From: hades@coos.dartmouth.edu (Brian Hughes)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Comments on the 2nd RFD: soc.culture.native
Date: 27 Jan 93 18:34:45 GMT
Reply-To: hades@Dartmouth.Edu
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Disclaimer: Personally, I really don't care who you think I speak for.
Moderator: Rec.Arts.Comics.Info

jan@bagend.atl.ga.us (Jan Isley) writes:

>I have been following the charter discussion but I had decided to stay
>out of it.  But as my friends all know, I have a hard time staying out
>of things.  I think the charter discussion has graduated into a full
>blown mess.  It has become exactly the kind of discussion that I
>personally hope does not take place in the proposed new group.

    This is the reason that I left the discussion, and probably one of
the reasons that there have been < 10 people to participate in this
discussion in the last week. In the past, this has not been a good omen
for getting a newsgroup created, but since the people on Gary's mailing
list are all ready to vote yes to any proposal that is sent to them,
this might not be a problem for s.c.native.

>I think that soc.culture.native is the very best name available.  The
>name of the newsgroup is the only charter the overwhelming majority of
>readers will ever see, period.  The most scholarly written charter will
>have little or no effect on the newsgroup after it is created unless
>the newsgroup is dominated by net police waiting to pounce on anyone
>that posts an article on a subject that does not conform to someone's
>ideal politically correct charter.

    Actually, the more verbose the charter the less people reading ONLY
the CFV will want to vote for the group.

>The point is that there are people out there who think that they are
>of a native culuture regardless of how native I think they may be.
>I would like to hear from them.  I would like to hear about them.  I
>would like to know more about their history and culture, and how they
>are dealing with the here-and-now.

    I suppose that I don't have much of a problem with this. As long as
the CFV is posted to enough soc.culture.* groups to give those people
who might have an interest in seeing this group a chance to cast their
vote. I'm sure that there are a large number of people who might want to
have a say, but don't read news.groups, alt.native or s.c.misc.

>So, all of this rambling means that if I were to write a charter it
>would be very short.  Something like:

>---
>Soc.culture.native is for discussion of by for and or about all the
>native peoples of the earth and their cultures.  Their past, present,
>and hopefully, the future of their culture and how they manage to deal
>with the so-called, modern world is all considered within the scope of
>this newsgroup.

>Discussion of who is or is not a "native" is specificly not encouraged.
>---

    Sounds good except the first sentence trips over itself. How about
changing it to something like:

Soc.culture.native will be a newsgroup devoted to the discussion of
topics realting to all of the native peoples of the earth and their
cultures. 

    The rest of the "charter" sounds pretty good to me.

-Hades
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Newsgroups: news.groups