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From mccombtm@netcom.com Wed Jan 4 18:40:55 1995 Path: uunet!bounce-back From: mccombtm@netcom.com (Todd Michel McComb) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.admin.misc,alt.config,bit.admin,misc.misc,rec.misc,soc.misc,rec.arts.misc,soc.history,sci.classics Subject: RFD: humanities.misc (New Hierarchy) Followup-To: news.groups Date: 4 Jan 1995 18:30:09 -0500 Organization: Arts & Humanities Hierarchy Proponents Lines: 440 Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net Message-ID: 3efb21$obo@rodan.UU.NET Reply-To: arts-humanities@netcom.com NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net Xref: uunet news.announce.newgroups:6134 news.groups:128270 news.admin.misc:28751 alt.config:58665 bit.admin:1191 misc.misc:27295 rec.misc:3539 soc.misc:5821 rec.arts.misc:3234 soc.history:43963 sci.classics:5656 REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION Proposed Group: humanities.misc Status: unmoderated Distribution: world-wide Proposer: mccombtm@netcom.com (Todd Michel McComb) This RFD proposes the creation of a new global news hierarchy. As such, it follows the guidelines set in the "How to create a new usenet newsgroup" FAQ regularly posted to news.announce.newgroups as closely as is possible under the circumstances. Given the nature of the proposal, this document is unfortunately quite long. This is not a call for votes. Please do not vote now. Contents: I. Introduction II. Nature of the humanities hierarchy III. Motivation/need for the humanities hierarchy IV. The name "humanities" V. Criteria for success VI. Propagation issues VII. humanities.misc VIII. Other groups I. Introduction This is a formal RFD (Request for Discussion) on the creation of a new hierarchy for the Arts & Humanities. The hierarchy name and blurb are proposed as follows: humanities - Professional and amateur topics in the arts & humanities If this proposal is successful, the humanities hierarchy will appear alongside the other seven news hierarchies handled by the moderator of news.announce.newgroups. The above blurb is designed to be in parallel with those of the other seven hierarchies. In response to a growing demand shown on news.groups, a mailing list (arts-humanities@netcom.com) was created to discuss this hierarchy. The existence of this list has been advertised several times on news.groups, and interested parties have been asked to join. The details of this proposal have been brought to this point via discussion on the above list -- this list was, and continues to be, open to the public. Those who are especially interested in this initiative and want to join the list should send mail to mccombtm@netcom.com (T. M. McComb) for inclusion. Copies of all preliminary proposals and polls can be obtained via the world wide web at the following URL: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mc/mccombtm/humanities/humanities.html or via anonymous FTP to ftp.netcom.com, directory: /pub/mc/mccombtm/humanities or by requesting this information from mccombtm@netcom.com via email. Private comments on this proposal should be sent to: arts-humanities@netcom.com Public comments should be posted to news.groups; followups are so directed. Due to the impossibility of including every relevant group in one cross-post, only the most significant (along with a random sampling) have been chosen. It is anticipated that this proposal will be forwarded frequently. Those who have comments should be sure that they are sent to either news.groups or arts-humanities@netcom.com, as appropriate. The discussion period will be three weeks; a CFV (Call for Votes) will follow shortly thereafter. II. Nature of the humanities hierarchy This proposal aims at presenting a parallel with the sci.* hierarchy, in which serious discussion with a scholarly emphasis would be the norm. Whereas sci.* generally covers those disciplines in which a student would receive a "BS" degree, humanities.* will generally cover those disciplines in which a student would receive a "BA" degree. This includes all of those subjects generally designated as humanities, as well as those subjects designated as "arts" in the academic sense. In short, this hierarchy aims to provide a serious environment for professional topics which are inappropriate for sci.*. The description of the hierarchy, given above, is extraordinarily simple, but a few words need to be written about the options involved. We believe that the local namespace will organize itself mostly along academic lines, although this belief is not to be imposed by the proposal and will be left for individual groups to sort out for themselves. Finally, while the impetus of this hierarchy is as an academic & professional forum, amateur contributions would be as valuable here as anywhere else in Usenet -- such is the justification for explicitly including the tag "amateur" in the descriptive blurb, as the connotations of this proposal might appear otherwise. Finally, several existing groups might find a more appropriate home in the humanities hierarchy. This proposal does *not* call for moving any groups into the new hierarchy. If the readers of an existing group want to move it, they could do so later, through the normal voting mechanism. Waiting for a decent propagation would certainly be prudent, though it may also be possible to alias existing groups into the new hierarchy and then phase out the old name. Again, this is an issue for later consideration on an individual basis. To reiterate, this proposal calls for no reorganization, though it includes the _potential_ for reorganization per the wishes of individual groups -- as determined by distinct proposals and votes. It is hoped that such proposals will soon follow. III. Motivation/need for the humanities hierarchy The demographics of the net have changed considerably in the past few years. Whereas the early population was involved professionally largely with computers & science, there is a growing number of people for whom the arts & humanities are of primary concern. This is true not only for the growing number of academic faculty who have adopted the net for discourse, but also for large numbers of people at major commercial sites who have an enthusiastic (and perhaps professional) interest in these subjects. The practice of forcing topics in the arts & humanities into various places in the seven existing hierarchies is causing increasing strain. For many of the current net users, these areas are professional rather than primarily recreational or social; and there will soon be too many of them to be realistically misc. More significantly, traditional subjects in the arts & humanities (including literature, history, art, etc.) are scattered throughout the namespace. This makes it difficult for someone perusing the list of newsgroups to gauge the style of discourse in a group, as well as making it difficult for news administrators to distinguish one type of group from another. The latter point implies extra work at academic sites or scholarly foundations which might desire to carry only professionally-oriented groups relevant to their work. A consolidated hierarchy for arts & humanities would vastly simplify this. Further, recent discussion of new newsgroups relating to subjects in the arts & humanities has shown how difficult the constraints of the namespace are becoming. Simply deciding on a hierarchy for these groups has been a subject of some controversy, whereas they would find an easy home in the humanities hierarchy. Many proponents of such groups have stated their trepidation at being next to groups with "high noise levels" in hierarchies like rec & soc, and fear that this might have negative repercussions on the level of discourse in their groups. A new hierarchy would give these groups an opportunity to establish their own environment. It has been suggested that any academic discipline could find a home in the sci.* hierarchy (and some have done so), interpreting "science" in the broadest sense. Despite this appeal to inertia and simplicity, the suggestion has not proved workable in practice. Subjects in the arts & humanities which desire an academic-level group have found that using sci is a source of contention -- in other words, though many people are supportive of this idea, many others are opposed, and this means that votes on such proposals will have an added level of hostility based on these namespace concerns. Group proponents have cause to worry that such contention would defeat a group proposal which was otherwise well-supported. Finally, adding a variety of academic disciplines to the sci.* hierarchy would make extra work for news administrators at sites which desire only discourse in the "hard" sciences, depending on their particular institutional goals. It is clear that adding a new hierarchy for the arts & humanities would simplify many current namespace concerns, as well as bring Usenet classification more in line with that used in other areas, such as libraries. Finally, it must be noted that response to the preliminary RFD was overwhelmingly on the positive side. IV. The name "humanities" As those of you who have been following this proposal are certainly aware, the majority of the discussion has been on the issue of the name of the hierarchy, rather than on its purpose. On the latter point, there is agreement. Many viable options were discussed, none having overwhelming support with respect to the others. After an agonizing decision process, and in consultation with the Arts & Humanities mailing list, I have resolved to proceed with "humanities" as the name given in this proposal. The events leading to that resolution will be summarized below. All documents mentioned here can be obtained via www or ftp, as described in the introduction to this proposal. After protracted discussion of the merits of different names on the Arts & Humanities mailing list, as well as in news.groups, it was observed that we were going in circles. A poll was proposed, and subsequently carried out by Ron Dippold of UVV. First, this poll demonstrated that the majority of those in favor of this hierarchy were unwilling to express a preference on names. This was shown by private email in which various supporters asked if there was any reason to vote on the name if they didn't really care, and underscored by the fact that a _minority_ of members of the Arts & Humanities mailing list voted in the poll. This indicated to me that most people were happy to leave the decision to someone else, so long as some "reasonable" choice was made. Indeed, this is in line with previous net evidence on voting in straw polls versus later group dynamics. As reported, the name "arts" was the winner in a close vote among several alternatives. Though it was our intention to proceed with the choice of the voters, this proved unworkable. As was pointed out in pre-poll discussion, arts is an elegant name, but provides substantial room for confusion and conflict -- confusion with the "fine arts" and conflict with the rec.arts.* subhierarchy, in which this term is used in a different sense (rather than the somewhat archaic sense in which it would define the purpose of this hierarchy). This meant that "arts" was the name producing the strongest reaction, both for and against. On top of this, it was revealed near the end of the name poll that a hierarchy with the name "arts" was already in use by a private organization. This fact was subsequently posted on news.groups. Though it is _possible_ that this conflict could be effectively resolved, the further difficulty added to the already strongly mixed feelings on "arts" caused us to remove it as a choice. So, it is an unfortunate fact that the name poll proved inconclusive. As long-time readers will know, polls are for informational purposes and have no binding effect or precedent. This led us to the point of making a choice, and using the information available to us. The first step was to follow up on the "transferable vote" scheme by eliminating "arts" from the poll and transfering those votes in accordance with this procedure. In this case, the name "hum" won in another close vote; the name "humanities" was second. The results of this second process are available by web/ftp as mentioned. The second step was to look more closely at the voters. Four members of "Group Advice" voted in the poll -- of these voters, "humanities" was the clear winner, being first on two ballots and second on the other two; "hum" was absent on three ballots as being an unacceptable choice, and listed as #8 (out of 10) on the fourth. This latter fact caused us to make a choice between "hum" and "humanities" -- knowing that "hum" was narrowly preferred by those people who voted in the poll (once the most popular choice was excluded, an exceptional procedure), and that it was also considered unacceptable (or nearly so) by the influential "Group Advice." At that point, I asked the (public!) Arts & Humanities mailing list to vote on the name which would be best for proceeding with the proposal, taking into account all of the information available to us. The results from the 19 members (not including myself) of that list: humanities - 10, hum - 5, (abstain - 4). And so we proceeded with "humanities" for this RFD. Further remarks on the choice of name.... Those people who prefer "hum" to "humanities" do so because of the length of the latter, and for two basic reasons: 1) the Usenet tradition of short names or abbreviations, and 2) the extra typing involved. To answer these objections: 1) While tradition is not to be discounted as an important factor, it is also the case that this hierarchy is hoping to attract larger numbers of new, non-technical readers (especially University faculty members in the humanities). As Usenet continues to expand, such abbreviations will be cryptic to an even larger number of readers, and with thousands of newsgroups, recognizability will be a bigger facter than it has been in the past. As such, this break with tradition is justified by its greater clarity and long-term practicality. 