troly@oak.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) (01/20/90)
I sent this message to Tam Nguyen, who suggested that I post it. It explains why I think that soc.culture.vietnamese is a better name for the proposed newsgroup than soc.culture.vietnam. In article <21255@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> [Tam Nguyen wrote]: >In article <2162@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> troly@math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) >writes: >>In article <130177@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> tan@Sun.COM (Tin Nguyen) writes: >>>This is a call for discussions to start a new newsgroup. >>>SUGGESTED NAME: soc.culture.vietnam >> >>soc.culture.vietnamese would be a better name. > >An interesting suggestion as to "vietnamese" instead of "vietnam", but >I don't quite understand the reasoning behind it. "vietnam" would keep the >naming convention of soc.culture."china, hongkong, ..." Hi! My suggestion follows the *original* naming convention for soc.culture groups, as shown by the names soc.culture.jewish, soc.culture.greek, soc.culture.arabic, soc.culture.indian, soc.culture.turkish, and so forth. Soc.culture.china was the first newsgroup to depart from this naming convention. Several months after that group was created, many people bitterly regretted the ill-chosen name, and indeed it was nearly changed back to soc.culture.chinese, (and would have been changed, in my opinion, had there been an established procedure for changing the names of existing groups.) Since the name of the group was soc.culture.*china*, some people from the PRC started insisting that Taiwanese, Hong Kongese, and overseas Chinese had no right to post there, and the group was wracked by bitter and pointless flame wars. It ended by the creation of splinter groups for Hong Kong and Taiwan. But didn't this defeat the original purpose of the group, which was to provide a forum for the discussion of chinese culture? Names like soc.culture.china and soc.culture.vietnam emphasize the country rather than the culture. These names provide an invitation for (usually clandestine) representatives of these countries' governments to insist that only people under the thumbs of these governments have any business in these groups. There are many students sponsored by the current Vietnamese government who, at least potentially, have net access. [E.g.] In Paris this summer, I had dinner with 6 Vietnamese communists (or nominal communists), and acquired standing invitations to stay at several households in Vietnam. These people should be encouraged to post to the proposed newsgroup. But they should not be given a pretext to try to monopolize the discussion. Regards, Bret
vqh@drutx.ATT.COM (Viet Hoang) (01/25/90)
From article <2181@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, by troly@oak.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly): > > Names like soc.culture.china and soc.culture.vietnam emphasize > the country rather than the culture. These names provide an invitation > for (usually clandestine) representatives of these countries' governments > to insist that only people under the thumbs of these governments have > any business in these groups. Hmm, I never thought of that possible consequence of the newsgroup name. Add my vote to create the newsgroup and name it soc.culture.vietnamese. V. Hoang v.hoang@att.com -- V. Hoang, AT&T Denver, vqh@dwx3bn.att.com