rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) (01/03/90)
Several people have expressed approval for "rec.arts.cinema" as the name of the proposed "serious movie talk" group, and no one has expressed serious disapproval. Unless there are strong objections to this name, I suggest we go with it. Likewise, everyone who's expressed a positive opinion about the group and who's expressed some opinion about whether or not it should be moderated has come down in favor of moderation. If anyone is in favor of the group, but opposed to it being moderated, now's the time to speak up. Otherwise, we should consider that matter settled as well. Finally, we have one volunteer for moderator so far (Manavendra Thakur). If anyone else wants to volunteer or is unhappy in any way about Mr Thakur's qualifications, please speak up. A charter might look something like the following. PLEASE feel free to amend this in any way that seems appropriate -- it's just a starting suggestion. REC.ARTS.CINEMA A moderated group for the serious discussion of movies. Any movie, regardless of its artistic stature, is fair game for discussion, as is any substantive approach to the subject. Explicitly *excluded* from this group are the following: Any kind of trivia questions/answers/games: use r.a.m instead Simple lists (eg, movies made by director X): use r.a.m instead Simple factual queries (eg "Who starred in x"): use r.a.m instead Movie reviews (as opposed to analysis): use r.a.m.reviews instead Queries/Reports of video availability: use r.v.software if it passes Flames: count to 10 instead Moderator: Manavendra Thakur [note to Evelyn Leeper: please re-post this to r.a.m.reviews if you think it's appropriate]
jon@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) (01/04/90)
In article <50326@bbn.COM> rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes: > >REC.ARTS.CINEMA > >A moderated group for the serious discussion of movies. Any movie, >regardless of its artistic stature, is fair game for discussion, as is >any substantive approach to the subject. Explicitly *excluded* from >this group are the following: [. . .] > I like the charter, but I'd suggest a slight revision as follows: "A moderated group for the serious discussion of cinema. Any film, regardless of its genre, is fair game for discussion . . ." I think the use of the words "cinema" and "film," rather than "movies," would reinforce the seriousness of the group and its independence from rec.arts.movies. And the use of "genre" instead of "artistic stature" would make the same point without raising a potentially contentious value judgement. -- Jon Corelis jon@lindy.stanford.edu Stanford University BITNET: XB.E70@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU
jmi@devsim.mdcbbs.com (JM Ivler - MDC - Douglas Aircraft - Long Beach, CA) (01/04/90)
In article <50326@bbn.COM>, rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes: > REC.ARTS.CINEMA > > A moderated group for the serious discussion of movies. Any movie, > regardless of its artistic stature, is fair game for discussion, as is > any substantive approach to the subject. Explicitly *excluded* from > this group are the following: > > > Any kind of trivia questions/answers/games: use r.a.m instead > > Simple lists (eg, movies made by director X): use r.a.m instead > > Simple factual queries (eg "Who starred in x"): use r.a.m instead > > Movie reviews (as opposed to analysis): use r.a.m.reviews instead > > Queries/Reports of video availability: use r.v.software if it passes > > Flames: count to 10 instead > > > Moderator: Manavendra Thakur > What can I say? This is exactly what I was hoping for. No limits as to what can be discussed, just limits on the type of discussions. Excellent! So, when can the voting start? [If there is anyway that I can be of help, please let me know] JMI jmi@devsim.mdcbbs.com
rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) (01/05/90)
In article <6861@lindy.Stanford.EDU> jon@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) writes: >In article <50326@bbn.COM> rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes: >> >>REC.ARTS.CINEMA >> >>A moderated group for the serious discussion of movies. Any movie, >>regardless of its artistic stature, is fair game for discussion, as is >>any substantive approach to the subject [etc] > > I like the charter, but I'd suggest a slight revision as follows: > > "A moderated group for the serious discussion of cinema. Any film, > regardless of its genre, is fair game for discussion . . ." > > I think the use of the words "cinema" and "film," rather than >"movies," would reinforce the seriousness of the group and its >independence from rec.arts.movies. Granted. Since the name of the group is relying on this same distinction, your point makes sense. > And the use of "genre" instead of >"artistic stature" would make the same point without raising a >potentially contentious value judgement. What I was getting at by using the phrase "artistic stature" is that neither artistry nor high status should be considered necessary prerequisites. Regardless of how a film is generally perceived, it should be considered acceptable to discuss it if the discussion is serious. In fact, someone may very well have interesting and serious things to say about a mediocre, low-status movie without any artistic merit. For example, the movie may be an excellent example of how sexism works in classical Hollywood. It's not "art", it's not a high point in the history of cinema, and no one is arguing otherwise; but nonetheless it's an interesting example. This is the kind of thing I was getting at. There may also be arguments of this kind: "X is not generally considered to have artistic merit, but I think it does for the following reasons:". And that's fine too. We can have arguments like that without degenerating into flame-fests (I hope). There's always the risk you refer to, that value judgements can become pointlessly contentious. But we do have a moderator to keep things in line before we reach that point. Genre doesn't quite get at the same thing. In general, I think "genre" has become a somewhat over-used and over-generalized term. We should discuss genre in the group, but it's use in this particular context seems unenlightening, or even misleading, to me. I'd prefer to keep "artistic merit" (which I think subsumes what you're trying to get at anyway).
moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) (01/05/90)
In article <50326@bbn.COM> rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes: >[List of protype rec.arts.cinema charter] Love the name, like the moderation, think Manavendra would make a splendid moderator, and the charter is great. I toss this out as one more possible exclusion for the list: Best/Worst lists (which should probably go under the Simple lists exclusion) Articles analyzing the appeal of films would always be welcome, I think, but a bunch of simple "I thought this was the best/worst film" statements would clutter the group. Perhaps a better way to describe the exclusion would be, "No movie polls on rec.arts.cinema." DAVE BARRY'S 1989 IN REVIEW -- August 8th "Warner Communications merges with the Medellin Drug Cartel." --- Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, microsoft, hplsla, uiucuxc}!fluke!moriarty CREDO: You gotta be Cruel to be Kind... <*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (01/05/90)
> Several people have expressed approval for "rec.arts.cinema" as the > name of the proposed "serious movie talk" group, and no one has > expressed serious disapproval. Unless there are strong objections to > this name, I suggest we go with it. I didn't think it was necessary to post before, because there were also several articles mentioning what I thought was an obviously superior name: rec.arts.movies.serious. The reason I think it's superior is not that .movies.serious is better than .cinema, but that I think this *clearly* belongs as a subgroup of rec.arts.movies. Anything else would be massively confusing to anyone coming onto the net after the group is created. Would you really want rec.humor.funny to have been created as, say, rec.wit? (All right, so wit is not an exact synonym of humor; it's close enough for illustrative purposes.) Frankly, I'd prefer to see rec.arts.movies converted to being moderated, or to see the the low-value postings split out to rec.arts.movies.trivia and the current-movie arguments to rec.arts.movies.current; but in practice people wouldn't respect that, so that's a pipe dream. As a next best thing, then, let's leave the dross where it is and put the good stuff in a subgroup. I'll vote for rec.arts.cinema if that's the only name offered, but I'd much rather be voting for a rec.arts.movies subgroup. If there are people who don't agree that this is obviously right, then I suggest that the vote be of the STV type... -- Mark Brader "...out of the dark coffee-stained mugs of SoftQuad Inc., Toronto insane programmers throughout the world..." utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- Lee R. Quin This article is in the public domain.
rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) (01/05/90)
In article <1990Jan5.062111.29517@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: >I didn't think it was necessary to post before, because there were also >several articles mentioning what I thought was an obviously superior name: >rec.arts.movies.serious. The reason I think it's superior is not that >.movies.serious is better than .cinema, but that I think this *clearly* >belongs as a subgroup of rec.arts.movies. Anything else would be massively >confusing to anyone coming onto the net after the group is created. r.a.m.serious was my proposal. I dropped it because (a) it was so clumsy; (b) those expressing a preference seemed to come down uniformly in favor of r.a.cinema; (c) it's misleading in its own way: does it mean 'serious movies' or 'serious talk'? I agree that, from a net hierarchy point of view, a subgroup makes a bit more sense. Maybe if someone came up with a less clunky subgroup name, I would support it. For now, the relative elegance of r.a.cinema gets my vote. It really is common usage (in the US, at least) to use "movies" in casual conversation and "cinema" in serious and/or scholarly discussion (when discussing the institution; in the context of a single picture, the distinction is more often "movie" vs "film"). >If there are people who don't agree that this is obviously right, >then I suggest that the vote be of the STV type... Sure, why not.