2) The issue of typing is overstated. Even the simplest newsreaders (like 'rn') do not require a newgroups name to be typed out in most circumstances. Also, when referring to groups, even those with three-letter hierarchy names are generally given one-letter abbreviations -- this practice can easily continue with humanities groups. It is also true that the 14-character technical limit applies only to individual fields of a newsgroup name, and this name will not place additional restriction on subsequent subhierarchy fields. Finally, it should be noted that the name of a newsgroup/hierarchy serves two purposes: to be easily identified as appropriate to readers/posters, and to be easily identified as inappropriate for those who are not interested. The name "humanities" unequivocally accomplishes these purposes. Hopefully this issue will fade into the background, and all supporters of the hierarchy will accept this choice, independently of their personal preferences. It is safe to say that after the hierarchy has been established, the name will appear to be natural. V. Criteria for success Since the current "Big 7" Usenet hierarchies were established in the "Great Renaming" several years ago, no new hierarchy has been added to this set (sometimes given the disputed title of "Usenet" proper). As such, there are no established criteria for success. That makes this proposal much more difficult, however inertia is no sufficient reason to reject it. In other words, the issue of what is required to add a new hierarchy needs to be addressed at some point, and might as well be addressed now. It has been suggested that the criteria for creating a new hierarchy be established in advance. However, this is impractical, as it is a clear fact of human nature that the only motivation sufficient for establishing such criteria is an actual proposal. Therefore, this proposal attempts to define its own criteria. We desire a place in parallel with the "Big 7" and hope to make it a "Big 8." After the humanities hierarchy is established, all actions on the new namespace would be carried out through the same channels and methods used by any group in the other seven hierarchies. No new organization is desired; no new guidelines are planned. No role is envisioned for the members of this mailing list after the hierarchy is created, except possibly to publicize it. We propose that a vote be carried out regarding the group humanities.misc, and that standard voting rules apply -- the proposal's success to be determined by a 2/3 majority of yes votes, and a difference of no from yes votes to exceed 100. This is deceptively simple. Since the misc group is virtually implied by the existence of the hierarchy, such a vote would be a vote on the hierarchy per se. Further, the resounding defeat of the first us.* proposal indicates that such a passing vote would be a meaningful achievement. As such, this method presents a straight-forward means to gauge public support, and reflects the only means for official sanction which is available through a public forum. We request, if the vote passes these "standard" criteria, that the moderator of news.announce.newgroups begin carrying proposals for groups in the humanities hierarchy, that these be listed in the periodic informational postings of new groups & pending proposals, and that they be provided with "newgroup" control messages when appropriate. Of course, this request includes the original humanities.misc group. VI. Propagation issues It is clear that merely passing this hierarchy will not instantly cause it to be carried by a large number of sites. This practical limitation must be accepted, and progress can be made in two ways. We request, if the proposal passes, that the moderator of news.announce.newgroups approve periodic posting of an announcement of the humanities hierarchy -- until such time as its distribution reaches "standard" levels. This would allow ordinary users to request that their site receive the hierarchy, and so provide both an "official" (news.announce.newgroups) and a "grass roots" (ordinary user requests) impetus to propagation. Documentation in the form of Usenet Guidelines will have to be changed to reflect existence of the new hierarchy over the course of months or years, as time allows. Note that there are now many large sites which make it a point to carry every hierarchy. As such, the humanities hierarchy will almost immediately have a relatively large base of potential subscribers. This will also allow individual sites access to its distribution, as these commerical providers span the net. We also believe that demand is likely to be heaviest at universities, and that such sites will provide a secondary distribution apparatus relatively quickly. It is well-known that the majority of sites require active intervention to begin receiving a new hierarchy, and patience from all concerned is the only practical course. Though updating their configuration files requires some work from news administrators, this is a one-time-only change which would require no additional labor after it was performed. A similar state of affairs holds for the moderator of news.announce .newgroups -- though proposals in the humanities hierarchy would need to be posted, this represents little incremental labor, as the majority of these proposals would have been previously undertaken in the other seven hierarchies. In fact, the potential for greater naming clarity which this proposal presents might allow a small reduction in workload, due to the greater smoothness with which new proposals could proceed. Finally -- at the suggestion of -- and in consultation with the moderator of news.announce.newgroups, a letter will be prepared and sent to the major "backbone" sites in order to pave the way for the propagation of the humanities hierarchy. Therefore, we feel justified in believing that this proposal does not make large demands on the time & effort of others, and that the transition period will be as painless as possible. VII. humanities.misc We propose that the first step in establishing this hierarchy be the creation of humanities.misc, a second-level "misc" group, as is prevalent throughout the Usenet namespace. The charter for this group is proposed as follows: *** humanities.misc (unmoderated) Miscellaneous discussion of subjects in the arts & humanities This group serves explicitly as a forum for those disciplines which do not have dedicated newsgroups. Other potential topics include: discussion on liberal arts curriculum, interdisciplinary studies, general issues of concern to practitioners of the arts & humanities. *** This group is proposed as unmoderated due to the futility of moderating a "misc" group. By creating only a misc group with this proposal, it is possible to vote directly on the hierarchy, rather than on the particular merits of any other groups which might be involved. The hierarchy would be populated with subject-oriented groups at a later date, on individual initiative. VIII. Other groups We seriously considered adding other newsgroups to this proposal. In keeping with our intention of letting normal newsgroup creation procedures determine the course of the hierarchy, these groups would have been those which were already proposed in news.groups and which were considered potentially appropriate for the new hierarchy -- by their proponents. The specific choices would have been coincidences of timing. Those proposals would have been appended to this one, with their original proponents as authors. However, the issue of "dependent" votes was raised, and there was serious concern on the mailing list that including these other groups would violate the spirit of that rule. Having multiple proposals ready at the same time also proved to be challenging. Therefore, we have decided that it will be better to proceed with an RFD/CFV only on humanities.misc. Proposals for specific topical groups, with different proponents, will be forthcoming -- shortly after the hierarchy has passed. Todd Michel McComb 14 December 1994 Revised 3 January 1995 From jamesm@dialogic.com Tue Mar 7 16:45:52 1995 Path: uunet!bounce-back From: jamesm@dialogic.com (Mark James) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.admin.misc,alt.config,bit.admin,misc.misc,rec.misc,soc.misc,rec.arts.misc,soc.history,sci.classics Subject: CFV: humanities.misc (New Hierarchy) Followup-To: poster Date: 7 Mar 1995 16:03:45 -0500 Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Lines: 524 Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net Expires: 6 Mar 1995 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: humanities.misc-cfv1@uunet.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net Xref: gs2.UU.NET news.announce.newgroups:6354 news.groups:137997 news.admin.misc:34734 alt.config:67470 bit.admin:1277 misc.misc:28893 rec.misc:3702 soc.misc:6055 rec.arts.misc:3659 soc.history:46118 sci.classics:6467 1st CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) Unmoderated group humanities.misc Newsgroups line: humanities.misc General topics in the arts & humanities. Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 5 March 1995. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. For voting questions only, contact Mark James jamesm@dialogic.com. For questions about the proposed group, contact the Arts & Humanities mailing list arts-humanities@netcom.com, or consult the other resources mentioned in the "Discussion" section below. NOTE: The creation of this group will result in a new hierarchy alongside the other seven currently administered via news.announce.newgroups. Future groups in this hierarchy will be proposed and voted upon in the manner of ordinary group proposals. Please consult the "Discussion" section (below) for an elaboration on the details of this proposal. CHARTER ------- The newsgroup humanities.misc will serve explicitly as a forum for those disciplines in the arts & humanities which do not have dedicated newsgroups. Other potential topics are: discussion of liberal arts curricula, interdisciplinary studies, general issues of concern to practitioners in the arts & humanities. Examples of general discussion topics include: appropriate course requirements in broadly based curricula, "design your own major" programs, and the debate concerning the future of government funding for the arts & humanities. RATIONALE --------- We believe that the time has come for a hierarchy devoted to the Arts & Humanities. Please see the "Discussion" section which follows the ballot for a full explanation of the rationale. Finally, note that the specific newsgroup humanities.misc serves primarily to inaugurate the humanities.* hierarchy, and is designed in keeping with the existence of *.misc groups in most of the other hierarchies. In addition, as seen clearly in the charter above, some potentially interesting topics could find a good home there. HOW TO VOTE ----------- If you did not read the RFD for humanities.misc, please read the "Discussion" section (below) before voting -- in order to inform yourself fully concerning the nature of this proposal. *** Send E-MAIL to: jamesm@dialogic.com Just Replying should work if you are not reading this on a mailing list. Your mail message should contain one of the following statements: I vote YES on humanities.misc I vote NO on humanities.misc You may also ABSTAIN in place of YES/NO - this will not affect the outcome. Anything else may be rejected by the automatic vote counting program. The votetaker will respond to your received ballots with a personal acknowledge- ment by mail - if you do not receive one within several days, try again. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly. One vote counted per person, no more than one per account. Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results list. *** Note that a passing vote will imply the creation of a humanities.* hierarchy. As such, ordinary voting "guidelines" which specify interest in the topic at hand should be interpreted in the broadest sense. Please vote according to your interest in the humanities.* hierarchy in general, and the merits of the full proposal. DISCUSSION (written by Todd Michel McComb) ---------- The following sections are taken almost entirely from the RFD posted to news.announce.newgroups on January 4th. A few minor revisions have been made, for issues of clarity. Given the nature of the proposal, this document is unfortunately quite long. Contents: I. Introduction II. Nature of the humanities hierarchy III. Motivation/need for the humanities hierarchy IV. The name "humanities" V. Criteria for success VI. Propagation issues VII. humanities.misc VIII. Other groups I. Introduction This is a formal proposal to create a new hierarchy for the Arts & Humanities. The hierarchy name and blurb are to be as follows: humanities - Professional and amateur topics in the arts & humanities If this proposal is successful, the humanities hierarchy will appear alongside the other seven news hierarchies handled by the moderator of news.announce.newgroups. The above blurb is designed to be in parallel with those of the other seven hierarchies. In response to a growing demand shown on news.groups, a mailing list (arts-humanities@netcom.com) was created to discuss this hierarchy. The existence of this list has been advertised several times on news.groups, and interested parties have been asked to join. The details of this proposal have been brought to this point in part by discussion on the above list -- this list was, and continues to be, open to the public. Those who are especially interested in this initiative and want to join the list should send mail to mccombtm@netcom.com (T. M. McComb) for inclusion. Copies of all preliminary proposals (including the original text of the RFD) and polls can be obtained via the world wide web at the following URL: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mc/mccombtm/humanities/humanities.html or via anonymous FTP to: ftp.netcom.com, directory: /pub/mc/mccombtm/humanities or by requesting this information from mccombtm@netcom.com via email. Due to the impossibility of including every relevant group in one cross-post, only the most significant (along with a random sampling) have been chosen. It is anticipated that this proposal will be forwarded frequently. Please send responses to the appropriate address. ***IMPORTANT: Votes should be sent according to the HOW TO VOTE section (above). II. Nature of the humanities hierarchy This proposal aims at creating a hierarchy in parallel with the sci.