From: jimrtex@pipeline.com
On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 18:42:03 +0000 (UTC), Joe Bernstein
wrote:
>In article ,
>Jim Riley wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 01:10:29 +0000 (UTC), Joe Bernstein
>> wrote:
>But I was almost certain that talk.religion.bahai had been proposed
>six or seven times. Did it only go to a vote thrice?
Yes, 3. The first time it got clobbered. It should be pointed out
that during the vote someone posted a message to most of the culture
groups for areas that were predominately Moslem to vote against the
group (an anti-Baha'i vote). The second time it barely got over 100
Yes, though there was still fairly heavy opposition. The third time,
there was strong support, and about the same level of opposition.
>> The last point is the key. The proposal was eventually passed after
>> bringing on other proponents, and convincing Frederick Glaysher to
>> refrain from most of the discussion. It should be noted that he was
>> not able to participate in the first week of discussion of the first
>> try (the above is the result of the 2nd) which led to a certain
>> skepticism of whether this was a stealth group or what.
>
>Obviously jerk proponents are a common thread here. But frankly, I'm
>beginning to think certain kinds of worthwhile group perhaps can only
>*be* created by jerks; I'm starting to think that nobody else has the
>fire in the belly it takes, these days, to pass a group. So I'm
>beginning to think this is a problem, and probably not a solvable one.
>> I think the
>> opposition had more to do with concern about the motives of the
>> proponent, than necessarily a desire to suppress open discussion of
>> their faith.
>
>If you put it in those terms, and you sound sane, then no. But I
>think that really is what it started out as.
If someone comments that they think that a talk.religion.bahai full of
MAKE.MONEY.FAST posts will not be conducive to the discussion of their
faith, and the proponent responds that the person was accusing them of
proposing the group in order to make money, anyone would look sane.
>I don't remember whether there's some sort of secret-words matter
>involved, as for the Mormons.
I don't think so. The closest I found was a discussion of a
moderation policy that said that unauthorized translations (from
Arabic and Farsi) should not be used, but rather paraphrased.
> But the moderators were all over the
>first debate citing chapter and verse of various writings of their
>religion's founders, to show that it would be Wrong to support the
>group.
I'm going to call you on this one. This is an example of what the
moderators wrote:
<5dn9l6$bks@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>
<01bc18a5$2f907cc0$299e34ce@rickboat>
Please read the entire thread on the first one. Sometime during the
discussion they did stop approving discussion of the RFD in
soc.religion.bahai, and directed that any such discussion should be
conducted in news.groups. During the later proposals, the RFD's were
posted to soc.religion.bahai with a note from the moderators directing
RFD discussion to news.groups.
>So it's particularly notable in this case that
>
>1) you had to be *kind* of a jerk to propose the group in the first
> place, given that the moderators were apparently reasonable and
> sensible people;
>
>2) you had to be a *real* jerk to get it passed, given that it was
> only through repeated exposure to news.groups norms, via repeated
> RFDs, that the moderators changed their view not only on whether
> they personally opposed the proposal but on whether it was
> incumbent on Baha'is *in general* to oppose it.
I think this is totally inaccurate.
> (Wasn't there
> something at the Official Baha'i Website urging a NO vote, first
> time around?)
During the vote, someone posted an argument to a few mailing lists
urging a No vote, including voting instructions on how to vote No.
The proponent reposted this message including the instructions on how
to vote No many, many, many, many times to many, many, many groups.
It is claimed that the person who posted the original message, posted
a retraction and apology the next day, and encouraged people to read
the CFV. It is also claimed that the moderators of soc.religion.bahai
reported the original posting to the votetaker (I don't think that the
original message was posted to soc.religion.bahai). Since the
proponent did not repost these many, many, many, many times to many,
many, many groups I don't know for a fact that a retraction and
apology were made.
>> >soc.org.cisv 124:43, March, 1997
>Well, boo. rec.org.sca, rec.org.mensa, comp.org.isoc.interest for
>Heaven's sake...
... and comp.org.usenix too!
>> >misc.activism.cannabis.hemp 117:62, June, 1996
>> >misc.activism.cannabis.medical 122:57, June, 1996
>> >misc.activism.cannabis.misc 113:67, June, 1996
>> If I understand correctly, all messages would be approved, but some
>> would have their Followup-To header set or edited. There were also
>> John Grubor aspects to this proposal.
>
>Hum. Interesting. (For those in the audience, John Grubor was at one
>time a relatively obnoxious kook in several news.* groups; by June
>1996 he had mostly moved from news.groups to news.admin.net-abuse, or
>whatever the group was at that time, but memories were still kept
>fresh by occasional cross-posted threads full of vitriol and
>obscenities, not all of them from him by any means.)
During the RFD, someone newgroup'ed misc.activism.cannabis. Someone
commented that it was unclear what effect Grubor's ravings had on the
vote since no one could tell which groups he was supporting: the
maverick creation or the 3 groups in the official proposal.
>A group that would robo-approve cross-posts could obviously draw NO
>votes; it would be really nice if we had talk.origins to do over, for
>example.
It is not clear whether this was even recognized as a problem due to
the discussion of Grubor. It was in the RFD discussion where it was
pointed out that a simple 3-group cross-post limit would permit
approval to other moderated groups. It may have been that a cursory
examination of the moderation policy in the CFV had resolved the
issue.
>> >soc.culture.hungarian 157:91, May, 1995
>> >
>> >(but note that soc.culture.magyar had already existed for years, so it's
>> >my guess that the NO voters were perfectly justified)
>>
>> This was an RFD for a rename.
>
>OK, I thought it must be, but the RESULT didn't actually say anything
>about that. (I was surprised to see that in such a late RESULT, there
>was no visible Rationale, but there wasn't.)
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