Usenet 1994 January/usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicjanuary1994.iso/answers/feminism/info

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Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!pad-thai.aktis.com!pad-thai.aktis.com!not-for-mail
From: [e-mail] (Cindy Tittle Moore)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism,soc.answers,news.answers
Subject: soc.feminism Information
Supersedes: <feminism/[e-mail]>
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Date: 29 Dec 1993 00:00:19 -0500
Organization: Disorganized in Orange County, CA
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Summary: This post contains information about the moderated group
         soc.feminism, including the guidelines for posting.
X-Last-Updated: 1993/10/20
Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu soc.feminism:4229 soc.answers:737 news.answers:13413

Archive-name: feminism/info
Version: 1.5
Last-modified: 9 September 1993

This is an informational post about the newsgroup soc.feminism.
It is posted every 25 days.

Copies of this FAQ may be obtained by anonymous ftp to rtfm.mit.edu
under /pub/usenet/news.answers/feminism/info.  Or, send email to
[e-mail] with
send usenet/news.answers/feminism/info
in the body of the message, leaving the subject line empty.

NEW: the current charter for this group is included below.


  History of soc.feminism

    This group was formed in late 1989.  There was considerable
    debate over the subject matter of the group, who would be allowed
    to post, who would moderate, and what the name of the group would
    be.  There was a large contingent of people who were afraid that
    the purpose of soc.feminism would be to provide a women-only
    feminist-supportive environment, and they ensured that the charter
    of soc.feminism would allow pro-feminist and anti-feminist views,
    and be open to both women and men.  In the end, four moderators
    were selected to moderate the group.

    As for the name of the group, it was nearly named talk.feminism,
    but soc.feminism won out.  The decision was somewhat political, as
    it was felt that more sites carried soc. groups than talk. groups.

    It turns out that the subject matter of the group has evolved
    toward a basic assumption of the notion that women deserve a basic
    equality with men, with the disagreement focused on how to best
    achieve that, or the prices we pay for a certain route.
    Unfortunately, many of _these_ disagreements overwhelm the group
    at times, and we are working on ways to tone this down without
    invalidating different reader's points of views.  Women and men
    both of diverse views have always been welcome to post.

    The original proposer of soc.feminism was Patricia Roberts, who
    collected the votes, worked with Greg Woods to set up a program
    allowing multiple moderators and chose the initial moderators.  We
    were the first multiply moderated group: soc.religion.islam,
    rec.arts.sf.reviews and sci.physics.research have followed suit.

    The four original moderators of soc.feminism were Cindy Tittle
    [Moore], Miriam H.  Nadel, Jean Marie Diaz and Valerie Maslak.
    Valerie dropped out about a year later when faced with increasing
    net-connection trouble.  Jean Marie Diaz has not moderated since
    the summer of 1991, and Miriam Nadel has taken an extended leave
    of absence after taking up consulting work since mid 1992.

    Muffy Barkocy became a new moderator in December of 1991, and
    Paul Wallich joined us in the beginning of 1993.

    We always keep our eyes open for another moderator (send email to
    [e-mail] if interested).

    People who objected to soc.feminism's moderated format created
    the group alt.feminism in protest in the summer of 1992.

    Some dissatisfaction with how the group was progressing was
    discussed in the summer of 1993.  A full scale discussion on a
    charter proposed by the moderators resulted and the charter was
    adopted at the end of the summer.  Note that prior to this
    soc.feminism had had no charter, and used an informal set of
    guidelines instead.

  Charter

    Soc.feminism is a feminist discussion forum.  Discussion on
    feminist theory, experiences, and opinion are all welcomed. The
    basic validity of feminism as a viewpoint, however, is not to be
    considered at issue.  That is, no anti-feminist postings will be
    allowed.  Note that "anti-feminist" does not necessarily include
    those who question feminist tenents so long as the intent is to
    find a better direction to take rather than to dismantle feminism.

    The overall goal of the newsgroup is to provide information to
    those wishing to learn more about feminism and to serve as a
    resource to those who consider themselves feminists.  To this end,
    thoughtful, informational, well-organized and non-inflammatory
    articles will be preferred.  Speculations and opinions should be
    clearly labelled as such, and sweeping generalizations about
    feminism (and women, and men) should be strictly avoided, in the
    spirit of recognizing that feminism takes many forms, opinions and
    positions.

    For the purposes of this newsgroup, a working definition of
    feminism is as follows:

    1. The belief that women and men are, and have been, treated
       differently by our society, and that women have frequently and
       systematically been unable to participate fully in all social
       arenas and institutions.