* hierarchy, a place for newsgroups based on serious discussion with a professional emphasis. For the purposes of this hierarchy, the term "humanities" will include all of those subjects generally designated as humanities, as well as those subjects designated as "arts" in the academic sense. In short, this hierarchy aims to provide a serious environment for scholarly topics which are inappropriate for sci.*. Exactly where this line is to be drawn will be decided by individual group proposals on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the norms of usenet group creation procedures. The description of the hierarchy, given above, is extraordinarily simple, but a few words need to be written about the options involved. We believe that the local namespace will organize itself mostly along academic lines, although this belief is not to be imposed by the proposal and will be left for individual groups to sort out for themselves. Finally, while the impetus of this hierarchy is as an academic & professional forum, amateur contributions would be as valuable here as anywhere else in Usenet -- such is the justification for explicitly including the tag "amateur" in the descriptive blurb, as the connotations of this proposal might appear otherwise. It should also be noted that this proposal refers to "arts & humanities" and does not specifically address the "social sciences." On this issue, we believe that such disciplines are already frequent in the sci.* hierarchy, and subsequent groups would have the option of using either of these hierarchies. Specific group placement will, of course, be determined by future group proposals with (presumably) different proponents. Finally, several existing groups might find a more appropriate home in the humanities hierarchy. This proposal does *not* call for moving any groups into the new hierarchy. If the readers of an existing group want to move it, they could do so later, through the normal voting mechanism. Waiting for a decent propagation would certainly be prudent, though it may also be possible to alias existing groups into the new hierarchy and then phase out the old name. Again, this is an issue for later consideration on an individual basis. To reiterate, this proposal calls for no reorganization, though it includes the _potential_ for reorganization per the wishes of individual groups -- as determined by distinct proposals and votes. It is hoped that such proposals will soon follow. Obviously: Any proposal for a new group, a reorganization, or a renaming of an existing group would follow ordinary Usenet rules -- meaning a 2/3 majority, and 100 surplus yes votes. III. Motivation/need for the humanities hierarchy The demographics of the net have changed considerably in the past few years. Whereas the early population was involved professionally largely with computers & science, there is a growing number of people for whom the arts & humanities are of primary concern. This is true not only for the growing number of academic faculty who have adopted the net for discourse, but also for large numbers of people at major commercial sites who have an enthusiastic (and perhaps professional) interest in these subjects. The practice of forcing topics in the arts & humanities into various places in the seven existing hierarchies is causing increasing strain. For many of the current net users, these areas are professional rather than primarily recreational or social; and there will soon be too many of them to be realistically misc. More significantly, traditional subjects in the arts & humanities (including literature, history, art, etc.) are scattered throughout the namespace. This makes it difficult for someone perusing the list of newsgroups to gauge the style of discourse in a group, as well as making it difficult for news administrators to distinguish one type of group from another. The latter point implies extra work at academic sites or scholarly foundations which might desire to carry only professionally-oriented groups relevant to their work. A consolidated hierarchy for arts & humanities would vastly simplify this. Further, recent discussion of new newsgroups relating to subjects in the arts & humanities has shown how difficult the constraints of the namespace are becoming. Simply deciding on a hierarchy for these groups has been a subject of some controversy, whereas they would find an easy home in the humanities hierarchy. Many proponents of such groups have stated their trepidation at being next to groups with "high noise levels" in hierarchies like rec & soc, and fear that this might have negative repercussions on the level of discourse in their groups. A new hierarchy would give these groups an opportunity to establish their own environment. It has been suggested that any academic discipline could find a home in the sci.* hierarchy (and some have done so), interpreting "science" in the broadest sense. Despite this appeal to inertia and simplicity, the suggestion has not proved workable in practice. Subjects in the arts & humanities which desire an academic-level group have found that using sci is a source of contention -- in other words, though many people are supportive of this idea, many others are opposed, and this means that votes on such proposals will have an added level of hostility based on these namespace concerns. Group proponents have cause to worry that such contention would defeat a group proposal which was otherwise well-supported. Finally, adding a variety of academic disciplines to the sci.* hierarchy would make extra work for news administrators at sites which desire only discourse in the "hard" sciences, depending on their particular institutional goals. It is clear that adding a new hierarchy for the arts & humanities would simplify many current namespace concerns, as well as bring Usenet classification more in line with that used in other areas, such as libraries. Finally, it must be noted that response to the RFD was overwhelmingly on the positive side. IV. The name "humanities" As those of you who have been following this proposal are certainly aware, the majority of the discussion has been on the issue of the name of the hierarchy, rather than on its purpose. On the latter point, there is agreement. Many viable options were discussed, none having overwhelming support with respect to the others. After an agonizing decision process, and in consultation with the Arts & Humanities mailing list, I have resolved to proceed with "humanities" as the name given in this proposal. The events leading to that resolution will be summarized below. All documents mentioned here can be obtained via www or ftp, as described in the introduction to this proposal. After protracted discussion of the merits of different names on the Arts & Humanities mailing list, as well as in news.groups, it was observed that we were going in circles. A poll was proposed, and subsequently carried out by Ron Dippold of UVV. First, this poll demonstrated that the majority of those in favor of this hierarchy were unwilling to express a preference on names. This was shown by private email in which various supporters asked if there was any reason to vote on the name if they didn't really care, and underscored by the fact that a _minority_ of members of the Arts & Humanities mailing list voted in the poll. This indicated to me that most people were happy to leave the decision to someone else, so long as some "reasonable" choice was made. Indeed, this is in line with previous net evidence on voting in straw polls versus later group dynamics. As reported, the name "arts" was the winner in a close vote among several alternatives. Though it was our intention to proceed with the choice of the voters, this proved unworkable. As was pointed out in pre-poll discussion, arts is an elegant name, but provides substantial room for confusion and conflict -- confusion with the "fine arts" and conflict with the rec.arts.* subhierarchy, in which this term is used in a different sense (rather than the somewhat archaic sense in which it would define the purpose of this hierarchy). (The mention of "fine arts" is only in the context of the hierarchy not being *exclusively* for the fine arts; no prohibition against including these subjects is intended.) This meant that "arts" was the name producing the strongest reaction, both for and against. On top of this, it was revealed near the end of the name poll that a hierarchy with the name "arts" was already in use by a private organization. This fact was subsequently posted on news.groups. Though it is _possible_ that this conflict could be effectively resolved, the further difficulty added to the already strongly mixed feelings on "arts" caused us to remove it as a choice. So, it is an unfortunate fact that the name poll proved inconclusive. As long-time readers will know, polls are for informational purposes and have no binding effect or precedent. This led us to the point of making a choice, and using the information available to us. The first step was to follow up on the "transferable vote" scheme by eliminating "arts" from the poll and transferring those votes in accordance with this procedure. In this case, the name "hum" won in another close vote; the name "humanities" was second. The results of this second process are available by web/ftp as mentioned. The second step was to look more closely at the voters. Four members of "Group Advice" voted in the poll -- of these voters, "humanities" was the clear winner, being first on two ballots and second on the other two; "hum" was absent on three ballots as being an unacceptable choice, and listed as #8 (out of 10) on the fourth. This latter fact caused us to make a choice between "hum" and "humanities" -- knowing that "hum" was narrowly preferred by those people who voted in the poll (once the most popular choice was excluded, an exceptional procedure), and that it was also considered unacceptable (or nearly so) by the influential "Group Advice." At that point, I asked the (public!) Arts & Humanities mailing list to vote on the name which would be best for proceeding with the proposal, taking into account all of the information available to us. The results from the 19 members (not including myself) of that list: humanities - 10, hum - 5, (abstain - 4). And so we proceeded with "humanities" for the RFD, and now the CFV. Further remarks on the choice of name.... Those people who prefer "hum" to "humanities" do so because of the length of the latter, and for two basic reasons: 1) the Usenet tradition of short names or abbreviations, and 2) the extra typing involved. To answer these objections: 1) While tradition is not to be discounted as an important factor, it is also the case that this hierarchy is hoping to attract larger numbers of new, non-technical readers (especially University faculty members in the humanities). As Usenet continues to expand, such abbreviations will be cryptic to an even larger number of readers, and with thousands of newsgroups, recognizability will be a bigger factor than it has been in the past. As such, this break with tradition is justified by its greater clarity and long-term practicality. 2) The issue of typing is overstated. Even the simplest newsreaders (like 'rn') do not require a newgroups name to be typed out in most circumstances. Also, when referring to groups, even those with three-letter hierarchy names are generally given one-letter abbreviations -- this practice can easily continue with humanities groups. It is also true that the 14-character technical limit applies only to individual fields of a newsgroup name, and this name will not place additional restriction on subsequent subhierarchy fields. It should be noted that the name of a newsgroup/hierarchy serves two purposes: to be easily identified as appropriate to readers/posters, and to be easily identified as inappropriate for those who are not interested. The name "humanities" unequivocally accomplishes these purposes. Hopefully this issue will fade into the background, and all supporters of the hierarchy will accept this choice, independently of their personal preferences. It is safe to say that after the hierarchy has been established, the name will appear to be natural. Finally, arguments about the name during the RFD period were minimal, with advocates of "humanities" being at least as numerous as detractors. V. Criteria for success Since the current "Big 7" Usenet hierarchies were established in the "Great Renaming" several years ago, no new hierarchy has been added to this set (sometimes given the disputed title of "Usenet" proper). As such, there are no established criteria for success. That makes this proposal much more difficult, however inertia is no sufficient reason to reject it. In other words, the issue of what is required to add a new hierarchy needs to be addressed at some point, and might as well be addressed now. It has been suggested that the criteria for creating a new hierarchy be established in advance. However, this is impractical, as it is a clear fact of human nature that the only motivation sufficient for establishing such criteria is an actual proposal. Therefore, this proposal attempts to define its own criteria. We desire a place in parallel with the "Big 7" and hope to make it a "Big 8." After the humanities hierarchy is established, all actions on the new namespace would be carried out through the same channels and methods used by any group in the other seven hierarchies. No new organization is desired; no new guidelines are planned. No role is envisioned for the members of this mailing list after the hierarchy is created, except possibly to publicize it. We propose that a vote be carried out regarding the group humanities.misc, and that standard voting rules apply -- the proposal's success to be determined by a 2/3 majority of yes votes, and a difference of no from yes votes to exceed 100. This is deceptively simple. Since the misc group is virtually implied by the existence of the hierarchy, such a vote would be a vote on the hierarchy per se. Further, the resounding defeat of the first us.