From: woody@bdrc.bd.com (Woody Muller)
Newsgroups: news.groups,misc.legal
Subject: Re: RFD: misc.legal.family moderated
Date: 1 Sep 92 18:00:09 GMT
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Becton Dickinson Rsrch Cntr, RTP, NC

In article <1992Aug31.201619.15076@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
 writes:

>On the other hand, the problem disappeared as soon as misc.legal regulars
>addressed the argument.  I haven't seen a post on the "child support is
>completely outside the realm of standard legal theory" topic since I posted
>a short section from my Farnsworth on point.

Whether "standard legal theory" covers family law may or may not be of
interest to you and/or misc.legal -- that is for you to decide.  The
proponents of misc.legal.family are seeking discussion of a more pragmatic
nature than is usually deemed welcome in misc.legal.  That nobody
responded to your Farnsworth hardly leads to the conclusion that
misc.legal.family should not be created -- what is shows is people
respecting requests from misc.legal to cut down on crossposts.

>  In fact, I even checked in some
>of the other cross-posted groups, and the legal arguments dropped out
>completely.

Perhaps within the scope of misc.legal's definitions this is true.  From
the standpoint of people speaking pragmatically about handling specific or
hypothetical legal situations, there is no such lack of interest.

>  The main problem was one poster continuously posting non
>sequiturs with Funny Capitalization, and Mark and I kept e-mailing him
>until he stopped.

Yes.  This sort of thing is exactly why we are proposing a moderated group.
Misc.legal's recent experience with Nilges should help us all to understand
the value of a moderator.

>On the (fourth!) hand, such a newsgroup would conceivably help to clean
>up soc.men, though presumably that's what alt.child.support and
>alt.dads-rights and alt.abortion.inequity were created for.

Many Usenet sites, like this one, don't get the soc or alt hierarchies.
The original idea was to create alt.family-law as a moderated forum,
but some of us felt that a wider distribution was in order, hence this
RFD for a misc group.

>Spillover's
>spillover, and it's not going to stop no matter how finely misc.legal
>gets individuated.

I agree that initially the participants in the proposed new group will
be drawn largely from the groups you name.  I agree that much of
the proposed subject material is not of interest to misc.legal.  That
is why we are proposing a new moderated group -- the very fact that
it is moderated will even eliminate spillover from the new group to yours!

>In honesty, the jfk threads and Nilgean discourses into pornography were
>more annoying, and newsgroups already exist to deal with those issues,
>so I'm not sure what can be done.

Usenet discussions generate heat as well as light.  The whole subject
of family law is more emotionally charged than can even be imagined by
one who hasn't really experienced the scene first-hand.  We feel a
moderated forum will help increase the signal/noise ratio.  We think
misc.legal.family is an appropriate place in the Usenet hierarchy,
even though it isn't really a spinoff from misc.legal.  If the RFD or
vote fails, we will create alt.family-law or whatever, and continue to
cope with the inferior propagation of the alt net.  [This article is posted
from a site that gets neither alt nor soc.] 
-- 
--
woody@bdrc.bd.com
Disclaimer: I speak for myself only, and not for Becton Dickinson & Company.