Re: TELUSA digest 421 -- Purpose of TELUSA?

Savithri Machiraju (savithri@netcom.com)
Thu, 17 Apr 1997 12:19:27 -0700 (PDT) 

OK, here's something I've been wanting to ask for many, many months.  
Each time I have restrained myself, but I can't stand it any more.

What exactly is the purpose of Telusa?

I've been on the list since the inception.  When I got the first mail
about the proposed mailing list and its guidelines, I couldn't help
smiling to myself, and saying, "Ah, they want to have an SCIT without all
the spamming and flaming!"  But I went along, because actually I was (and
am) interested in discussing Telugu literature. 

But no sooner was it started than there was an incessant discussion about 
"how can we make SCIT better?".  OK, it was decided to cross-post 
everything on the list to SCIT to increase its "Telugu content."  Then 
the list owners were asked to come up with automated software to make it 
easier for those who wanted to post to both Telusa and SCIT.  So these 
people wanted to uplift SCIT from the gutter, but they didn't want to 
actually take the little trouble that would be entailed in posting twice! 
OK, that was done.

This was followed in a few weeks by the plans to get SCIT moderated, with 
the draft proposal circulated, discussed, modified, and finally 
campaigned for on Telusa, in a manner which completely justified the 
opposition's charges of collusion and conspiracy, IMO.  Nevertheless, I 
voted for moderation of SCIT, as I felt that would be a good course of 
action for that group.  I almost changed my vote, though, when one of the 
originators of Telusa commented here, *before the close of the voting 
period*, in responding to a question, "Soon SCIT will be moderated, and 
we won't have to go through this" (paraphrasing).  Rather a rash 
assumption before the votes were all even in, don't you think?

OK, finally the great vote passed, the moderation advocates got their 
wish, and I hoped that Telusa could go back to being a literature list.  
HA!  I guess, having an automated way of posting to both to Telusa and 
SCIT got people too lazy to post to just to SCIT, or maybe they forgot 
how.  In any case, posts which were clearly meant *only for SCIT*, such 
as announcements of cultural programs, directions to places, comments on 
movie actors' deaths, political discussions, all found their way to 
Telusa as well as SCIT.  Now throughout this process, various people have 
been raising this issue (about inappropriate posts to Telusa), but there 
has never been an adequate response that I saw.  First it was, "Oh, it's 
only until we get this moderation question behind us", and then it was, 
"I know this is inappropriate for Telusa, but I'm posting here anyway, 
because I don't know how to post only to SCIT."  Oh, really?  All these 
people doing this were posting regularly to SCIT before the formation of 
Telusa.  What happened now?

There is a more troubling aspect to this double posting, aside from 
inappropriateness to Telusa.  While it may be argued that all posts to 
Telusa are appropriate to SCIT (since Telugu literature falls within 
SCIT's charter), I think it is not appropriate to parade the fact that 
there is some "in group" which is conducting a conversation among its 
members, but to do so in public.  This is the effect of all those posts 
to SCIT which are addressed to "fellow Telusa-ers".  On this issue, also, 
there have been protests and questions from the readers of SCIT, along 
the lines of "What is this Telusa and why are its members posting here?"  
Again I have not seen a satisfactory answer.  I read several newsgroups 
for which there are related mailing lists, but they are only mentioned 
from time to time for people who might be interested in joining, or in 
response to a specific query on other resources.  I have never seen the 
situation where the entire contents of a mailing list are routinely 
posted to a related newsgroup.

At one time, I used to have to search through the Telusa digest to find 
the one or two posts that had not also been posted to SCIT (a pretty 
wasteful activity).  Now there is no post which has not already appeared 
in SCIT -- a complete waste of bandwidth.  I finally got set off by 
today's digest, which had not *one* post that had any relevence to 
Telusa (although all were appropriate to SCIT).  

I am sorry that my first post to Telusa is so negative. But any time that 
I wanted to participate in a discussion before, I was held back by the 
bad taste left in my mouth by one or more of these "inappropriate" 
posts.  My question is just this:  Is Telusa nothing more than a mirror 
site for SCIT?  Or is there anything unique to it which is not available 
to nonsubscribers elsewhere?  Based on the answers, I'll know whether to 
continue on Telusa, or just read SCIT.

BTW, I'm using the "reply to" function to post this to Telusa only.  If 
this post also appears on SCIT, I guess I'll have my answer.

Thanks for letting me vent. I'll look forward to any responses.


Savithri Machiraju