From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Soc.Motss.* (was Re: new newsgroup proposal:talk.politics.motss)
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 01:24:42 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.85156.27689@ms.uky.edu>
kherron@ms.uky.edu (Kenneth Herron) writes:

[Note: I have dropped talk.politics.misc from the
 newsgroups line and changed the distribution to world.
 What we do in soc.motss is our business, not the business
 of the group I dropped.  In addition, the discussion should
 be carried on among our worldwide cohort.]

>allan@hico2.westmark.com (Allan Kugel) writes:

>>According to some e-mail replys, a group
>>talk.politics.homosexuality exists.  However, having checked
>>hico2's active and newsgroup files, that group does not
>>exist HERE.

That's because you were misinformed: there *is* a group
called alt.politics.homosexuality, though the alt hierarchy
is not carried everywhere.

I'm sorry, but I do not have the facilities for conducting
the voting process required for official establishment of
new newsgroups.

I don't think that alt.politics.homosexuality is an
appropriate forum for the primary constituency of soc.motss,
though that may have been the intent of its creator, which
if I recall correctly was Roger Klorese.

I think the time has indeed come for a division.  There is a
tendency to overdo these things, I've observed over the
years, creating too many niches for constituencies that are
too narrowly defined.

We've had parts of this discussion before, but taking that
into account, I propose a four-group division:

soc.motss.coping

   The coming-out stories, dealing with parents, dealing
   with other individuals who have important roles in our
   lives, including us ourselves.

soc.motss.politics

   Discussions of interest to our political lives.  Phobes
   not welcome *at all*.  No debates over "is it OK to be
   queer?"

soc.motss.politics.documents

   The famous Brian Blumberg offerings, letters received and
   sent, manifestos, texts of laws pro and con, newspaper
   and other media accounts, etc.

soc.motss.misc

   The traditional fare, from opera stars to recipe books to
   movie and pop-music icons to rodents in the rectum.


In addition, since I'm bothering, I think it's time for a
little more discipline in the mechanics of posting, for
self-restraint in cross-posting and responding to
cross-posts, for managing the Subject line with *far*
greater attention to actual content.  These are not
difficult things to do, they just require a bit of
familiarization for new people and a very few moments of
consideration for readers before sending a posting off to
the world.

I've stopped reading, for the most part.  I use a kill file
to find references to me by my first name (I'm not
interested in people who are so rude as to refer to me by my
last name only), and otherwise I very quickly scan the
threaded subject headers, looking for topics and people I
may be interested in.  It's no longer possible, for me, to
read everything.

In terms of overall content, it seems to me there has been a
*very* steep decline in average quality in soc.motss
postings, the major culprit of which I see as the
cross-posting evil.  I doubt the approach of Christmas (our
annual scourge) or the end of many college semesters have
much to do with it, but I don't recall quite this much
mean-spiritedness ever having inhabited the group before.
Nor does it seem to be one of the traditional phases we've
gone through in the past; I think (whatever the reason) it's
*actually* going badly downhill.  By myself, I could do
nothing to change that, but if enough people were to make an
effort, it could be better for all or nearly all.

-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
[Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888]
[---------> Discrimination, Bigotry, and Hate are not Family Values <---------]
Newsgroups: news.groups