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Re: Status on RFD on reorganization of soc.religion.hindu
Namaskar,
On Wed, 26 Jun 1996, GOPAL Ganapathiraju Sree Ramana wrote:
> Suddenly, we hear that the proposal was discussed in some *restricted*
> mailing list by the moderator of the n.a.n. and without explaining the
> reasons the proposal was *killed* -- to the best of my understanding
> from the recent posts.
>
>
> I strongly feel that this *surreptious* killing of the proposal
> without discussing it on the open forum like news.groups, and
> without giving opportunity to the readership or potential
> readership of the srh news group to participate in such a
> discussion is not a decent action.
>
1. The newsgroup Soc.Religion.Hindu with the present moderator and the
present charter was created under the exsting usenet rules, it was not imposed
on the readership of SRH by some unknown entities
2. No newsgroup moderator has been changed/group re-organized, without
the consent of the existing moderator.
3. Many usenet newsgroups, including soc.religion.eastern.,
soc.religion.christianity, all have a single moderator, and some, e.g.,
soc.religion.vaishnava has a single moderator, so singling out
soc.religion.hindu for having a single modeatrator is unfair.
4. What would be the state of usenet, if every three months a group of
people, with personal vendetta against the moderator, calls for the
re-org for that newsgroup and then tries to impose its own terms and condition
for "compromise"? Considering that the re-org proposal was
floated within 2-3 months of the formation of this newsgroup, this is
a very likely scenario.
> Basically, there were no serious objections that i can
> recall on *technical* grounds of potential traffic or
> name space issues.
There were serious objections. And they were all pointed out very clearly.
As I have pointed out in many posts (available in the archives), I
believe that the entire re-organization move was politically motivated,
as a personal vendatta against me, because I stood up for the word
"HINDU" during the formation of soc.religion.vaishnava
The fact that the re-org move started within two months of the
formation of SRH, and right after the formation of srv, based on
the posts during the srv voting, is in itself conclusive proof that
the SRH re-org move was based on personal vendetta and petty politics.
However, I believe that re-hashing this old debate is quite futile.
In my conversations with the moderator of NAN, and others, such as the
usenet adviors and the members of the moderators mailing list I told
them about the fairness of my moderatorship (a fact that has never been
disputed), and I also gave them my original (thought of before the re-org
move) plan for making absolutely certain., as far as possible, that the
moderation process is fair.
The implementation of this plan was delayed because of the re-org.
move, and also the fact that I have had some hardware related problems.
However, now, with these problems behind us, I am very pleased to anounce that
I am forming a Moderation Appeals Committee, consisting of three members
These three are :
Rajan Parrikar
Dhruba Chakrabarty and
Nachiketa Tiwari
Raghu Sheshadriji have also been offered a membership in this
committee, but I am yet to hear from him.
I am working on the implementational details. However, until then,
if your post is rejected, and if you have any reason to dispute the
decision, then your post will be forwarded to these three members
of the Moderation Appeals Committee. If a majority of the members
agree with you, then my decision is over-ridden. Its that simple
I have checked with the other moderators, and I have been told that I
am well within my rights to form such a committee, with the members that I
as an elected moderator of SRH choose, and that this does have a precedence.
Our rejection rate is only about 2-3 articles per week at the
most, and most of the rejections are never appealed. But, even if there
is any appearence of injustice, this process will ensure its
removal.
One of the problems pointed out earlier was the "unreliability" of our
hardware. To address that (however, it was responsible for one delay),
I was able to secure funding of over $200 per year from Global Hindu Electronic
Networks for an account on Netcom, the largest shell account provider.
It is ironical that after we moved our operations to netcom, Ntcom began having
software/hardware problems with newsgroups :-( In fact, notes from motd on
Netcom have been posted on SRH. Now, as a temporary measure, the articles
are posted from two sites
>
> technical aspects. In this RFD, to have a panel of moderators
> instead of currently single moderator is one of the proposals,
> and, as repeatedly asserted by the proponents, the current
> moderator had reasonably long open offer to accept a position
> on the panel -- and if he wanted, probably, he could also have
> selected majority of the panel members. Hence, treating the
> proposal as a way of unseating the current moderator is
> not based on facts, and is rash
Since soc.religion.vaishnava has a single software moderator, and a
single hardware moderator, it is only one moderator who in reality
decides what key words are used for acceptance of the posts. The
same is true for all the other newsgroups I have pointed out above.
Since you and the proponents of srh -reorg have decided to single out
SRH for this move, the re-org motives can be obviously assigned.
> of the proposal -- without seeing the CFV stage. Whether to
> vote yes or no should be decided by the readers of srh on
> Call for Votes.
Since SRH newsgroups was formed by a vote, I consider this out or ghe
ordinary request (since no newsgroup in the entire usenet history has
been subjected to this), as inherently unfair.
I hope that this is the last positng I have to make on this topic, and
that we can all use our time more constructively, in propagating Hindu
dharma on the net.
regards,
ajay shah
ajay@mercury.aichem.arizona.edu
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