    2. A desire to change that situation.

    3. That this gives a "new" point-of-view on society, when
       eliminating old assumptions about why things are the way they
       are, and looking at it from the perspective that women are not
       inferior and men are not "the norm."

    Obviously people will differ on the implications, opinions and
    course of action necessary that they derive from this basic
    position. Topical content is expected to be of interest to
    feminism.  A wide variety of topics may be discussed; if the topic
    is no longer obviously feminist related, discussion may continue,
    as long as participants make it clear how their feminist views
    affect their opinions on the topic.  The topics of rape and
    abortion are prohibited from this group, and discussion on these
    is directed to talk.rape and talk.abortion, respectively.
    Informational postings describing abortion rallies or Take Back
    the Night activities are the only exceptions.  Inflammatory
    articles, ad-hominem or personal attacks are also prohibited.

    The parallel topic of equal rights for men is not to be the
    primary focus of this group.  In particular, posts pointing an
    accusing finger at feminism for not being right there to create
    shelters for abused husbands or diverting/dismissing discussion on
    discrimination against women by pointing out where men are
    discriminated against instead are prohibited.  Feminism is
    primarily concerned with eliminating bias against women; efforts
    to eliminate bias against men are equally laudable; but discussion
    of same will be steered toward soc.men, alt.dads-rights and other
    suitable forums.  This is not to say that all discussion will
    ignore the situation of men, or how to make that better; most
    feminists do want to make things better for all people and in
    particular many radical feminists point out that you can't do one
    without the other.  Discussion of men's rights is not prohibited,
    but such discussion may not be used as a means for invalidating
    other topics.

    Since there are many conflicting aspects of feminist thought, we
    know that posters to soc.feminism will disagree on some issues.
    Nevertheless, an attitude of *mutual respect* is expected.
    Soc.feminism is not to be a place for "conversion" -- people are
    not expected to convert non-feminists to feminism or vice versa.
    Neither are people expected to convert others from one flavor of
    feminism to another.  Therefore, responses to a post that one
    disagrees with are not expected to pick apart that post but to
    describe alternate points of view and their supporting reasons.
    For example, if an article posts "a, b, and c" and you disagree,
    an article that says "I disagree, I think d, e, and f" will be
    preferred over "I disagree: not a, not b, and not c". Note that
    polite critiques, especially as part of minority views in
    feminism, will usually be accepted, but individuals who
    consistently post only critiques may be asked to contribute
    positive and informational articles about topics they're
    interested in instead.  If we can't distinguish your article as an
    honest critique from an anti-feminist stance, we will ask you to
    clarify your position in your post.

    In borderline cases, depth of thought, originality and good
    writing will count. That is, an interesting posting will be
    preferred to a dull one. Decisions of the moderators based on
    these subjective factors are final.

    Those whose articles do not meet the above criteria are encouraged
    to explore alternative groups such as: alt.feminism,
    alt.dads-rights, soc.feminism.d (if created), soc.men, soc.women,
    talk.abortion, talk.politics.misc, and talk.rape.

  Soc.feminism FAQ's

    Soc.feminism publishes several FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions)
    on a monthly basis (this posting is one of them).  The others are
    FAQ's on: References (books and articles on feminism, in three
    parts), Terminologies (descriptions of different "kinds" of
    feminism, esp.  as used in this newsgroup), and Resources (a
    compilation of various organizations and groups of, for, and by,
    women).  Two more: a history of feminism and a discussion of
    violence, are in the works.

    To obtain these FAQs, ftp to rtfm.mit.edu and look under
    /pub/usenet/news.answers/feminism.  If you cannot use ftp, send
    email to the mail server at [e-mail] with no
    subject line, and any combinantion of the lines below (select the
    ones to get the FAQ's you're interested in) in the body of your
    message.

      send usenet/news.answers/feminism/info
      send usenet/news.answers/feminism/terms
      send usenet/news.answers/feminism/resources
      send usenet/news.answers/feminism/refs1
      send usenet/news.answers/feminism/refs2
      send usenet/news.answers/feminism/refs3

    Note that you must repeat the full path name for each included line.

  Digest

    There is a digest version of soc.feminism available.  Write to
    [e-mail] for details or to subscribe.  It is
    mailed out about once a week or so depending on volume and
    consists of what has been posted (no editing).  This is NOT
    automated; you are sending email to a person at feminism-digest.

