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Re: Why I support soc.religion.hindu: Reorganisation
GOPAL Ganapathiraju Sree Ramana (gopal@ecf.toronto.edu) wrote:
: [As most of you might be aware there is a Request for Discussion
: about reorganisation of Soc.Religion.Hindu group. You might find
: more discussion on "news.groups" newsgroup].
: Why i support YES for SRH reorganisation
: ===================================================
: i have not yet found a convincing criticism against the RFD
: yet. I summarise the criticisms and why i feel they are not
: yet convincing to me:
: "They are out there to oust Ajay Shah through back door":
: -------------------------------------------------------
: The proponents' offer of moderatorship to current moderator
: Ajay Shah seems to have been made even prior to the accusations
: of intention to oust Ajay Shah have surfaced. They continue to
: state that even at this stage Ajay can accept moderator-ship.
: Hence the accusation does not hold water imo.
Previous posts from some of the proponents have been posted.
These posts (brought to us by Jai Maharaj and Arun Malik) show
that threats were made by the proponents, if the current
moderator continued to oppose s.r.v. The threat was: To disable
the present s.r.h. That is the basis of the accusations that
Ajay Shah is being ousted.
Also, offering Ajay Shah the position of moderator is nothing
more than good politics. This suspicion has been echoed out by
Vidyanath Rao, Arun Malik, Jai Maharah, Rama-Krishna et al, in
addition to myself.
: "Multiple moderators are redundant"
: -----------------------------------
: Hinduism is a complex subject, and requires an understanding
: of different views. I am in no way implying that Ajay does
: not possess wider perspective. But adding more moderators
: does not harm any one: they only add to the expertise. Even
: staunch supporter of Ajay... like N Tiwari agreed at one stage
: in the discussion that multiple moderators are ok provided
: "Ajay pickes his team" or if we the "netters" pick the moderators.
: In other words, multiple moderators is not the question, but how
: they are to be selected.
I have never said that multiple moderators are redundant in an
absolute sense. However, if we look at the traffic on s.r.h at
the moment, we will realize that we do not need multiple moderators.
Second, the moderators need not know Hinduism and in its full
complexity. However what we do need are the following:
1. A moderator who is not prejudiced, in the sense that (s)he permits
all the posts, representing all the viewpoints reg. Hindu Dharma.
2. A moderator, who filters out articles, which involve personal
attacks, and profanities.
3. A moderator, who rejects articles, which are not related to the
Hindu Dharma.
IMO, Ajay Shah has been doing this job pretty well, and so, we do
not have any reason to replace him. Also, we do not need more moder-
ators, since there in not sufficient traffic. When traffic becomes
an issue, then we WILL need more people. Till then, Shanti.
: "Why moderators be picked by proponents"
: ------------------------------------------
: N Tiwari argued that multiple moderators can be picked up by
: Ajay Shah or we the netters. Some questions puzzle me in this
: regard:
: (1) Was Ajay Shah selected by netters? (I donot know, actually)
: (2) Is it practicable to select moderators by us the netters?
: how, and who will be the independent vote taker?
: (3) Has Ajay Shah any reservations about the moderators proposed?
: (4) Have the proposers in any way exceeded their mandate-as-proposers
: in suggesting the list of moderators? is it not done routinely
: in RFDs?
: (5) IF it is legitimate to propose moderators in an RFD why
: cant we give a little credit to the proponents for doing a
: complete job?
If I remember correctly, Ajay was not picked up by netters.
In fact, there was no s.r.h for a very long time. Although
we did have s.r.islam, s.r.christianity ... But s.r.h was
not there. A lot of this had to do with the inactivity in
matters of organization and service, when it comes to people
like me, who are Hindus. And in such a situation, it is to
the credit of Ajay Shah, that he and a couple of his friends
got this idea of s.r.h and created it. It is rather sad to
see that the present rfd aims to oust such a person, who has
served the cause of Dharma (on the net atleast), in a way
which is a bit un-Dharmik.
As to Ajay's reservations about the proposed moderators, let
him answer that. But once again, I have to say: Having multiple
moderators at this stage is no needed.
: "How can non-hindus submit RFD for srh-reorg"
: ---------------------------------------------
: Bon G asked how can those vaishnavites who argue that
: vaishnavites are not hindus submit this RFD. And he
: specifically asked them to declare that they are hindus.
: It turns out that their statement was not that vaishnavites
: are not hindus, but that 'there could be some vaishnavites who
: might not be hindus' and that they never proclaimed they
: are not hindus. They might have argued during discussion on
: a "specific definition" under discussion in the past that
: the particular definition does not encompass all hindus.
: Yet, to meet the demands of Bon G, they did (at least one of
: them on their behalf) declare that they are hindus. and none
: of the other proponents ever retracted it.
: (I personally do not believe that only hindus can propose
: RFD for s.r.h. reorg, since i know of many non-hindus having
: more than average interest and devotion to hinduism and its
: study, but that is another side matter)
: "SRV itself was created illegally, and the same people behind
: SRV are out there to create srh"
: -----------------------------------------------------------
: Jai Maharaj accused vote-taker to be "non-independent" in the
: case of SRV. But he never described his accusations. On the
: other hand it turned out that he himself was seen posting
: campaign statement against the usenet regulations during vote
: taking period, and hence his mesgs had to be cancelled and that
: seems to be basis of his accusations.
: "The proponents are out there to control the SRH"
: --------------------------------------------------
: I cant exactly remember, but i think Bon G and Tiwari (pardon
: me if i am wrong) argued that the proponents are out there
: to control SRH.
: But, the proponents are not the moderators. How can they control
: the group?
You can control s.r.h if you are the moderator. But you can
disable the present s.r.h by removing the present moderator.
You need not have the support of the new moderators in achieving
the latter.
: "Hinduism is religious culture"
: ------------------------------------------------------------
: The proponents were hounded because of their opinion (i am
: not privy to such of their opinions, i only understood from the
: criticism against the RFD) that hinduism a a religious culture,
: which is much more than mere religion, that it is a way of
: life, ethics and beliefs.
: But i am rather surprised because it is my understanding that
: that is the way many people described hinduism in the past.
: I have attended "haindava saamskuthika maha sabha" organised
: by Sri Ramaalaya samithi" under co-funding of AP Govt. And
: that was the opinion expressed by many: i can recount the
: discourse by a renowned vedic scholar from Hyd: Puchchaa
: Subramanya Sastry.
: And:
: Even Tiwari implicitely described hindu'sim as "Dharma". and
: i dont think dharma can be correctly translated as 'religion'.
Frankly, I view all paths as a part of One Dharma. So, Hinduism
is not a real entity in that sense. It is a queer product of Wes-
tern and Semitic thought and Dharma. But, that could be debated
in a separate thread.
: "There is not enough traffic to warrant reorganisation"
: -------------------------------------------------------
: This seemed to be a valid point. but the explanation
: that it is a catch 22-situation, that potential to increase
: traffic exists from the very fact that hinduism is not only
: a huge religion but also most ancient existing religion
: makes me to believe it. Further Ajay Shah himself was expressing
: some problems in hardware failures etc. In any case, what
: is big harm in trying?
Once again, let us cross the bridge, when we reach it. Creating
a system designed for 1000 posts a day, is useless, when we have
only 10-20 posts each day.
--
Nachiketa Tiwari
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