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SRH Reorg: the real moderation policy
In Ajay's article, he selectively cuts a line from the moderation
policy in order to criticize it. What he doesn't include is the
full sentence, or even the next one, which is directly relevant
to the section he quoted. I discuss this below.
In article <4bdste$j38@babbage.ece.uc.edu>, editor@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
|> The RFD for the re-organization, based on personal vendetta and petty
|> politics specifies that in the new group:
Ajay seems to believe that if you repeat a lie enough times,
people will eventually believe it. This isn't the first time that
his post has started with something about vendettas and politics,
and I suspect it won't be the last. It's interesting to me that
in temples, etc., when something religious is about to take place,
some sort of invocation to God is made to bless the event. I guess
such is not the case here.
|> ---------Quote from RFD --------------
|> Political announcements, hortatory articles, calls-to-action,
|> reminders of past misdeeds, special-format postings, etc., will be
|> rejected,
|> --------------------------------------
|>
|> I would like the readers of this group to judge this statment on its
|> own merit, but here are some points to ponder:
The first point to ponder is this: Why did Ajay cut that quote
right after the comma? More importantly, since he seems to have
read the RFD several times, why didn't he include the next
sentence, which also mentions politics? Here are the two sentences
in their entirety:
" Political announcements, hortatory articles, calls-to-action,
reminders of past misdeeds, special-format postings, etc., will be
rejected, as will postings that espouse hate. Moderators will
discourage political discussions, but will permit postings that
mention politics, as long as such are of an interest to a
non-political audience."
So, it seems that politics can be mentioned, as long is it is of
interest to a non-political audience! It seems that this guideline
makes sense, since this group is supposed to be soc.RELIGION.hindu,
and not soc.politics.hindu.
|> 1. ISKCON temples in UK and Armenia were under legal and bigoted
|> attack. A Call for Action, asking for letter writing etc. was issued by
|> ISKCON temples. Under the proposed guidelines, this post would
|> have been rejected.
My guess is that the post would've met the criteria of the second
sentence - the one you omitted.
|> Should the discrimination against Hindus not
|> be portrayed on a *moderated* Hindu newsgroup? Should not its readers
|> be asked to take action? Would SRV reject such a post?
SRV, as you know, is auto-moderated, so the acceptance or rejection
of a post has little to do with the statements made in the post. The
software would have checked the post for keywords, and if it found
_any_ of the keywords, it would have accepted the post.
|> 2. Hindu Temple in Fiji was burnt down last year. Would writing against
|> such incident be considered political? Should a call for action against
|> such atrocity go un-read by the *moderated* soc.religion.hindu readers?
Once again, you have confused the issue. The article would have been
about a temple, and politics is a sidebar. Therefore, in my opinion,
the second sentence, which you omitted, would apply.
|> 3. Can one imagine a Jewish newsgroup's charter would be written
|> where it is specifically forced that the Holocaust not be mentioned?
|> Should the moderators impose their political ideology on the readers
|> and demand that Hindu suffering of the past and present not be mentioned
|> in any article on this newsgroup?
I guess this is a reference to the "Hindu suffering" articles which
mention possible suffering from 1000 years back, right? Tell me -
what is the purpose of such an article on a religious newsgroup?
|> 5. No proponent of RFD has been able to prove that postings were
|> rejected based on ideology, political affiliation etc. on
"ideology" - actually, that was mentioned. You forget the Shiva Purana
post, which had statements straight out of Hindu literature. You
rejected that one. What other statements from Hindu literature will
you reject?
|> So the ideal moderation policy is what SRH already has.
This is very humble of you - deny the possibility that there is
room for improvement, and you can claim perfection.
|> Sure, an un-moderated newsgroup for such discussion is proposed. But why
|> not allow such discussions in a moderated personal attack free environment?
|> Why this rush to elimiate a *moderated* forum that Hindus already have
|> for such discussion?
There is no "rush" to eliminate a moderated forum. There is an attempt
to move postings which espouse hatred out of the moderated forum, and
so far, you haven't been able to show otherwise.
|> Once again, please do not construde any of this as personal attacks But
|> it is certainly worth noting that one of the proponents voted against
|> the creation of this newsgroup, then, at the first opportunity (normal
|> re discussion on newsgroup process takes 3 months, and RFD came out 3 1/2
|> months later) asked for a reorganization of this newsgroup. Politics?
For an answer to this question, please read
http://www-ece.rice.edu/~vijaypai/srh-stats.html
|> You decide!!
Yes, please decide.
-Vivek
(submitted around Fri Dec 22 11:03:49 CST 1995)
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