From: jabba@deathstar.Stanford.EDU (Richard Charles Graves)
Subject: Re: RFD: soc.culture.latin-america.soc.culture.latin-america
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 07:30:53 GMT


Responding to my posts, in article
<1992Aug17.223358.27682@Csli.Stanford.EDU> delval@Csli.Stanford.EDU
(Alvaro del Val) writes:

> I think you are defining both groups too
> narrowly. In a nutshell, I think that everything related to LA
> politics can fit in t.p.la, not just US policy towards LA.

Agreed.  This is a somewhat artificial distinction, but still with
some validity.  I do think that the reverse is valid: that questions
along the lines of whether U.S. liberals/conservatives should
support/oppose a given U.S. policy, should definitely go to t.p.la.
t.p.la wouldn't be limited to these issues, though.

> Given this,
> your comments about the intended audience and posters are out of
> place: anybody interested in LA politics will read and post to the
> group, obviously. You seem to want to make the split along "how
> latinamericans see themselves" vs.  "how others see Latin America"
> lines, and oddly enough, politics is supposed to be restricted to the
> "how others see Latin America" group, which surely makes no sense.

Right.  Again, I was primarily thinking of how to define s.c.la, not
t.p.la.  I believe that soc.culture groups generally are and should be
characterized/maybe dominated? by the pov of the culture involved.
The split I'm trying to get at is not segregating people or issues,
but separating pov's.  Hmm... this is starting to make less sense, even
to me.
My idea was that soc.culture groups are/should be filled with
people of the relevant soc&culture, but that politics will inevitably
be discussed.  Assuming the s.c.la audience is distinct in background
and maybe citizenship, they will be interested in different issues
and approaches than the more general audience in t.p.la.

> Finally, spanish, portuguese and english should be the languages for
                    ^^^^^^^^^^
Oops, sorry I left that out.

> *both* groups. Because of the IPS posts, english *might* turn out to
> be the dominant language in tp.la, but the group's charter should
> certainly not include a restriction to english.

Based on the interest in the ips posts and the type of posts s.c.la has
received in the last month, I'm *certain* that english will be dominant
in a future t.p.la.  I wouldn't want to demand an "English-Only"
group, but I would expect that for someone to be able to follow t.p.la
at all, he or she'd have to be comfortable with english; conversely, I'd
expect a large number of t.p.la readers with little or no knowledge of
spanish or portuguese.  If the group gets a broad readership, then,
a spanish thread might make sense to only one-fourth the audience,
a portuguese thread to maybe a tenth.  I could be wrong, of course.

I also think that if someone is only comfortable posting in spanish
or portuguese, then that post may also require soc/culture
familiarity which would make it appropriate for s.c.la.  Not sure
about this last though.

> As for
> soc.culture.latin-america, I would simply define it as "anything which
> doesn't fit in t.p.la."

Funny, I was trying to define t.p.la as "anything which doesn't fit in
s.c.la."  I think we need to define both more broadly than I suggest,
but also with some clarity.  I'm out of time and ideas right now; we'll
see what other people say.

One thing that does worry me is whether t.p.la is too broadly defined
and will become overcrowded.  But this is an odd concern, since anything
is an improvement over the current suituation in which there is NO group
where e.g. news/comment on US policy in latin america belongs
(alt.progressive, misc.activism.prog, and talk.politics have dealt with
this, but are all very crowded).

Since this is getting somewhere, tomorrow or the next day I or somebody
else should broaden the newsgroups involved to include alt.progressive,
misc.activism.progressive, talk.politics, soc.culture.mexican, and ?
And also change the title to RFD: talk.politics.latin-america.
I'd prefer someone else make this official since I feel "tainted" by my
initial anti-ips flameage.


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| rich graves, stanfd res affairs mac tech, and occasional senior, poli sci |
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