* proposal indicates that such a passing vote would be a meaningful achievement. As such, this method presents a straight-forward means to gauge public support, and reflects the only means for official sanction which is available through a public forum. We request, if the vote passes these "standard" criteria, that the moderator of news.announce.newgroups begin carrying proposals for groups in the humanities hierarchy, that these be listed in the periodic informational postings of new groups & pending proposals, and that they be provided with "newgroup" control messages when appropriate. Of course, this request includes the original humanities.misc group. VI. Propagation issues It is clear that merely passing this hierarchy will not instantly cause it to be carried by a large number of sites. This practical limitation must be accepted, and progress can be made in two ways. We request, if the proposal passes, that the moderator of news.announce.newgroups approve periodic posting of an announcement of the humanities hierarchy -- until such time as its distribution reaches "standard" levels. This would allow ordinary users to request that their site receive the hierarchy, and so provide both an "official" (news.announce.newgroups) and a "grass roots" (ordinary user requests) impetus to propagation. Documentation in the form of Usenet Guidelines will have to be changed to reflect existence of the new hierarchy over the course of months or years, as time allows. Note that there are now many large sites which make it a point to carry every hierarchy. As such, the humanities hierarchy will almost immediately have a relatively large base of potential subscribers. This will also allow individual sites access to its distribution, as these commercial providers span the net. We also believe that demand is likely to be heaviest at universities, and that such sites will provide a secondary distribution apparatus relatively quickly. It is well-known that the majority of sites require active intervention to begin receiving a new hierarchy, and patience from all concerned is the only practical course. Though updating their configuration files requires some work from news administrators, this is a one-time-only change which would require no additional labor after it was performed. A similar state of affairs holds for the moderator of news.announce .newgroups -- though proposals in the humanities hierarchy would need to be posted, this represents little incremental labor, as the majority of these proposals would have been previously undertaken in the other seven hierarchies. In fact, the potential for greater naming clarity which this proposal presents might allow a small reduction in workload, due to the greater smoothness with which new proposals could proceed. Finally, at the suggestion of, and in consultation with, the moderator of news.announce.newgroups, a letter will be prepared and sent to the major "backbone" sites in order to pave the way for the propagation of the humanities hierarchy. Therefore, we feel justified in believing that this proposal does not make large demands on the time & effort of others, and that the transition period will be as painless as possible. VII. humanities.misc We propose that the first step in establishing this hierarchy be the creation of humanities.misc, a second-level "misc" group, as is prevalent throughout the Usenet namespace. The charter for this group is given above, in the "Charter" section of the CFV. The group is proposed as unmoderated due to the futility of moderating a "misc" group. By creating only a misc group with this proposal, it is possible to vote directly on the hierarchy, rather than on the particular merits of any other groups which might be involved. The hierarchy would be populated with subject-oriented groups at a later date, on individual initiative. VIII. Other groups We seriously considered adding other newsgroups to this proposal. In keeping with our intention of letting normal newsgroup creation procedures determine the course of the hierarchy, these groups would have been those which were already proposed in news.groups and which were considered potentially appropriate for the new hierarchy -- by their proponents. The specific choices would have been coincidences of timing. Those proposals would have been appended to this one, with their original proponents as authors. However, the issue of "dependent" votes was raised, and there was serious concern on the mailing list that including these other groups would violate the spirit of that rule. Having multiple proposals ready at the same time also proved to be challenging. Therefore, we have decided that it will be better to proceed with an RFD/CFV only on humanities.misc. Proposals for specific topical groups, with different proponents, will be forthcoming -- shortly after the hierarchy has passed. -- Mark James jamesm@dialogic.com Dialogic Corporation | "You have violated Robot's Rules +1 201 993 3000 ext 1438 | of Order and will be asked to [[ Opinions, errors etc. are my own ]] | leave the future immediately." From jamesm@dialogic.com Wed Mar 8 18:37:50 1995 Path: uunet!bounce-back From: jamesm@dialogic.com (Mark James) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.admin.misc,alt.config,bit.admin,misc.misc,rec.misc,soc.misc,rec.arts.misc,soc.history,sci.classics Subject: CFV: humanities.misc (New Hierarchy) Supersedes: humanities.misc-cfv1@uunet.uu.net Followup-To: poster Date: 7 Mar 1995 19:15:57 -0500 Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Lines: 523 Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net Expires: 6 Apr 1995 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: humanities.misc-cfv1.1@uunet.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net Xref: gs2.UU.NET news.announce.newgroups:6375 news.groups:138044 news.admin.misc:34771 alt.config:67502 bit.admin:1278 misc.misc:28902 rec.misc:3703 soc.misc:6061 rec.arts.misc:3664 soc.history:46123 sci.classics:6469 1st CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) unmoderated group humanities.misc Newsgroups line: humanities.misc General topics in the arts & humanities. Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 5 April 1995. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. For voting questions only, contact Mark James jamesm@dialogic.com. For questions about the proposed group, contact the Arts & Humanities mailing list arts-humanities@netcom.com, or consult the other resources mentioned in the "Discussion" section below. NOTE: The creation of this group will result in a new hierarchy alongside the other seven currently administered via news.announce.newgroups. Future groups in this hierarchy will be proposed and voted upon in the manner of ordinary group proposals. Please consult the "Discussion" section (below) for an elaboration on the details of this proposal. CHARTER ------- The newsgroup humanities.misc will serve explicitly as a forum for those disciplines in the arts & humanities which do not have dedicated newsgroups. Other potential topics are: discussion of liberal arts curricula, interdisciplinary studies, general issues of concern to practitioners in the arts & humanities. Examples of general discussion topics include: appropriate course requirements in broadly based curricula, "design your own major" programs, and the debate concerning the future of government funding for the arts & humanities. RATIONALE --------- We believe that the time has come for a hierarchy devoted to the Arts & Humanities. Please see the "Discussion" section which follows the ballot for a full explanation of the rationale. Finally, note that the specific newsgroup humanities.misc serves primarily to inaugurate the humanities.* hierarchy, and is designed in keeping with the existence of *.misc groups in most of the other hierarchies. In addition, as seen clearly in the charter above, some potentially interesting topics could find a good home there. HOW TO VOTE ----------- If you did not read the RFD for humanities.misc, please read the "Discussion" section (below) before voting -- in order to inform yourself fully concerning the nature of this proposal. *** Send E-MAIL to: jamesm@dialogic.com Just Replying should work if you are not reading this on a mailing list. Your mail message should contain one of the following statements: I vote YES on humanities.misc I vote NO on humanities.misc You may also ABSTAIN in place of YES/NO - this will not affect the outcome. Anything else may be rejected by the automatic vote counting program. The votetaker will respond to your received ballots with a personal acknowledge- ment by mail - if you do not receive one within several days, try again. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly. One vote counted per person, no more than one per account. Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results list. *** Note that a passing vote will imply the creation of a humanities.* hierarchy. As such, ordinary voting "guidelines" which specify interest in the topic at hand should be interpreted in the broadest sense. Please vote according to your interest in the humanities.* hierarchy in general, and the merits of the full proposal. DISCUSSION (written by Todd Michel McComb) ---------- The following sections are taken almost entirely from the RFD posted to news.announce.newgroups on January 4th. A few minor revisions have been made, for issues of clarity. Given the nature of the proposal, this document is unfortunately quite long. Contents: I. Introduction II. Nature of the humanities hierarchy III. Motivation/need for the humanities hierarchy IV. The name "humanities" V. Criteria for success VI. Propagation issues VII. humanities.misc VIII. Other groups I. Introduction This is a formal proposal to create a new hierarchy for the Arts & Humanities. The hierarchy name and blurb are to be as follows: humanities - Professional and amateur topics in the arts & humanities If this proposal is successful, the humanities hierarchy will appear alongside the other seven news hierarchies handled by the moderator of news.announce.newgroups. The above blurb is designed to be in parallel with those of the other seven hierarchies. In response to a growing demand shown on news.groups, a mailing list (arts-humanities@netcom.com) was created to discuss this hierarchy. The existence of this list has been advertised several times on news.groups, and interested parties have been asked to join. The details of this proposal have been brought to this point in part by discussion on the above list -- this list was, and continues to be, open to the public. Those who are especially interested in this initiative and want to join the list should send mail to mccombtm@netcom.com (T. M. McComb) for inclusion. Copies of all preliminary proposals (including the original text of the RFD) and polls can be obtained via the world wide web at the following URL: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mc/mccombtm/humanities/humanities.html or via anonymous FTP to: ftp.netcom.com, directory: /pub/mc/mccombtm/humanities or by requesting this information from mccombtm@netcom.com via email. Due to the impossibility of including every relevant group in one cross-post, only the most significant (along with a random sampling) have been chosen. It is anticipated that this proposal will be forwarded frequently. Please send responses to the appropriate address. ***IMPORTANT: Votes should be sent according to the HOW TO VOTE section (above). II. Nature of the humanities hierarchy This proposal aims at creating a hierarchy in parallel with the sci.* hierarchy, a place for newsgroups based on serious discussion with a professional emphasis. For the purposes of this hierarchy, the term "humanities" will include all of those subjects generally designated as humanities, as well as those subjects designated as "arts" in the academic sense. In short, this hierarchy aims to provide a serious environment for scholarly topics which are inappropriate for sci.*. Exactly where this line is to be drawn will be decided by individual group proposals on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the norms of usenet group creation procedures. The description of the hierarchy, given above, is extraordinarily simple, but a few words need to be written about the options involved. We believe that the local namespace will organize itself mostly along academic lines, although this belief is not to be imposed by the proposal and will be left for individual groups to sort out for themselves. Finally, while the impetus of this hierarchy is as an academic & professional forum, amateur contributions would be as valuable here as anywhere else in Usenet -- such is the justification for explicitly including the tag "amateur" in the descriptive blurb, as the connotations of this proposal might appear otherwise. It should also be noted that this proposal refers to "arts & humanities" and does not specifically address the "social sciences." On this issue, we believe that such disciplines are already frequent in the sci.