  Submissions and Requests addresses

    To submit an article to soc.feminism, post as you normally do for
    other, non-moderated groups.  This should work for most people.
    If you have trouble with this, email the article to
    [e-mail].  This will treat it exactly as any other
    article posted to soc.feminism (in fact, this is the address that
    your newsreader should email the intercepted article to).  If you
    have questions about the group, you can send your questions to
    [e-mail].  This address will forward your
    mail to all active moderators (moderators take vacations, too).
    Please do not send email specifically to any one moderator unless
    you have been requested to do so, as email addresses may change.

  General Guidelines for submission

    You should first note that these guidelines are just that.  They
    cannot precisely spell out exactly what will be accepted and what
    will be rejected.  Much can depend on context, for example.  In
    addition, there are always new takes on topics, and a set of
    guidelines could not hope to enumerate them all.

    Articles must be relevant to feminism.  They may not contain
    ad-hominem attacks or flames.

    Discussion of the moderation of the group (what happened to an
    article, whether or not an article is really appropriate, etc.)
    must be sent to [e-mail].  Such discussion
    will not be posted to the newsgroup.  This is not hard and fast,
    and discussion on the nature of the group's moderation has in
    the past occured on soc.feminism.

    Two topics that are of general feminist interest that are severely
    restricted here are abortion and rape.  This is partly because the
    topics are inherently inflammatory and because there exist
    talk.abortion and talk.rape newsgroups to carry on full-fledged
    debates.  Some discussion *is* allowed, mostly as long as the
    articles are not inflammatory and as long as the primary focus is
    on the topic's relationship with feminism.  Informative articles
    (e.g., about specific groups, or calls for marches, or official
    positions of feminist organizations, etc) are allowed.  You should
    note that while soc.feminism takes no official position on the
    question of abortion, the majority of abortion-related articles
    that are approved tend to be pro-choice simply because most of the
    articles submitted are.  This should not be construed to reflect
    the personal opinions of the moderators, or of any individual
    posting to soc.feminism.

    Every now and then someone posts a question of the form "This is a
    feminist newsgroup, but I never see any women posting to it!"
    This may or may not be accompanied by a plea for men to reduce
    their posting.  In the first place, simple demographics of USENET
    mean that there are overwhelmingly more men than women with access
    to USENET/email.  The existence, however, of some groups that are
    almost totally female or balanced more 50-50, points to other
    problems than simple demographics.  Many women have complained
    that soc.feminism is still "too hostile" for other women; there
    are undoubtedly many others that refrain from posting because of
    the negative aspects of being labelled or considered a feminist.
    If you are a woman and would like to see more women post, the only
    practical action you can take is ... to post.  Asking men to
    refrain from posting is simply unfair, especially given USENET's
    public nature.  There are a number of women-only forums, pointers
    to which appear in the Resources FAQ.

    There are many other topics that flare up into prolonged and
    protracted disagreements.  Chief among these are 1) the question
    of gender neutral language, 2) the actual statistics on
    spouse-beating or other crimes in comparing which gender is "worse
    off," 3) the propriety of "women only" events when "men only" are
    always attacked as sexist (including the question of women-only
    colleges).  These topics have come up many times and most regular
    readers would be appreciative if you check and even read some of
    the references given on these topics in the References post before
    jumping in or starting such a topic.  This gives everybody a
    common basis to discuss from.  While these topics are not
    forbidden, they may be stopped at the moderators' discretion when
    circularity starts to occur.

    Other articles that are otherwise perfectly acceptable may be
    rejected if a number of prior articles have made the same point,
    e.g., someone asks for a book title, or someone makes a point and
    a number of people make the same counterpoint.  "Me too" and "What
    s/he said" articles are generally rejected as well.  The aim is
    to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio as much as possible.

    The subject of homosexuality is relatively sensitive.  We will not
    post anything we deem homophobic (we consider this to fall under
    unwarranted attacks that are already forbidden).  Many articles on
    or about lesbianism are considered relevant to feminism because of
    the close association between feminism and lesbianism.  Articles
    about gay males are accepted if there is a clear relevance to
    feminism present.  The point is, there are ties between feminism
    and homosexuality, whether or not one disapproves of it.  Those
    ties can be discussed so long as the question of whether or not
    homosexuality is "right" or "wrong" is avoided (since such
    discussion is irrelevant to feminism).  Here's a check list:
      * Gay rights in general are structurally similar to women's
        rights, black rights, minority rights, etc.  They may be
        acceptable (as would black or minority rights articles) if
        there are parallels drawn with feminism or some other clearly
        drawn link.
      * Because much of the theory of patriarchy revolves around how
        female sexuality is directed and used for the benefit of the
        patriarchy, Lesbianism is a direct challenge to the
        patriarchy, especially in Western cultures. Therefore most
        articles on Lesbianism are relevant.
      * Anti-gay rhetoric is not acceptable.  Calm and reasoned
        arguments against homosexuality is not acceptable.
        Soc.feminism is not a forum for whether or not homosexuality
        is "right" or "wrong."