daniel@psych.toronto.edu (Daniel Read) (01/06/90)
> I like the charter, but I'd suggest a slight revision as follows: > > "A moderated group for the serious discussion of cinema. Any film, > regardless of its genre, is fair game for discussion . . ." > I hate to be picky, but why not just "Any film is fair game ...". What does the subordinate clause add other than words?
bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (01/06/90)
In article <1990Jan5.062111.29517@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: >> Several people have expressed approval for "rec.arts.cinema" as the >> name of the proposed "serious movie talk" group, and no one has >> expressed serious disapproval. Unless there are strong objections to >> this name, I suggest we go with it. > >I didn't think it was necessary to post before, because there were also >several articles mentioning what I thought was an obviously superior name: >rec.arts.movies.serious. The reason I think it's superior is not that >.movies.serious is better than .cinema, but that I think this *clearly* >belongs as a subgroup of rec.arts.movies. Anything else would be massively >confusing to anyone coming onto the net after the group is created. Well, then, how about rec.arts.movies.pretentious rec.arts.movies.funny rec.arts.movies.scary rec.arts.movies.scenery rec.arts.movies.spielberg rec.arts.movies.unreleased rec.arts.movies.genres rec.arts.movies.fonda rec.arts.movies.mpaa.numbers.evenly.divisible.by.powers.of.ten rec.arts.movies.drugs rec.arts.movies.corporate.commercials rec.arts.movies.cult-bait rec.arts.movies.misinterpretation rec.arts.movies.recut rec.arts.movies.mob.backing rec.arts.movies.computers rec.arts.movies.I.saw.recently and rec.arts.movies.moderated --Blair "CALL for VOTES: cahiers.cinema"
amy@ntpal.UUCP (Dana Amy) (01/06/90)
In article <1990Jan5.062111.29517@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: >> Several people have expressed approval for "rec.arts.cinema" as the >> name of the proposed "serious movie talk" group, and no one has >> expressed serious disapproval. Unless there are strong objections to >> this name, I suggest we go with it. > >I didn't think it was necessary to post before, because there were also >several articles mentioning what I thought was an obviously superior name: >rec.arts.movies.serious. The reason I think it's superior is not that >.movies.serious is better than .cinema, but that I think this *clearly* >belongs as a subgroup of rec.arts.movies. Anything else would be massively >confusing to anyone coming onto the net after the group is created. I disagree. Our machine has been connected to the net for all of two weeks now, and I wouldn't find the existance of both rec.arts.movies and rec.arts.cinema confusing (nor do I think I would have if I had not been following this discussion). On the contrary, rec.arts.movies.serious is more confusing to me because of the ambiguity of the word "serious" - serious movies or serious discussion? A group about the discussion of cinema as an art form would not be the first thing that came to mind. The word "cinema" is too good to pass up. Further, I do not see the proposed cinema group as a subgroup of rec.arts.movies. It seems to me that rec.arts.movies is more a forum for movie trivia, and opinion polls of what's good to see/what isn't types of postings. This is NOT a "parent" of serious discussion on cinema and the role(s) cinema plays in our society. They are two different sibling-type concepts to me. > [argument for rec.arts.movies.serious followed] >Frankly, I'd prefer to see rec.arts.movies converted to being moderated, >or to see the the low-value postings split out to rec.arts.movies.trivia >and the current-movie arguments to rec.arts.movies.current; but in practice >people wouldn't respect that, so that's a pipe dream. As a next best thing, >then, let's leave the dross where it is and put the good stuff in a subgroup. This would be o.k., but as you conclude, will not happen. I think the next best thing would be to create rec.arts.cinema. > [Closing and .sig deleted] I do not feel that the names rec.arts.cinema and rec.arts.movies.serious conflict any more than the subject matter they (would) contain conflicts. My vote is for rec.arts.cinema; it best implies the charter of the group. Dana Amy (amy%ntpal@egsner.cirr.com, ntpal!amy@egsner.cirr.com) I speak for my own self.