* hierarchy, and subsequent groups would have the option of using either of these hierarchies. Specific group placement will, of course, be determined by future group proposals with (presumably) different proponents. Finally, several existing groups might find a more appropriate home in the humanities hierarchy. This proposal does *not* call for moving any groups into the new hierarchy. If the readers of an existing group want to move it, they could do so later, through the normal voting mechanism. Waiting for a decent propagation would certainly be prudent, though it may also be possible to alias existing groups into the new hierarchy and then phase out the old name. Again, this is an issue for later consideration on an individual basis. To reiterate, this proposal calls for no reorganization, though it includes the _potential_ for reorganization per the wishes of individual groups -- as determined by distinct proposals and votes. It is hoped that such proposals will soon follow. Obviously: Any proposal for a new group, a reorganization, or a renaming of an existing group would follow ordinary Usenet rules -- meaning a 2/3 majority, and 100 surplus yes votes. III. Motivation/need for the humanities hierarchy The demographics of the net have changed considerably in the past few years. Whereas the early population was involved professionally largely with computers & science, there is a growing number of people for whom the arts & humanities are of primary concern. This is true not only for the growing number of academic faculty who have adopted the net for discourse, but also for large numbers of people at major commercial sites who have an enthusiastic (and perhaps professional) interest in these subjects. The practice of forcing topics in the arts & humanities into various places in the seven existing hierarchies is causing increasing strain. For many of the current net users, these areas are professional rather than primarily recreational or social; and there will soon be too many of them to be realistically misc. More significantly, traditional subjects in the arts & humanities (including literature, history, art, etc.) are scattered throughout the namespace. This makes it difficult for someone perusing the list of newsgroups to gauge the style of discourse in a group, as well as making it difficult for news administrators to distinguish one type of group from another. The latter point implies extra work at academic sites or scholarly foundations which might desire to carry only professionally-oriented groups relevant to their work. A consolidated hierarchy for arts & humanities would vastly simplify this. Further, recent discussion of new newsgroups relating to subjects in the arts & humanities has shown how difficult the constraints of the namespace are becoming. Simply deciding on a hierarchy for these groups has been a subject of some controversy, whereas they would find an easy home in the humanities hierarchy. Many proponents of such groups have stated their trepidation at being next to groups with "high noise levels" in hierarchies like rec & soc, and fear that this might have negative repercussions on the level of discourse in their groups. A new hierarchy would give these groups an opportunity to establish their own environment. It has been suggested that any academic discipline could find a home in the sci.* hierarchy (and some have done so), interpreting "science" in the broadest sense. Despite this appeal to inertia and simplicity, the suggestion has not proved workable in practice. Subjects in the arts & humanities which desire an academic-level group have found that using sci is a source of contention -- in other words, though many people are supportive of this idea, many others are opposed, and this means that votes on such proposals will have an added level of hostility based on these namespace concerns. Group proponents have cause to worry that such contention would defeat a group proposal which was otherwise well-supported. Finally, adding a variety of academic disciplines to the sci.* hierarchy would make extra work for news administrators at sites which desire only discourse in the "hard" sciences, depending on their particular institutional goals. It is clear that adding a new hierarchy for the arts & humanities would simplify many current namespace concerns, as well as bring Usenet classification more in line with that used in other areas, such as libraries. Finally, it must be noted that response to the RFD was overwhelmingly on the positive side. IV. The name "humanities" As those of you who have been following this proposal are certainly aware, the majority of the discussion has been on the issue of the name of the hierarchy, rather than on its purpose. On the latter point, there is agreement. Many viable options were discussed, none having overwhelming support with respect to the others. After an agonizing decision process, and in consultation with the Arts & Humanities mailing list, I have resolved to proceed with "humanities" as the name given in this proposal. The events leading to that resolution will be summarized below. All documents mentioned here can be obtained via www or ftp, as described in the introduction to this proposal. After protracted discussion of the merits of different names on the Arts & Humanities mailing list, as well as in news.groups, it was observed that we were going in circles. A poll was proposed, and subsequently carried out by Ron Dippold of UVV. First, this poll demonstrated that the majority of those in favor of this hierarchy were unwilling to express a preference on names. This was shown by private email in which various supporters asked if there was any reason to vote on the name if they didn't really care, and underscored by the fact that a _minority_ of members of the Arts & Humanities mailing list voted in the poll. This indicated to me that most people were happy to leave the decision to someone else, so long as some "reasonable" choice was made. Indeed, this is in line with previous net evidence on voting in straw polls versus later group dynamics. As reported, the name "arts" was the winner in a close vote among several alternatives. Though it was our intention to proceed with the choice of the voters, this proved unworkable. As was pointed out in pre-poll discussion, arts is an elegant name, but provides substantial room for confusion and conflict -- confusion with the "fine arts" and conflict with the rec.arts.* subhierarchy, in which this term is used in a different sense (rather than the somewhat archaic sense in which it would define the purpose of this hierarchy). (The mention of "fine arts" is only in the context of the hierarchy not being *exclusively* for the fine arts; no prohibition against including these subjects is intended.) This meant that "arts" was the name producing the strongest reaction, both for and against. On top of this, it was revealed near the end of the name poll that a hierarchy with the name "arts" was already in use by a private organization. This fact was subsequently posted on news.groups. Though it is _possible_ that this conflict could be effectively resolved, the further difficulty added to the already strongly mixed feelings on "arts" caused us to remove it as a choice. So, it is an unfortunate fact that the name poll proved inconclusive. As long-time readers will know, polls are for informational purposes and have no binding effect or precedent. This led us to the point of making a choice, and using the information available to us. The first step was to follow up on the "transferable vote" scheme by eliminating "arts" from the poll and transferring those votes in accordance with this procedure. In this case, the name "hum" won in another close vote; the name "humanities" was second. The results of this second process are available by web/ftp as mentioned. The second step was to look more closely at the voters. Four members of "Group Advice" voted in the poll -- of these voters, "humanities" was the clear winner, being first on two ballots and second on the other two; "hum" was absent on three ballots as being an unacceptable choice, and listed as #8 (out of 10) on the fourth. This latter fact caused us to make a choice between "hum" and "humanities" -- knowing that "hum" was narrowly preferred by those people who voted in the poll (once the most popular choice was excluded, an exceptional procedure), and that it was also considered unacceptable (or nearly so) by the influential "Group Advice." At that point, I asked the (public!) Arts & Humanities mailing list to vote on the name which would be best for proceeding with the proposal, taking into account all of the information available to us. The results from the 19 members (not including myself) of that list: humanities - 10, hum - 5, (abstain - 4). And so we proceeded with "humanities" for the RFD, and now the CFV. Further remarks on the choice of name.... Those people who prefer "hum" to "humanities" do so because of the length of the latter, and for two basic reasons: 1) the Usenet tradition of short names or abbreviations, and 2) the extra typing involved. To answer these objections: 1) While tradition is not to be discounted as an important factor, it is also the case that this hierarchy is hoping to attract larger numbers of new, non-technical readers (especially University faculty members in the humanities). As Usenet continues to expand, such abbreviations will be cryptic to an even larger number of readers, and with thousands of newsgroups, recognizability will be a bigger factor than it has been in the past. As such, this break with tradition is justified by its greater clarity and long-term practicality. 2) The issue of typing is overstated. Even the simplest newsreaders (like 'rn') do not require a newgroups name to be typed out in most circumstances. Also, when referring to groups, even those with three-letter hierarchy names are generally given one-letter abbreviations -- this practice can easily continue with humanities groups. It is also true that the 14-character technical limit applies only to individual fields of a newsgroup name, and this name will not place additional restriction on subsequent subhierarchy fields. It should be noted that the name of a newsgroup/hierarchy serves two purposes: to be easily identified as appropriate to readers/posters, and to be easily identified as inappropriate for those who are not interested. The name "humanities" unequivocally accomplishes these purposes. Hopefully this issue will fade into the background, and all supporters of the hierarchy will accept this choice, independently of their personal preferences. It is safe to say that after the hierarchy has been established, the name will appear to be natural. Finally, arguments about the name during the RFD period were minimal, with advocates of "humanities" being at least as numerous as detractors. V. Criteria for success Since the current "Big 7" Usenet hierarchies were established in the "Great Renaming" several years ago, no new hierarchy has been added to this set (sometimes given the disputed title of "Usenet" proper). As such, there are no established criteria for success. That makes this proposal much more difficult, however inertia is no sufficient reason to reject it. In other words, the issue of what is required to add a new hierarchy needs to be addressed at some point, and might as well be addressed now. It has been suggested that the criteria for creating a new hierarchy be established in advance. However, this is impractical, as it is a clear fact of human nature that the only motivation sufficient for establishing such criteria is an actual proposal. Therefore, this proposal attempts to define its own criteria. We desire a place in parallel with the "Big 7" and hope to make it a "Big 8." After the humanities hierarchy is established, all actions on the new namespace would be carried out through the same channels and methods used by any group in the other seven hierarchies. No new organization is desired; no new guidelines are planned. No role is envisioned for the members of this mailing list after the hierarchy is created, except possibly to publicize it. We propose that a vote be carried out regarding the group humanities.misc, and that standard voting rules apply -- the proposal's success to be determined by a 2/3 majority of yes votes, and a difference of no from yes votes to exceed 100. This is deceptively simple. Since the misc group is virtually implied by the existence of the hierarchy, such a vote would be a vote on the hierarchy per se. Further, the resounding defeat of the first us.* proposal indicates that such a passing vote would be a meaningful achievement. As such, this method presents a straight-forward means to gauge public support, and reflects the only means for official sanction which is available through a public forum. We request, if the vote passes these "standard" criteria, that the moderator of news.announce.newgroups begin carrying proposals for groups in the humanities hierarchy, that these be listed in the periodic informational postings of new groups & pending proposals, and that they be provided with "newgroup" control messages when appropriate. Of course, this request includes the original humanities.misc group. VI. Propagation issues It is clear that merely passing this hierarchy will not instantly cause it to be carried by a large number of sites. This practical limitation must be accepted, and progress can be made in two ways. We request, if the proposal passes, that the moderator of news.announce.newgroups approve periodic posting of an announcement of the humanities hierarchy -- until such time as its distribution reaches "standard" levels. This would allow ordinary users to request that their site receive the hierarchy, and so provide both an "official" (news.announce.newgroups) and a "grass roots" (ordinary user requests) impetus to propagation. Documentation in the form of Usenet Guidelines will have to be changed to reflect existence of the new hierarchy over the course of months or years, as time allows. Note that there are now many large sites which make it a point to carry every hierarchy. As such, the humanities hierarchy will almost immediately have a relatively large base of potential subscribers. This will also allow individual sites access to its distribution, as these commercial providers span the net. We also believe that demand is likely to be heaviest at universities, and that such sites will provide a secondary distribution apparatus relatively quickly. It is well-known that the majority of sites require active intervention to begin receiving a new hierarchy, and patience from all concerned is the only practical course. Though updating their configuration files requires some work from news administrators, this is a one-time-only change which would require no additional labor after it was performed. A similar state of affairs holds for the moderator of