    If the post includes private email, be sure to obtain that
    individual's permission before posting it.  There are no legal
    rules about this (yet), but it is requested as part of general
    net.etiquette for this group.

    If you are posting material that may be copyrighted, please give
    all information about where it comes from.  Partial quotes,
    newspaper articles, book blurbs and the like are generally OK, but
    with full source information, we can decide whether such postings
    potentially infringe copyright law.  We will not post articles
    that violate copyright law: examples include entire newspaper or
    magazine articles, or substantial portions of books.  A review
    that extensively quotes such a source is OK, a commentary on such
    a source without as much quoting is better.

    Posting pointers alone to discussions in other groups is not
    generally allowed.  However, a discussion of such a thread in
    another group is perfectly fine, eg, summarizing the discussion
    and adding your thoughts to it.  Remember that we do not crosspost
    any soc.feminism articles in any case.

    Finally, please edit out all unnecessary quoted text and pay
    attention to your attributions.  We have done some ourselves when
    it seemed necessary, but we do not feel that this should be part
    of our job.  Therefore, your article may be returned with a
    request to streamline it if you do not take care to remove old
    signatures, excess text, unrelated points and the like.

  Multiple Moderation

    This group is moderated by several moderators, each working
    independently.  Submissions are sent to [e-mail],
    where one current moderator is selected, and the article forwarded
    to that moderator only.  This means that there is some variation
    in what is approved or not, since there is inherent individual
    variation between different people.  We do try to minimize this
    variation by consulting with each other on the occassional,
    problematic, article.  However, the whole purpose of multiple
    moderation is to reduce the load on any one individual, therefore
    we do not consult each other over every posting we get.  Please
    keep this in mind if you have a complaint which may be related to
    this.

  Anonymous Posting

    We have posted articles anonymously for contributors before.  In
    general, you must satisfy us that you have a good reason for
    remaining anonymous.  You will not be anonymous to the moderators,
    but your article will be posted without identifying material if we
    consent to posting it anonymously.  For articles that you wish to
    be posted anonymously, you must preface it with your request and
    your reasons for the request.  We will not post it if we think
    that your reasons are insufficient or deceitful; you will be
    informed via email of the decision.  In any case, your identity
    will be kept confidential.

    Mail "handles" are not considered anonymous; anonymity is when
    there is no email address available to reach the person who posted
    the article.  Soc.feminism has no policy regarding the common
    practice of using a fanciful name or nickname instead of the real
    name in the "handle" field.

    There are several anonymous mail servers that set up a double
    anonymous connection: when you send mail to it, it gives you an
    anonymous email address, and anyone responding to that email
    address gets an anonymous address of their own.  We do not have
    any objections to people using this software (since you provide a
    valid email address to send to), but be aware that some of these
    services are a bit buggy and may cause us problems especially if
    we reject your article.

  Editorial Policy

    If the moderator who receives your article thinks that it is
    generally OK if it is somewhat edited, you will get your article
    back with comments.  At this point, you can change it and send it
    back directly to that moderator.  If you feel that changes are
    unreasonable, you can appeal to the feminism-request address.
    Articles that are rejected receive a "rejection notice"; again if
    you think it was unfounded, drop a note to feminism-request.  If
    you sent an article and it has not appeared nor have you received
    email about it, you may wish to enquire via feminism-request.  Do
    keep in mind, though, that articles may sit for a while;
    moderators do not necessarily check their mail over the weekends,
    and that site connectivity may mean that your site will not
    receive your article from the moderator's site within the time you
    expect.  However, email is not perfect and has been known to send
    mail into giant black holes, so bear with us.

    The moderators may make cosmetic modifications to articles that have
    lines that are too long, have their attributions mixed up, or
    quote excessive material.  Moderators will occasionally inject
    their comments, usually to the effect of advising people where
    followups are going to, warning of topic drift, or some other
    explanatory note.  Any further modifications are always after
    consultation with the original author as described in the previous
    paragraph.

--------------

Please mail in comments, additions, corrections, suggestions, and so
on to [e-mail].

Thank you,

--Cindy Tittle Moore

"The last thing feminism is about is exclusion.  Feminists can be
defined as those women and men who recognize that the earth doesn't
revolve around anybody's son---or around any one group."
  -- Regina Barreca, _They Used to Call Me Snow White...But I Drifted_