X-Message-Number: 869
From: Kevin Q. Brown
Subject: Re: USENET Cryonics Newsgroup
Date: 1 Jun 1992
Subject: Call For Votes Preparation
Before the Call For Votes for a USENET cryonics news group we needed
to settle two things:
(1) name (and scope) of the news group and
(2) whether the news group would be moderated.
As explained below, the best choice seems to be:
Name: sci.cryonics
Status: unmoderated <- changed!
Also, I need to either:
(A) find someone to collect YES / NO votes from two separate user ids on
the same machine (which I am not able to do on my machine) OR
(B) hack on my email processing shell to process YES / NO votes sent to
my user id while automatically distinguishing
them from all the other email I get.
I prefer option (A) because it really is a better way to handle a
Call For Votes. Please let me know ASAP if you are willing and able
to do it!
News Group Moderation
The replies to my Request For Discussion in news.groups have not only
suggested several alternatives for the name of the cryonics (or
cryonics-related) news group, but some also have questioned whether or
not the group should be moderated. I have seen several reasons for and
against moderation, but the AT&T news machine postmaster gave me such a
convincing argument against my proposal to moderate a USENET news group :-(
that it is no longer an issue for me.
Given that the proposal will be for an unmoderated USENET news group,
the cryonics mailing list will relate to the USENET news group as follows:
(1) all (or almost all) cryonics mailing list messages get sent to
the USENET news group and
(2) some, but not all, the USENET news group messages get sent to the
cryonics mailing list.
What I have in mind for (2) is that any messages from the USENET
news group that I find of interest I will forward to the cryonics
mailing list. If I miss something of importance, though, anyone
else can send that USENET message to me for mailblasting to the
cryonics mailing list, too. I do NOT guarantee that I will archive
all the USENET news group messages, even though I archive all the
cryonics mailing list messages.
News Group Name
What should be the name and scope of the USENET news group?
Here are the suggestions I have seen so far:
sci.cryonics - because cryonics is so interdisciplinary and because this
name explicitly focuses on the topic of most interest to us.
(Yes, we also want to allow room for subgroups, but names
of the form sci.x.y.z are possible, too.)
One suggested disadvantage of this name is that cryogenics
and cryonics often get confused by people not familiar with
the terms. Of course, that can be considered an opportunity
to teach them the difference, too.
sci.med.cryonics - because cryonic suspension is a medical procedure
sci.nanotech.cryonics - because reanimation from cryonic suspension
will require advanced nanotechnology and therefore
cryonics does not make sense to people not familiar with
the concepts of nanotechnology
sci.life-ext.cryonics - because our overall interest is actually life
extension, and cryonics is only one aspect of that overall
interest. Also, a lot more research has been done on the
various aspects of life extension than on cryonics alone and
more people are interested in life extension than cryonics.
(Note: I'm told that sci.life-ext.cryonics CAN be created
without ever creating sci.life-ext. Creating both
sci.life-ext.cryonics and sci.life-ext.misc, though, would
require two separate RFDs and CFVs.)
sci.lifex.cryonics - same as above
sci.life-ext - same as above except that no separate cryonics news group
gets created at this time. People may suggest, though,
that the name "sci.med.life-ext" would make more sense
than the name "sci.life-ext".
sci.lifex - same as above
sci.lifext - same as above
talk.cryonics - for "cryonics chatter"
misc.cryonics - same as above
alt.cryonics - a practice news group (for learning to handle unmoderated
discussion) OR a fall-back position if the sci.* cryonics
news group creation fails OR same as above
The best and simplest name for a USENET news group focused on cryonics
seems to be sci.cryonics. I know that not everyone will be happy with
that and we may not succeed in creating it, but if we fail we will just
create alt.cryonics, which was the original proposal in message #779.
Those people who wanted sci.lifext, or some variation of that, will be
disappointed, but they can still submit a Request For Discussion to
create that news group. Personally, I think that a life-extension -
related news group would be good to have, but it is not within the
charter nor does it have the tight focus needed for a cryonics news group.
Kevin Q. Brown
UUCP ...att!whscad1!kqb
INTERNET
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