news.announce .newgroups -- though proposals in the humanities hierarchy would need to be posted, this represents little incremental labor, as the majority of these proposals would have been previously undertaken in the other seven hierarchies. In fact, the potential for greater naming clarity which this proposal presents might allow a small reduction in workload, due to the greater smoothness with which new proposals could proceed. Finally, at the suggestion of, and in consultation with, the moderator of news.announce.newgroups, a letter will be prepared and sent to the major "backbone" sites in order to pave the way for the propagation of the humanities hierarchy. Therefore, we feel justified in believing that this proposal does not make large demands on the time & effort of others, and that the transition period will be as painless as possible. VII. humanities.misc We propose that the first step in establishing this hierarchy be the creation of humanities.misc, a second-level "misc" group, as is prevalent throughout the Usenet namespace. The charter for this group is given above, in the "Charter" section of the CFV. The group is proposed as unmoderated due to the futility of moderating a "misc" group. By creating only a misc group with this proposal, it is possible to vote directly on the hierarchy, rather than on the particular merits of any other groups which might be involved. The hierarchy would be populated with subject-oriented groups at a later date, on individual initiative. VIII. Other groups We seriously considered adding other newsgroups to this proposal. In keeping with our intention of letting normal newsgroup creation procedures determine the course of the hierarchy, these groups would have been those which were already proposed in news.groups and which were considered potentially appropriate for the new hierarchy -- by their proponents. The specific choices would have been coincidences of timing. Those proposals would have been appended to this one, with their original proponents as authors. However, the issue of "dependent" votes was raised, and there was serious concern on the mailing list that including these other groups would violate the spirit of that rule. Having multiple proposals ready at the same time also proved to be challenging. Therefore, we have decided that it will be better to proceed with an RFD/CFV only on humanities.misc. Proposals for specific topical groups, with different proponents, will be forthcoming -- shortly after the hierarchy has passed. -- Mark James jamesm@dialogic.com Dialogic Corporation | "You have violated Robot's Rules +1 201 993 3000 ext 1438 | of Order and will be asked to [[ Opinions, errors etc. are my own ]] | leave the future immediately." From jamesm@dialogic.com Wed Mar 22 16:24:36 1995 Path: uunet!bounce-back From: jamesm@dialogic.com (Mark James) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.admin.misc,alt.config,bit.admin,misc.misc,rec.misc,soc.misc,rec.arts.misc,soc.history,sci.classics Subject: 2nd CFV: humanities.misc (New Hierarchy) Supersedes: humanities.misc-cfv1.1@uunet.uu.net Followup-To: poster Date: 22 Mar 1995 15:58:22 -0500 Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Lines: 532 Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net Expires: 6 Apr 1995 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: humanities.misc-cfv2@uunet.uu.net References: humanities.misc-cfv1.1@uunet.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net Xref: gs2.UU.NET news.announce.newgroups:6489 news.groups:140802 news.admin.misc:36419 alt.config:69169 bit.admin:1301 misc.misc:29441 rec.misc:3760 soc.misc:6128 rec.arts.misc:3739 soc.history:46939 sci.classics:6688 2nd CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) Unmoderated group humanities.misc Newsgroups line: humanities.misc General topics in the arts & humanities. Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 5 April 1995. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. For voting questions only, contact Mark James jamesm@dialogic.com. For questions about the proposed group, contact the Arts & Humanities mailing list arts-humanities@netcom.com, or consult the other resources mentioned in the "Discussion" section below. NOTE: The creation of this group will result in a new hierarchy alongside the other seven currently administered via news.announce.newgroups. Future groups in this hierarchy will be proposed and voted upon in the manner of ordinary group proposals. Please consult the "Discussion" section (below) for an elaboration on the details of this proposal. CHARTER ------- The newsgroup humanities.misc will serve explicitly as a forum for those disciplines in the arts & humanities which do not have dedicated newsgroups. Other potential topics are: discussion of liberal arts curricula, interdisciplinary studies, general issues of concern to practitioners in the arts & humanities. Examples of general discussion topics include: appropriate course requirements in broadly based curricula, "design your own major" programs, and the debate concerning the future of government funding for the arts & humanities. RATIONALE --------- We believe that the time has come for a hierarchy devoted to the Arts & Humanities. Please see the "Discussion" section which follows the ballot for a full explanation of the rationale. Finally, note that the specific newsgroup humanities.misc serves primarily to inaugurate the humanities.* hierarchy, and is designed in keeping with the existence of *.misc groups in most of the other hierarchies. In addition, as seen clearly in the charter above, some potentially interesting topics could find a good home there. HOW TO VOTE ----------- If you did not read the RFD for humanities.misc, please read the "Discussion" section (below) before voting -- in order to inform yourself fully concerning the nature of this proposal. *** Send E-MAIL to: jamesm@dialogic.com Just Replying should work if you are not reading this on a mailing list. Your mail message should contain one of the following statements: I vote YES on humanities.misc I vote NO on humanities.misc You may also ABSTAIN in place of YES/NO - this will not affect the outcome. Anything else may be rejected by the automatic vote counting program. The votetaker will respond to your received ballots with a personal acknowledge- ment by mail - if you do not receive one within several days, try again. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly. One vote counted per person, no more than one per account. Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results list. *** Note that a passing vote will imply the creation of a humanities.* hierarchy. As such, ordinary voting "guidelines" which specify interest in the topic at hand should be interpreted in the broadest sense. Please vote according to your interest in the humanities.* hierarchy in general, and the merits of the full proposal. BOUNCED VOTE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ---------------------------- Vote acknowledgment messages to the following address have bounced. (The vote has been counted.) mmspence@gi33304.gpc.com (Mary-Mikell Spence) DISCUSSION (written by Todd Michel McComb) ---------- The following sections are taken almost entirely from the RFD posted to news.announce.newgroups on January 4th. A few minor revisions have been made, for issues of clarity. Given the nature of the proposal, this document is unfortunately quite long. Contents: I. Introduction II. Nature of the humanities hierarchy III. Motivation/need for the humanities hierarchy IV. The name "humanities" V. Criteria for success VI. Propagation issues VII. humanities.misc VIII. Other groups I. Introduction This is a formal proposal to create a new hierarchy for the Arts & Humanities. The hierarchy name and blurb are to be as follows: humanities - Professional and amateur topics in the arts & humanities If this proposal is successful, the humanities hierarchy will appear alongside the other seven news hierarchies handled by the moderator of news.announce.newgroups. The above blurb is designed to be in parallel with those of the other seven hierarchies. In response to a growing demand shown on news.groups, a mailing list (arts-humanities@netcom.com) was created to discuss this hierarchy. The existence of this list has been advertised several times on news.groups, and interested parties have been asked to join. The details of this proposal have been brought to this point in part by discussion on the above list -- this list was, and continues to be, open to the public. Those who are especially interested in this initiative and want to join the list should send mail to mccombtm@netcom.com (T. M. McComb) for inclusion. Copies of all preliminary proposals (including the original text of the RFD) and polls can be obtained via the world wide web at the following URL: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mc/mccombtm/humanities/humanities.html or via anonymous FTP to: ftp.netcom.com, directory: /pub/mc/mccombtm/humanities or by requesting this information from mccombtm@netcom.com via email. Due to the impossibility of including every relevant group in one cross-post, only the most significant (along with a random sampling) have been chosen. It is anticipated that this proposal will be forwarded frequently. Please send responses to the appropriate address. ***IMPORTANT: Votes should be sent according to the HOW TO VOTE section (above). II. Nature of the humanities hierarchy This proposal aims at creating a hierarchy in parallel with the sci.* hierarchy, a place for newsgroups based on serious discussion with a professional emphasis. For the purposes of this hierarchy, the term "humanities" will include all of those subjects generally designated as humanities, as well as those subjects designated as "arts" in the academic sense. In short, this hierarchy aims to provide a serious environment for scholarly topics which are inappropriate for sci.*. Exactly where this line is to be drawn will be decided by individual group proposals on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the norms of usenet group creation procedures. The description of the hierarchy, given above, is extraordinarily simple, but a few words need to be written about the options involved. We believe that the local namespace will organize itself mostly along academic lines, although this belief is not to be imposed by the proposal and will be left for individual groups to sort out for themselves. Finally, while the impetus of this hierarchy is as an academic & professional forum, amateur contributions would be as valuable here as anywhere else in Usenet -- such is the justification for explicitly including the tag "amateur" in the descriptive blurb, as the connotations of this proposal might appear otherwise. It should also be noted that this proposal refers to "arts & humanities" and does not specifically address the "social sciences." On this issue, we believe that such disciplines are already frequent in the sci.* hierarchy, and subsequent groups would have the option of using either of these hierarchies. Specific group placement will, of course, be determined by future group proposals with (presumably) different proponents. Finally, several existing groups might find a more appropriate home in the humanities hierarchy. This proposal does *not* call for moving any groups into the new hierarchy. If the readers of an existing group want to move it, they could do so later, through the normal voting mechanism. Waiting for a decent propagation would certainly be prudent, though it may also be possible to alias existing groups into the new hierarchy and then phase out the old name. Again, this is an issue for later consideration on an individual basis. To reiterate, this proposal calls for no reorganization, though it includes the _potential_ for reorganization per the wishes of individual groups -- as determined by distinct proposals and votes. It is hoped that such proposals will soon follow. Obviously: Any proposal for a new group, a reorganization, or a renaming of an existing group would follow ordinary Usenet rules -- meaning a 2/3 majority, and 100 surplus yes votes. III. Motivation/need for the humanities hierarchy The demographics of the net have changed considerably in the past few years. Whereas the early population was involved professionally largely with computers & science, there is a growing number of people for whom the arts & humanities are of primary concern. This is true not only for the growing number of academic faculty who have adopted the net for discourse, but also for large numbers of people at major commercial sites who have an enthusiastic (and perhaps professional) interest in these subjects. The practice of forcing topics in the arts & humanities into various places in the seven existing hierarchies is causing increasing strain. For many of the current net users, these areas are professional rather than primarily recreational or social; and there will soon be too many of them to be realistically misc. More significantly, traditional subjects in the arts & humanities (including literature, history, art, etc.) are scattered throughout the namespace. This makes it difficult for someone perusing the list of newsgroups to gauge the style of discourse in a group, as well as making it difficult for news administrators to distinguish one type of group from another. The latter point implies extra work at academic sites or scholarly foundations which might desire to carry only professionally-oriented groups relevant to their work. A consolidated hierarchy for arts & humanities would vastly simplify this. Further, recent discussion of new newsgroups relating to subjects in the arts & humanities has shown how difficult the constraints of the namespace are becoming. Simply deciding on a hierarchy for these groups has been a subject of some controversy, whereas they would find an easy home in the humanities hierarchy. Many proponents of such groups have stated their trepidation at being next to groups with "high noise levels" in hierarchies like rec & soc, and fear that this might have negative repercussions on the level of discourse in their groups. A new hierarchy would give these groups an opportunity to establish their own environment. It has been suggested that any academic discipline could find a home in the sci.* hierarchy (and some have done so), interpreting "science" in the broadest sense. Despite this appeal to inertia and simplicity, the suggestion has not proved workable in practice. Subjects in the arts & humanities which desire an academic-level group have found that using sci is a source of contention -- in other words, though many people are supportive of this idea, many others are opposed, and this means that votes on such proposals will have an added level of hostility based on these namespace concerns. Group proponents have cause to worry that such contention would defeat a group proposal which was otherwise well-supported. Finally, adding a variety of academic disciplines to the sci.* hierarchy would make extra work for news administrators at sites which desire only discourse in the "hard" sciences, depending on their particular institutional goals. It is clear that adding a new hierarchy for the arts & humanities would simplify many current namespace concerns, as well as bring Usenet classification more in line with that used in other areas, such as libraries. Finally, it must be noted that response to the RFD was overwhelmingly on the positive side. IV. The name "humanities" As those of you who have been following this proposal are certainly aware, the majority of the discussion has been on the issue of the name of the hierarchy, rather than on its purpose. On the latter point, there is agreement. Many viable options were discussed, none having overwhelming support with respect to the others. After an agonizing decision process, and in consultation with the Arts & Humanities mailing list, I have resolved to proceed with "humanities" as the name given in this proposal. The events leading to that resolution will be summarized below. All documents mentioned here can be obtained via www or ftp, as described in the introduction to this proposal. After protracted discussion of the merits of different names on the Arts & Humanities mailing list, as well as in news.groups, it was observed that we were going in circles. A poll was proposed, and subsequently carried out by Ron Dippold of UVV. First, this poll demonstrated that the majority of those in favor of this hierarchy were unwilling to express a preference on names. This was shown by private email in which various supporters asked if there was any reason to vote on the name if they didn't really care, and underscored by the fact that a _minority_ of members of the Arts & Humanities mailing list voted in the poll. This indicated to me that most people were happy to leave the decision to someone else, so long as some "reasonable" choice was made. Indeed, this is in line with previous net evidence on voting in straw polls versus later group dynamics. As reported, the name "arts" was the winner in a close vote among several alternatives. Though it was our intention to proceed with the choice of the voters, this proved unworkable. As was pointed out in pre-poll discussion, arts is an elegant name, but provides substantial room for confusion and conflict -- confusion with the "fine arts" and conflict with the rec.arts.* subhierarchy, in which this term is used in a different sense (rather than the somewhat archaic sense in which it would define the purpose of this hierarchy). (The mention of "fine arts" is only in the context of the hierarchy not being *exclusively* for the fine arts; no prohibition against including these subjects is intended.) This meant that "arts" was the name producing the strongest reaction, both for and against. On top of this, it was revealed near the end of the name poll that a hierarchy with the name "arts" was already in use by a private organization. This fact was subsequently posted on news.groups. Though it is _possible_ that this conflict could be effectively resolved, the further difficulty added to the already strongly mixed feelings on "arts" caused us to remove it as a choice. So, it is an unfortunate fact that the name poll proved inconclusive. As long-time readers will know, polls are for informational purposes and have no binding effect or precedent. This led us to the point of making a choice, and using the information available to us. The first step was to follow up on the "transferable vote" scheme by eliminating "arts" from the poll and transferring those votes in accordance with this procedure. In this case, the name "hum" won in another close vote; the name "humanities" was second. The results of this second process are available by web/ftp as mentioned. The second step was to look more closely at the voters. Four members of "Group Advice" voted in the poll -- of these voters, "humanities" was the clear winner, being first on two ballots and second on the other two; "hum" was absent on three ballots as being an unacceptable choice, and listed as #8 (out of 10) on the fourth. This latter fact caused us to make a choice between "hum" and "humanities" -- knowing that "hum" was narrowly preferred by those people who voted in the poll (once the most popular choice was excluded, an exceptional procedure), and that it was also considered unacceptable (or nearly so) by the influential "Group Advice." At that point, I asked the (public!) Arts & Humanities mailing list to vote on the name which would be best for proceeding with the proposal, taking into account all of the information available to us. The results from the 19 members (not including myself) of that list: humanities - 10, hum - 5, (abstain - 4). And so we proceeded with "humanities" for the RFD, and now the CFV. Further remarks on the choice of name.... Those people who prefer "hum" to "humanities" do so because of the length of the latter, and for two basic reasons: 1) the Usenet tradition of short names or abbreviations, and 2) the extra typing involved. To answer these objections: 1) While tradition is not to be discounted as an important factor, it is also the case that this hierarchy is hoping to attract larger numbers of new, non-technical readers (especially University faculty members in the humanities). As Usenet continues to expand, such abbreviations will be cryptic to an even larger number of readers, and with thousands of newsgroups, recognizability will be a bigger factor than it has been in the past. As such, this break with tradition is justified by its greater clarity and long-term practicality. 2) The issue of typing is overstated. Even the simplest newsreaders (like 'rn') do not require a newgroups name to be typed out in most circumstances. Also, when referring to groups, even those with three-letter hierarchy names are generally given one-letter abbreviations -- this practice can easily continue with humanities groups. It is also true that the 14-character technical limit applies only to individual fields of a newsgroup name, and this name will not place additional restriction on subsequent subhierarchy fields. It should be noted that the name of a newsgroup/hierarchy serves two purposes: to be easily identified as appropriate to readers/posters, and to be easily identified as inappropriate for those who are not interested. The name "humanities" unequivocally accomplishes these purposes. Hopefully this issue will fade into the background, and all supporters of the hierarchy will accept this choice, independently of their personal preferences. It is safe to say that after the hierarchy has been established, the name will appear to be natural. Finally, arguments about the name during the RFD period were minimal, with advocates of "humanities" being at least as numerous as detractors. V. Criteria for success Since the current "Big 7" Usenet hierarchies were established in the "Great Renaming" several years ago, no new hierarchy has been added to this set (sometimes given the disputed title of "Usenet" proper). As such, there are no established criteria for success. That makes this proposal much more difficult, however inertia is no sufficient reason to reject it. In other words, the issue of what is required to add a new hierarchy needs to be addressed at some point, and might as well be addressed now. It has been suggested that the criteria for creating a new hierarchy be established in advance. However, this is impractical, as it is a clear fact of human nature that the only motivation sufficient for establishing such criteria is an actual proposal. Therefore, this proposal attempts to define its own criteria. We desire a place in parallel with the "Big 7" and hope to make it a "Big 8." After the humanities hierarchy is established, all actions on the new namespace would be carried out through the same channels and methods used by any group in the other seven hierarchies. No new organization is desired; no new guidelines are planned. No role is envisioned for the members of this mailing list after the hierarchy is created, except possibly to publicize it. We propose that a vote be carried out regarding the group humanities.misc, and that standard voting rules apply -- the proposal's success to be determined by a 2/3 majority of yes votes, and a difference of no from yes votes to exceed 100. This is deceptively simple. Since the misc group is virtually implied by the existence of the hierarchy, such a vote would be a vote on the hierarchy per se. Further, the resounding defeat of the first us.* proposal indicates that such a passing vote would be a meaningful achievement. As such, this method presents a straight-forward means to gauge public support, and reflects the only means for official sanction which is available through a public forum. We request, if the vote passes these "standard" criteria, that the moderator of news.announce.newgroups begin carrying proposals for groups in the humanities hierarchy, that these be listed in the periodic informational postings of new groups & pending proposals, and that they be provided with "newgroup" control messages when appropriate. Of course, this request includes the original humanities.misc group. VI. Propagation issues It is clear that merely passing this hierarchy will not instantly cause it to be carried by a large number of sites. This practical limitation must be accepted, and progress can be made in two ways. We request, if the proposal passes, that the moderator of news.announce.newgroups approve periodic posting of an announcement of the humanities hierarchy -- until such time as its distribution reaches "standard" levels. This would allow ordinary users to request that their site receive the hierarchy, and so provide both an "official" (news.announce.newgroups) and a "grass roots" (ordinary user requests) impetus to propagation. Documentation in the form of Usenet Guidelines will have to be changed to reflect existence of the new hierarchy over the course of months or years, as time allows. Note that there are now many large sites which make it a point to carry every hierarchy. As such, the humanities hierarchy will almost immediately have a relatively large base of potential subscribers. This will also allow individual sites access to its distribution, as these commercial providers span the net. We also believe that demand is likely to be heaviest at universities, and that such sites will provide a secondary distribution apparatus relatively quickly. It is well-known that the majority of sites require active intervention to begin receiving a new hierarchy, and patience from all concerned is the only practical course. Though updating their configuration files requires some work from news administrators, this is a one-time-only change which would require no additional labor after it was performed. A similar state of affairs holds for the moderator of news.announce .newgroups -- though proposals in the humanities hierarchy would need to be posted, this represents little incremental labor, as the majority of these proposals would have been previously undertaken in the other seven hierarchies. In fact, the potential for greater naming clarity which this proposal presents might allow a small reduction in workload, due to the greater smoothness with which new proposals could proceed. Finally, at the suggestion of, and in consultation with, the moderator of news.announce.newgroups, a letter will be prepared and sent to the major "backbone" sites in order to pave the way for the propagation of the humanities hierarchy. Therefore, we feel justified in believing that this proposal does not make large demands on the time & effort of others, and that the transition period will be as painless as possible. VII. humanities.misc We propose that the first step in establishing this hierarchy be the creation of humanities.misc, a second-level "misc" group, as is prevalent throughout the Usenet namespace. The charter for this group is given above, in the "Charter" section of the CFV. The group is proposed as unmoderated due to the futility of moderating a "misc" group. By creating only a misc group with this proposal, it is possible to vote directly on the hierarchy, rather than on the particular merits of any other groups which might be involved. The hierarchy would be populated with subject-oriented groups at a later date, on individual initiative. VIII. Other groups We seriously considered adding other newsgroups to this proposal. In keeping with our intention of letting normal newsgroup creation procedures determine the course of the hierarchy, these groups would have been those which were already proposed in news.groups and which were considered potentially appropriate for the new hierarchy -- by their proponents. The specific choices would have been coincidences of timing. Those proposals would have been appended to this one, with their original proponents as authors. However, the issue of "dependent" votes was raised, and there was serious concern on the mailing list that including these other groups would violate the spirit of that rule. Having multiple proposals ready at the same time also proved to be challenging. Therefore, we have decided that it will be better to proceed with an RFD/CFV only on humanities.misc. Proposals for specific topical groups, with different proponents, will be forthcoming -- shortly after the hierarchy has passed. -- Mark James jamesm@dialogic.com Dialogic Corporation | "You have violated Robot's Rules +1 201 993 3000 ext 1438 | of Order and will be asked to [[ Opinions, errors etc. are my own ]] | leave the future immediately." From jamesm@dialogic.com Fri Apr 14 17:45:07 1995 Path: uunet!bounce-back From: jamesm@dialogic.com (Mark James) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.admin.misc,alt.config,bit.admin,misc.misc,rec.misc,soc.misc,rec.arts.misc,soc.history,sci.classics Subject: RESULT: humanities.misc passes 508:97 Supersedes: humanities.misc-cfv2@uunet.uu.net Followup-To: news.groups Date: 11 Apr 1995 18:15:54 -0400 Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Lines: 680 Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net Message-ID: humanities.misc-result@uunet.uu.net References: humanities.misc-cfv1@uunet.