be), and the viability of a thread depends on the 
interest of the readers. Just as much as there are people who may want to 
see a certain discussion, there will definitely be another set of people 
who may not wish the discussion, for whatever reasons. If, such people
believe that the discussion has become futile and irrelevant, then
such a criticism is, IMHO, constructive.

>>I agree the whole issue is murky. When does a relevant discussion
>>cross over to irrelevancy? 
>
>Indeed, and since there is no authority who can be the ultimate judge,
>it is better to let it be.  Suppose, for example, that some individual
>or a small group of people decided to conduct a survey of SCB, simply
>for their own curiosity.  Is this relevant to SCB?  If it's just for
>their personal curiosity, then it is probably about as relevant as
>the daily "searching for Abdul Rahim Bepari who passed *out* ;) from
>BUET in '27" articles.  Clearly, the size of the interested in
>audience in such cases is significantly smaller than that of the religious
                                                                  ^^^^^^^^^
>threads you dislike.  Now suppose that in the case of the above
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>hypothetical survey, the individual(s) insisted on periodically
>*reposting* the *same* survey.  Would that survey become more and more
>relevant to SCB each time it was posted?

Well, let us take this hypothetical Survey for further analysis.

1] I would think since this IS a survey on SCB (even if hypothetical), 
   this is quite relevant to SCB. For some reason, I believe that if 
   such an hypothetical survey did come to pass, we would agree to disagree
   on the utility or relevancy of such an survey.

2] The size of interested audience for such a survey can only be gauged 
   if survey is actually taken. Say, for example, 50 net-folks deigned to
   respond to the survey, and a significant percentage of those
   responders specifically commented on how they felt that this
   survey might be useful and would wish to see the results posted
   to SCB. If such an event actually happened, then I would say
   that the interest sustained in such a survey is definitely larger
   than that sustained in most threads on SCB (religious or
   otherwise). But then this is a hypothetical event, and we shall
   never know. 

3] I think you are being deliberately obtuse, when you are inferring
   that periodic posting of the survey by individual(s) might
   have anything to do with increasing the relevancy of such a post.
   I can't really speak for the conductors of a hypothetical
   survey, but I can think of several reasons why they might want
   to repost the survey. For example, many of us may not be aware
   articles have an expiry date, some of which are set to a very
   short period by various sites. Then again, there are readers who
   may not read SCB everyday and as such they might miss the survey.
   I think the conductors of the hypothetical survey might have wanted
   as large an audience as possible, and hence the periodic postings.  
 
Re: The underlined phrase in your response:

I do not dislike religious threads. I may not participate on many of
them because I may not be qualified to do so, and not because of
any aversion. What I *do* dislike is any discussion which becomes
futile as a result of the unyielding nature of the participants. Such
discussions quickly degenerate into repetitious rehashing of old arguments.
Such an aversion is not limited only to discussions on religion but
to any discussions which end up that way. 

>Surely, the whole point is that there is no authority on this, and any
>attempt by anyone to impose restrictions simply doesn't look good...

And, I am most thankful that there is no authority which determines
what may or may not be posted to SCB. I would hope that criticisms
and comments are NOT misconstrued as an attempt to impose any sort of
restriction. 

>-- Shakil

-- Zunaid
   kazi@cis.udel.edu