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Re: Status on RFD on reorganization of Soc.Religion.Hindu

In article <4shpfn$bo1@babbage.ece.uc.edu>,
Ajay Shah  <ajay@mercury.aichem.arizona.edu> wrote:
>Namaskar,
>
>On 16 Jul 1996, Shrisha Rao wrote:

>> Thanks for the honorific, but I really don't deserve it; perhaps you
>> should reserve it for others.  Our mutual friends tell me that you are
>> quite a bit older than me, too.
>
>Perhaps, but probably not in age Srisha ji :-)

In many other things, surely, but also in age, as I'm told.

>> Very good.  Now, notice I said moderation policy, not charter.
>
>Actually, I should have said Moderation Policy.  Not charter.  The 
>Moderation policy although mailed along with Charter, was not posted.  
>The original CFV was cancelled, and a new CFV was posted, along with 
>charter and Moderation policy

Sorry.  My mistake.  I looked up the UUNET archive, and you're quite
right.

On July 19, 1995 (exactly a year ago), Michael Handler, the votetaker
for soc.religion.hindu wrote:

  The currently running vote for soc.religion.hindu has been cancelled
  due to votetaker error.

  When composing the CFV for soc.religion.hindu, I inadvertently forgot
  to include the moderation policies and the naming of the moderator into
  the document.  Thus, the CFV was invalid, and had to be cancelled.

The reason I was confused is that GHEN's website 

http://rbhatnagar.ececs.uc.edu:8080/srh_home/charter

seems to archive the old, cancelled CFV dated July 12, 1995 -- the one
without the moderation policy statement in it.  Perhaps this should be
corrected.

>Well, actually you brought up Kashmir issue, I did not.  I merely 
>responded, saying that all of us stood up for Kashmir vote, and voted, 
>wrote messages etc. You may want to check the "Yes" vote list on SCI-JK 
>for verification.

Actually, I didn't bring up the Kashmir issue as such; I brought up
the fact that extraneous factors have played a part in the course of
this reorg.

I know you voted for SCI.J-K -- your name was even on the truncated
"sampled" 82:50 vote result.  Btw, did you know that that Warren
Lavallee, the SCI.J-K votetaker, voted against soc.religion.hindu?
Found that out when I was browsing the voter list recently.

>> Btw, if there is an ISBN reference or some other detail such as
>> publisher, Library of Congress number, etc., for your book, I'd like
>> to know.  Thanks in advance.
>
>The book is completely sold out.  I am working on a html version of the 
>book.  However, currently some less than constructive issues are 
>consuming my time.  I will be sure to inform you when its ready.

Ah, pity.  Btw, there are several very useful tools available for text
to HTML conversion, if your stuff is already available on-line in some
way (i.e., if it doesn't have to be typed).

>Glad to see, that Indians can put aside disagreements when it comes to 
>unity of India.

Or at least, Indians can express their interest in a book when nothing
else is involved.

>> Please; let's not go into that again.  That's not the truth and you
>> know it.  You failed to express any sentiments at all all through the
>> RFD period, and did so only after it was too late to change anything.
>> I don't want to bring up this matter again in detail unless you force
>> me to.
>
>1. I did make a post on news.groups expressing my sentiments before CFV

Very good; now, notice again, that I said, during the RFD period.  You
did post to news.groups before the CFV, but not much enough before to
make a difference (after the discussions were over, and the
questionnaire submitted).  Also, you did not respond when we replied.

>2. As I mentioned before, it was after the ISKCON UK temple incident, which 
>occured during the voting period, that compelled me to point out, that I 
>would personally support a Vaishnava newsgroup only with the name Hindu 
>in it.  Not otherwise.  Only as a united community Hindus can withstand 
>the pressures such as discrimination against ISKCON in UK or Armenia.

It would, I think, be a significant extension of the concept of
`Hindu' to say that there are any Hindus in Armenia -- I'm not sure
how that could be justified -- certainly not from the Sangh Parivar
notion, I know that.

Anyway, there were other aspects to your "pointing out" -- such as
whether or not the name of a newsgroup has anything to do with Hindu
unity or effect on discrimination against ISKCON in the UK and
Armenia.  This, too, was pointed out.

>> And, I'm sure, responses to it also are.  That's what I meant by
>> saying that the "conclusive proof" had been debunked.
>
>Not to those who are honest observers of this process.

Which, of course, is subjective, depending upon one's notions of an
"honest observer."

>> Unfairness can run two ways, I think.
>
>whatever that meant...

It means that there can be unfair rejection, as well as unfair
acceptance (as with the ad for psychedelic tryptamines).

>> But why does it say it sponsors the newsgroup?  Why did you say during
>> the RFD discussion that it does not sponsor the group, and yet the
>> website continues to say this?  That's the point.
>
>because it provides hardware support (sponsorship), and archival support.  
>Nothing more...  Of course, anyone can create archives for SRH.  Archives 
>are, just as in SRV, not official.

I don't know what hardware support (sponsorship) means here.  You
yourself have said that moderation is now carried out from two or
three sites -- are *all* of them due to GHEN?  If no, then "partially
supported" is better than "sponsored."  Also note that "sponsored"
typically means that the company or organization that sponsors gets
some advertizing out of it, and pays all expenses incurred by the
sponsored entity (for the duration of the sponsorship).  Given the
nature of UseNet, such sponsorship is quite impossible -- which is why
the claim is untrue on the face of it.

>> No innuendos.  Facts only.  I pointed out that the GHEN home page
>> clearly and unambiguously states that it sponsors the SRH newsgroup;
>> you did not refute this.  I also reminded you that you denied such
>> sponsorship during the RFD discussion.  Right?  Now you're hedging the
>
>Please check archives.  My original post also said, GHEN provides 
>hardware sponsorship.  It did for alt.hindu and it does for 
>soc.religion.hindu.    

That's fine: but why say it sponsors the _newsgroup_, when it would be
more accurate to say "hardware support by..."?

>> I was there; I remember.  You did make a posting saying why you
>> thought there was a double standard, and we replied.  You didn't come
>> back again on that issue.  Yet you toot the same horn again.
>> 
>There are glaring double standards that the proponents of SRH re-org seek 
>to apply to SRH, that they have not applied to SRV.  These include :
>
>1. No provision in the charter for adding additional key words

I think you have the wrong idea; according to the SRV charter, the
keywords are left to the moderators' discretion, and are meant to be
changed and reflected in the FAQ, just to make sure that only active
readers can post.  That was the whole idea of the keyword feature, in
fact.

However, as I've said before, this point is irrelevant (not indicative
of a double standard) because there is no keyword feature proposed in
the reorg.

>2,. No provision for removal of or addition of additional 
>software/hardware moderators

But given that there exists a software agent that does the actual
moderating, why does one need additional bot handlers?

You're missing one thing -- the SRV charter clearly says the group is
not to be moderated directly by humans; given that restriction, and
given the bot, how does it matter how many moderators there are?

>3. No provision for back up moderation when the hardware at one site fails

This is not a point of discrimination, either, since the RFD said
nothing about hardware failures at one site.

Regards,

Shrisha Rao

>ajay shah
>ajay@mercury.aichem.arizona.edu
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