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net Xref: gs2.UU.NET news.announce.newgroups:6596 news.groups:144342 news.admin.misc:38734 alt.config:71396 bit.admin:1321 misc.misc:30015 rec.misc:3829 soc.misc:6206 rec.arts.misc:3831 soc.history:48004 sci.classics:6913 VOTE RESULT unmoderated group humanities.misc Voting closed on 5 April 1995 at 23:59:59 GMT. The results are: Yes No : 2/3? >100? : Pass? : Group ---- ---- : ---- ----- : ----- : ------------------------------------------- 508 97 : Yes Yes : Yes : humanities.misc There were 3 abstentions. This margin is adequate for newgroup creation. There will now be a five-day period during which corrections to the vote count may be made. Barring serious controversy about the vote, the group will be created shortly thereafter. This vote was conducted by a neutral third party. Vote-taker: Mark James jamesm@dialogic.com Group proponent: Arts & Humanities mailing list arts-humanities@netcom.com Newsgroups line: humanities.misc General topics in the arts & humanities. NOTE: The creation of this group will result in a new hierarchy alongside the other seven currently administered via news.announce.newgroups. Future groups in this hierarchy will be proposed and voted upon in the manner of ordinary group proposals. CHARTER (as printed in the Call for Votes) ------- The newsgroup humanities.misc will serve explicitly as a forum for those disciplines in the arts & humanities which do not have dedicated newsgroups. Other potential topics are: discussion of liberal arts curricula, interdisciplinary studies, general issues of concern to practitioners in the arts & humanities. Examples of general discussion topics include: appropriate course requirements in broadly based curricula, "design your own major" programs, and the debate concerning the future of government funding for the arts & humanities. VOTE ACKNOWLEDGMENT ------------------- These lists are sorted in alphabetical order by login name, as taken >from the "From:" line. Note that certain UUCP addresses are mangled somewhat in order to sort nicely. YES votes were received from the following people: 00hfstahlke@bsuvc.bsu.edu 100145.2642@compuserve.com (Stephen Rowland) 1k1mgm@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU (Christopher Gunn) 72633.3561@CompuServe.COM (Algis Ratnikas) 75117.2447@compuserve.com (David Fraley) aahz@netcom.com (Mean Green Dancing Machine) aaronrp@best.com (Aaron R. Priven) acaw1@phx.cam.ac.uk (Andrew Woode) actor@telerama.lm.com (Philip R. Spagnolli) adia@egnatia.ee.auth.gr (Alejandros Diamandidis) ae556@freenet.carleton.ca (Christian Sauve) AELLER@BINGVAXA.BITNET (aeller@bingvaxa.bitnet) afabbro@umich.edu ag414@freenet.carleton.ca (Colin R. Leech) agtodd@ccnet.com aharvey@boulder.nist.gov (Allan Harvey) AIGABoston@aol.com aj@wg.icl.co.uk (Tony Jebson) akilleen@a.imap.itd.umich.edu (Dr. Anthony Killeen) alan@papaioea.manawatu.planet.co.nz (Alan Brown) alanrw@cs.man.ac.uk (Alan R Williams) alaric@harlech.demon.co.uk (Iain D. Bowen) alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) alewis@email.unc.edu (Amelia A Lewis) alex@proust.suba.com (Alex Strasheim) algeo@monolith.mit.edu (vv) alindbac@sw.seisy.abb.se alspehr@midway.uchicago.edu alyosha@sagapo.demon.co.uk (alexander revill) alyx@apple.com (alex dosher) andrewh@earlham.edu (Andrew Hagen, symbolic analyst) Andrew_Perry@Brown.edu (Andy Perry) andy@neverest.res-hall.nwu.edu (Andy Wilson) andyl@harlequin.com (Andy Latto) anne@alcor.concordia.ca (Anne Bennett) arromdee@blaze.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) Arthur.Chance@Smallworld.co.uk (Arthur Chance) asdamick@unity.ncsu.edu aspires@systema.westark.edu (Alyce Spires) asv1000@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Al Vining) atilghma@sdcc10.ucsd.edu (Adam Tilghman) audjeb@uclink.berkeley.edu (John E Broughton) awa@mdata.se (Andreas Waczynski) bailey@hagar.ph.utexas.edu (Ed Bailey) bainard@mailhost.nmt.edu (Phillip B. Hume) balaji@nexus.yorku.ca (Balaji) baloglou@panix.com (George Baloglou) barr@math.psu.edu (Dave Barr) batoor@netcom.com (Bruce Toor) ben@ice-nine.student.harvard.edu (Benjamin D. Wildasin) ben@nj8j.atl.ga.us (Ben Coleman) BERTRAM@D0RU01.FNAL.GOV (Iain A. Bertram) bg267@freenet.buffalo.edu (Scott Fleming) bg@dymaxion.ns.ca (Ben Armstrong) bh4781@csc.albany.edu (Benjamin H. Henry) bjv@herbison.com (B.J. Herbison) bob.ray@tstation.mn.org (Bob Ray) BOCHERC@hartwick.edu (Carol A. Bocher) bochner@das.harvard.edu (Harry Bochner) borek@mda.ca (Michael Borek) bossed@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Bosse Dominique) boud@rempt.xs4all.nl (Boudewijn) bouillon@cs.uni-sb.de (Peter G. Bouillon) bpl2@Lehigh.EDU (___root___) Brian_Sooy@alphabets.com (Brian Sooy) brose@inf.fu-berlin.de (Gerald Brose) bruceab@teleport.com (Bruce Baugh) BSCHLESINGER@NSSDCA.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Barry M. Schlesinger) BUBBAMIKE@delphi.com (Bubbamike) buff@io.org (William Denton) bweiner@physics.rutgers.edu (Ben Weiner) by177@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (D. L. Mosher) c-savage@uchicago.edu (Courtenay Savage) C.R.Gadsden@politics.hull.ac.uk (Richard Gadsden) Carl.F.Hostetter.1@gsfc.nasa.gov (Carl F. Hostetter) Caroljmb@aol.com carvalho@laas.fr (Himilcon Carvalho) cbstone@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Christopher Bradford Stone) ccamfiel@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Chris Camfield) ccfj@hippo.ru.ac.za (F. 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True) simon.grant@sai.ise.jrc (Simon Grant) simon@midland.co.nz (Simon Lyall) Sixtodds@aol.com sjsmith@cs.UMD.EDU (Stephen Joseph Smith) skarkkai@cc.helsinki.fi (H Samuli Karkkainen) SMR4615@OCVAXA.CC.OBERLIN.EDU (Mike Richey) solovay@netcom.com (Andrew Solovay) sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) SPB@tntv7.ntrs.com (Steve Bonine) spz@serpens.rhein.de (S.P.Zeidler) ST931690@PIP.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (JOEL BRYANT) stanton_linn@jpmorgan.com (Linn Stanton) stas@psych.rochester.edu (Stas Lotyczewski) steintr@avnet.org (Russell Steinthal) stsai@husc.harvard.edu (Kevin Tsai) stssram@st.unocal.com (Bob Myers) sutela@utu.fi (Kari Sutela) svm@kozmix.xs4all.nl (Sander van Malssen) sward+@CMU.EDU (David Reeve Sward) sward@PrimeNet.Com (Sidne Gail Ward) SYS_SRR%CLARE@hobbes.cca.rockwell.com (S.Rathinam) T13@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de takata@umich.edu (Azumi Ann Takata) tangaroa@werple.mira.net.au (Simon Crase) tc@mcs.com (Thomas Cuny ) tegtmeie@phantom.com (John Tegtmeier) templeto@tenet.edu (Michael Alan Templeton) terra@PrimeNet.Com (Terra) tgerstel@world.std.com (Tom Gerstel) thomas@geac.co.nz (Thomas Beagle) tindall@email.unc.edu (George Tindall) tindall@mercury.interpath.net (Bruce Tindall) tkucera@cc.UManitoba.CA (Tommy Kucera) tomas@cae.wisc.edu (Tomas Willis) tomj@jac.enet.dec.com (Tom Jaskiewicz) tph@uunet.uu.net (Tom Tom Harrington) traverso@posso.dm.unipi.it (Carlo Traverso) troddis@acorn.co.uk (Timothy Roddis) trsami@laventeli.cs.uta.fi@vehka.cs.uta.fi u9110052@muss.cis.mcmaster.ca (Brian Shipley) udap913@kcl.ac.uk (Silver Omega) una@acpub.duke.edu (Una Smith) uranus@biosan.kharkov.ua (Yuri Logvinov) UZ33105@vm1.ulg.ac.be (Van de Paar) velde@riffle.Stanford.EDU (Francois Velde) vidynath@math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) wald@math.uchicago.edu (Kevin Wald) wallace@redwood.northcoast.com (keith wallace) wardk@cse.ogi.edu (Karen Ward) WAYNE@optech-hq.ccmail.compuserve.com wcw@math.psu.edu (William C Waterhouse) WEBB1107@delphi.com (William Boyle) wgsacks@artsci.wustl.edu (William G. Sacks) whitaker@usna.navy.mil (PROF A. R. Whitaker {FEC FAC}) whsudder@hamlet.uncg.edu (WILLIAM H. SUDDERTH) whughes@atlsci.com (William Hughes) WISANR@hartwick.edu (Dick Wisan) wish@dumain.demon.co.uk (Bill Hay) wiz@nova.hut.fi (Mikko H�nninen) wombat@aquilagroup.com (Christopher M. Conway) xtkmg@trentu.ca (Kate Gregory) yadallee@cs.ualberta.ca yuval.kfir@Indigo.co.il (Yuval Kfir) Yves.Quemener@irisa.fr (x) zenok13@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Bill Jennings) zeus@jhu.edu (Jeffrey M. Odom) NO votes were received from the following people: alice@Axil.COM (Alice Taylor) amlogan@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Adam Meredith Logan) andrewc@ugcs.caltech.edu (Andrew Ryan Chang) ault@cs.albany.edu (Jim Ault) bengtl@maths.lth.se (Bengt Larsson) blukoff@u.washington.edu (Benjamin D Lukoff) booda@lynx (Martin H. Booda) bryan@Novell.COM (Bryan Cardoza) bspencer@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca (Brian SPENCER) burt+@CMU.EDU (Burt N Holzman) C96@VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (Alexander Eichener) carrollt@netcom.com (Terry Carroll) cjensen@netcom.com (Colin Jensen) coneil@tiger.lsu.edu (Clayton O'Neill) dacosta@prl.philips.nl (Paulo da Costa) dancer@aurora.cis.upenn.edu (Johanna Draper) DaveDave@tamu.edu David.W.Wright@bnr.co.uk david@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu (David) davidaw@craig-hospital.org (David A. Weitzenkamp) dc@panix.com (David W. Crawford) dhalgren@netcom.com (dhalgren) dmitriy@sclara.qms.com (Dmitriy N. Vasilev) doc@uiuc.edu (Jim Marco) ed@odi.com (Ed Schwalenberg) elandal@tower.nullnet.fi (Ismo Peltonen) estep@pinsight.com (Christopher Estep) e_gs18@mail.nerc-murchison.ac.uk (Russ Evans) fant@babs.rice.edu (Andrew Fant) franklig@aztec.inre.asu.edu (GREG FRANKLIN) GA3@VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (Dominik Peris) galactus@stack.urc.tue.nl (Galactus) ghsst6+@pitt.edu gl8f@fermi.clas.virginia.edu (Greg Lindahl) goldfarb@ocf.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) granrose@scz.ssi1.COM (Jon Granrose) griffith@netcom.com (Jim Griffith) hrose@rocza.kei.com (Helen Trillian Rose) jburke@abacus.bates.edu (------james------) jcmurphy@smurfland.cit.buffalo.edu (Jeff Murphy) jcohen@dri.cornell.edu (Jeffrey David Cohen) jdalmand@news.doas.state.ga.us (J.D. Almand) jfurr@acpub.duke.edu (Joel K. Furr) jknauerh@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Joyce A Knauerhase) jrm@globalvillag.com (John R. MacWilliamson) juphoff@tarsier.cv.nrao.edu (Jeff Uphoff) justin@qdeck.com (Justin Wilmsmeyer) Karl.Brodowsky@urz.uni-heidelberg.de (Karl Brodowsky) khan@JTP.CS.NYU.EDU (Hasnain Khan) klahn@netcom.com (Robert A. Klahn) knauer@ibeam.intel.com (Rob Knauerhase) kreme@netcom.com (Kitchen Staff Supervisor) krish@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (P Krishnan) kzin@isc.sjsu.edu (John Rudd) larrys@io.com (Larry Smith) levin@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin) lisbon@vpnet.chi.il.us (Gerry Swetsky) lrodrgz@free.org (Luis A. Rodriguez) M.J.Jennings@damtp.cambridge.ac.uk (Michael Jennings) manmak@athena.compulink.forthnet.gr (Dimitrios Sfakianakis) marier@rust.zso.dec.com (Shawn Marier) matajame@cwis.isu.edu (Zeke M. Towson) mikeq@PrimeNet.Com (Michael Quinlan) mjk3@cc.bellcore.com (Matt Kappel) mkc@graphics.cornell.edu (Mitch Collinsworth) moss@bastille.cchem.berkeley.edu (David Maurice) msb@sq.com muehlen@cis.udel.edu (Ralf Muehlen) nick@inferno.fc.hp.com (Nick Ingegneri) orc@gehenna.apple.com (Orc) patl@eiffel.LCS.MIT.EDU (Patrick J. LoPresti) pem4958@is.NYU.EDU pen7cmc@cabell.vcu.edu (Charles M. Castevens) radrayer@panix.com (Rebecca Drayer) regnery@ix.netcom.com (George Matthew Regnery) rew@nuance.com (Ryan Waldron) rhaas@cygnus.arc.nasa.gov (Robert Haas) roge8810@utdallas.edu (Scott T Rogers) rra@CS.Stanford.EDU (Russ Allbery) s9uvct@fnma.COM (Victor Tan) sg3y+@andrew.cmu.edu (Samuel Edward Greenfield) shandrew@leland.stanford.edu (space goat) shields@tembel.org (Michael Shields) sid@switchview.com, sinclair@ppp32169.wing.net (David A. Sinclair) SInglis@bcde.demon.co.uk (Steven Inglis) smarry@turing.toronto.edu (Smarasderagd) sst@MIT.EDU stainles@bga.com (Dwight Brown) steinn@ast.cam.ac.uk (Steinn Sigurdsson) sugarman@world.std.com (Steven Garman) T.R.Sanders@csc.liv.ac.uk (Terry Sanders) T12@VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (Kurt Vesely) tgm@netcom.com (Thomas G. McWilliams) uwe@knus.tricbbs.fn.sub.org (Uwe Storbeck) weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) zombie@netcom.com (zombie) Abstentions were received from the following people: A.H.Henry@bath.ac.uk AJM1007@phx.cam.ac.uk crouchkp@flidh103.delcoelect.com (Kenneth P Crouch) -- Mark James jamesm@dialogic.com Dialogic Corporation | "You have violated Robot's Rules +1 201 993 3000 ext 1438 | of Order and will be asked to [[ Opinions, errors etc. are my own ]] | leave the future immediately." /jamesm@dialogic.com/aeller@bingvaxa.bitnet/arts-humanities@netcom.com/jamesm@dialogic.com/humanities.misc-cfv1@uunet.uu.net/humanities.misc-result@uunet.uu.net/humanities.misc-cfv2@uunet.uu.net/jamesm@dialogic.com/arts-humanities@netcom.com/jamesm@dialogic.com/humanities.misc-cfv1.1@uunet.uu.net/humanities.misc-cfv2@uunet.uu.net/humanities.misc-cfv1.1@uunet.uu.net/jamesm@dialogic.com/arts-humanities@netcom.com/jamesm@dialogic.com/humanities.misc-cfv1.1@uunet.uu.net/humanities.misc-cfv1@uunet.uu.net/jamesm@dialogic.com/arts-humanities@netcom.com/jamesm@dialogic.com/humanities.misc-cfv1@uunet.uu.net