I need to ask a favor. Yes, this is a "mass mailing," but I hope you will
give it thoughtful consideration, as if it were addressed to you personally,
because I think the subject is an important one, and I hope you will agree.
I'll try to keep this article as short as possible, ending with a statement
of what I am asking from you and why. I will post a followup article that
gives more technical details, which can be read for a better understanding
of what all is involved at a mechanical level.
BACKGROUND
I need help thinking through an appropriate response to a recent proposal
to create a "newsgroup" on the worldwide Usenet conferencing system which
would exist for the purpose of exchanging information and ideas about the
indigenous peoples of the Americas and possibly of the world. I feel that
this development could be very important for us as a community, as I hope
to explain in this article.
When I originated NativeNet a bit over three years ago, I really had no
idea it would attract as large a following as it has, with nearly four hun-
dred people now on the NATIVE-L list, several hundred on NATCHAT, and with
a steady stream of interesting and important news bulletins each day, and
a good means of answering questions on any aspect of the lives and cultures
of native peoples in all parts of the world. I don't want to sound too
self-congratulatory, since I could never have done any of what I have with-
out the generous help and support from so many people, who have assisted in
so many important ways. Over time, the original single mailing list became
divided into a number of separate lists, each dealing with a different aspect
of our overall subject. Links were established with the international net-
work of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), which has
member systems in many parts of the world, which have greatly helped Native-
Net to be what it is, since it brings us the bulletins of many organizations
working with indigenous peoples' issues. I am also grateful for the generous
support of the good people at Texas A & M University, who have donated the
computer time and disk space necessary to make NativeNet lists available via
LISTSERV, which has made it much easier to distribute bulletins to the large
number of subscribers currently on the lists, and to provide a full-text
searchable archive of each article posted (NATIVE-L and NAT-1492 lists only)
and an auxilliary store of document files which can be requested by name.
I find we are at another crossroads, as one segment of the worldwide Usenet
community which uses special "news" reading and posting software to conduct
discussions on and exchange information about a wide range of topics consi-
ders the question of creating one or more new newsgroups for the purpose of
exchanging facts and ideas about Native peoples, and serving as a medium for
indigenous people themselves to discover and communicate with one another.
Usenet is a very interesting phenomenon, one I have seen grow from its infancy
in the early 1980s to become a vast high-volume means of people talking about
any subject you could possibly imagine (literally!).
Most of the users of Usenet are students and faculty at colleges and uni-
versities in all parts of the world, but some are employees at high-tech
companies, or just hobbyists using their home computers to tie in through
the many public-access "bulletin-board systems" (BBS) which have sprung up
around the globe. Many many millions of characters flow throughout the
numerous tendrils of the network each day, by means of the Internet backbone
system and a dialup network (which formed the original Usenet backbone)
using "UUCP" technology. Usenet is accessible via a number of convenient
[and some not-so-convenient :-) ] user interfaces which run directly on the
machine the end user uses to tie in to the network. The computer confer-
encing software is available free of charge, and can be installed on any
system capable of running the UNIX operating system (as well as many which
are not, including the "VMS" operating system which runs on the VAX series
of computers from Digital Equipment, and I think there are even implemen-
tations for IBM mainframe machines).
MY REQUEST:
I would like to ask members of the NativeNet family that they consider
becoming involved in helping to make the Usenet newsgroup(s) which are being
proposed a reality. If we can help bring this idea about by providing support
and encouragement to those who are working to make it all happen, and if we
can enter into the dialogue with those people who are presently working out
some of the fine points of how it would operate, and can participate in the
voting process which will take place late in January, I feel we stand to en-
large and enrich our experience at the same time as we are able to welcome a
whole new group of people to take part in the exchange of information and ideas
which we have been carrying out via the NativeNet lists since late 1989, and
we can learn from them as well. There is nothing that divides us, really,
except artificial barriers of "user interface." Some are able to utilize
the Usenet conferencing software, and some use electronic mail, but we would
all be one community, sharing and growing together.
I want participation in this dialogue to be voluntary, and I want it to
be manageable. I want people to be able to feel they are under no specific
obligation, and to be able to control their level of participation during the
next month or more that it will take to bring about a functioning system that
can be interconnected with NativeNet in the same way that NATCHAT is now con-
nected with alt.native.
I will set up two mailing lists, to be called "nn.usenet" and "nn.usenet.all,"
which will enable our membership to take part in the discussions which are
now ongoing. The difference between the content of the two lists is that
the first will be moderated and the second will not be. I will send out
only those articles which I feel to be important and relevant to our mailing
lists by means of "nn.usenet," and I may do some editing of them, to delete
large bodies of quoted material which is available in previous articles, just
to cut down on the amount of material that ends up in your mailbox. Anyone
who wants to get the full unedited dialogue now taking place on alt.native
and news.groups can get it via "nn.usenet.all." (Mary and Jon will not be
passing on much, if any, of this material via NATCHAT, since it would likely
be a bother to those who have not specifically requested it.)
To subscribe to one of these lists, just send a message containing:
subscribe nn.usenet Your Name
or
subscribe nn.usenet.all Your Name
to nn-request@gnosys.svle.ma.us
(Remember, "nn.usenet" will be moderated and "nn.usenet.all" will not.)
I really appreciate whatever help you will be able to provide during this
discussion period, which will be crucial in formulating the question of
what to call the new newsgroup (which has an important effect on how the
newsgroup "hierarchy" might evolve in future, as I'll explain in the
technical addendum to this article, to be posted separately). If you have
any questions or suggestions, you can send them to me personally. Upon
receipt of your request to be added to one of the new special-purpose mail-
ing lists, I will send instructions on how to post your own articles to
everyone on the list as well as folks taking part in the Usenet discussion.
Thanks again!
Gary
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst