karl@osu-eddie.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste) (01/21/85)
[The reason for including net.politics should be obvious; it's only
incidentally in that group...]
I'm putting out a little feeler into the net to see if there might be enough
interest out there to support a mailing list for people interested in
firearms. Specifically, I'm thinking of a semi-technical list, with
discussions on places to shoot, maintenance suggestions, issues of legal
significance, favorite firearms, known problems with some particular
firearm, or whatever else one might want to discuss in this general category.
I'm suggesting it as a mailing list for the time being because, although I
think there's substantial interest out there, I doubt that it's large enough
to support a newsgroup of its own. If interest grows substantially, that
might change.
So: if you're interested in something along these lines, please MAIL a
response to me (that's a "reply" [r] command, not a "followup" [f/F]
command), and we'll see how this develops. Again, **MAIL ONLY PLEASE.**
Also, please note that my best address for mail is cbrma!kk, which can be
reached via ihnp4 or cbosgd.
--
Karl Kleinpaste @ Bell Labs, Columbus 614/860-5107 +==-> cbrma!kk
@ Ohio State University 614/422-0915 osu-eddie!karlwmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (01/24/85)
I've mailed my vote already, but I do want to post a strong concern regarding this: If such a list is established, it should operate under the same restrictions that many other special-interest groups have -- that is, there should be NO debate about the basic subject. Just as it is flat WRONG to use "net.women.only" to post anti-feminist or anti-women messages, or to use "net.motss" to post anti-homosexual statements, or to use "net.rec.nude" to claim that public nudity is a terrible thing, etc., it should be wrong to post anti-gun (or pro- gun-control) statements in "net.rec.guns", if one is so established. The whole purpose of such a group would be for the pleasurable chat and exchange of information regarding a HOBBY. The purpose of having a hobby is to enjoy oneself for some periods of non-work time. If such a group ends up to be a seething pit of gun-control flamage, it is effectively spoiled as an enjoyable "clubroom" for a meeting of like minds. If such a degeneration is inevitable, I would much rather that no "firearms" group ever was created -- seeing the desecration and destruction of what might have been an enjoyable thing would be too painful. (I expect that some of the founders or original participants in groups like net.motss might feel just the same way about what happened to those groups over time.) I volunteer to be the moderator if the only way this could be saved would be to make it "mod.rec.guns". I never volunteered to be so involved in a USENET group before, because I have USENET access only by the courtesy of the staff at BRL, who have granted me guest access privledges. It would involve shipping any postings mailed to me back to BRL, via FTP, from my non-USENET main account, where all mail to me is auto-forwarded. The work would be worth it, to save such a group from sinking into degeneracy from the start. This is probably exactly what many people would NOT want in a moderator -- explicit content and opinion control. Nonetheless, that is the way I would do it, were I to have the position. (Who would decide this anyway?) Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
karl@osu-eddie.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste) (01/26/85)
Will Martin makes some very good points about the soon-to-be-created mailing list for those interested and involved with firearms in a sporting manner. ---------- > I've mailed my vote already, but I do want to post a strong concern > regarding this: If such a list is established, it should operate under > the same restrictions that many other special-interest groups have -- > that is, there should be NO debate about the basic subject. > > Just as it is flat WRONG to use "net.women.only" to post anti-feminist > or anti-women messages, or to use "net.motss" to post anti-homosexual > statements, or to use "net.rec.nude" to claim that public nudity is > a terrible thing, etc., it should be wrong to post anti-gun (or pro- > gun-control) statements in "net.rec.guns", if one is so established. > > Will Martin ---------- I take all his comments very seriously and agree with him entirely. Allow me to clarify things a bit with respect to what I have proposed. I have proposed the creation of a mailing list for the purpose of providing a place where people interested in firearms can go to "talk shop," as it were. That is, there's a bunch of folk out there who are interested in firearms for the sake of their sporting value, myself included, and it would be worthwhile to us to have a way to know each other and exchange information. Hence, I have proposed such a mailing list. Second, it is (thus far) envisioned as a *mailing list only*. If at some future time, there are too many people getting involved with the mailing list, then perhaps we will decide to propose the creation of a more typical Usenet newsgroup. Such a group might or might not end up being moderated. But for now, there's about a dozen people who have mailed me requests to be added to the list. That seems mailing-list-sized to me. As regards the problem of discussing issues like gun control, I do not think that such will even be suggested by any of those becoming involved with the list. Nonetheless, I am preparing an initial statement of our *raison d'etre* for use by Chuq Von Rospach in his monthly "list of mailing lists" in mod.newslists, and it already includes the comment that we do not wish to discuss gun control. (That statement will be submitted to the list next week for requests for revisions.) That is not the reason for creating the list; that sort of thing can still be hashed out in net.{politics,flame}. As the original proposer of the list, I suppose that I am *a priori* offering to be the list's moderator. That suits me fine. But the amount of moderation I will do is slight; little more than collecting a bunch of mail in one place, stripping excess headers, and mailing it back out to the group. If someone posts something to the list which is about gun control, I expect to mail it back to the person with comments about it probably not being appropriate. The definition of "appropriate" for this list may change over time. Not much, though, I suspect. At least initially, one may safely assume that the general question of gun control in mail.{firearms,guns,whatever-we-decide} will not present itself. This is the last time I'll mention this on the net. We are, after all, creating a private mailing list (to which anyone is welcome to subscribe, of course), and further discussion on the net itself should be unnecessary. We will work all this out in early discussions about our makeup within the list itself. Anyone wishing to be added to the list, please drop me a note. -- Karl Kleinpaste @ Bell Labs, Columbus 614/860-5107 +==-> cbrma!kk @ Ohio State University 614/422-0915 osu-eddie!karl