Seeking your support for an initiative on the Internet(Usenet)

[FN <fred@bytesforall.org>]

Dear friends at S-Asia-IT,

I seek your support with the proposal below. Please send in your
suggestions and criticism of the proposal below. After the RFD (request
for discussion) stage, it will come up for vote.

Below are the details of the proposal to set up a soc.culture.indian.goa
newsgroup on the Internet. FN

PS: I need help when it comes up for voting.... that is after 21
days. The voting procedure will be subsequently announced. Perhaps we need
to have more South Asian newsgroups (which are rather different from
mailing lists)

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From: FREDERICK NORONHA (fred@bytesforall.org)
Subject: RFD: soc.culture.indian.goa moderated
Newsgroups:  news.announce.newgroups,                               
View: Original Format
news.groups, soc.culture.indian,
alt.politics.india.progressive, soc.culture.indian.karnataka
Date: 2003-01-26 10:45:02 PST

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                moderated group soc.culture.indian.goa

This is a formal Request For Discussion on the creation of the new
worldwide UseNet newsgroup soc.culture.indian.goa.  This is not a Call for
Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time.  Procedural details are below.

Newsgroups line:
soc.culture.indian.goa  About Goa, India's smallest state. (Moderated)

RATIONALE: soc.culture.indian.goa

Goa (population 1.35 million, area 3700 square kilometres) is
India's smallest state, with an unusual past and a colourful
present. In spite of being a small region, it is often discussed in
the print media, the Internet and elsewhere. It was a Portuguese
colony from 1510 to 1961, and is currently known as a tourist
destination both in India and across the globe. In the early stages
of Portuguese rule and prior to that, it was known across the globe
as a emporium of trade and commerce. Many Goans (as people from the
region are called) have migrated across the globe, and have been
among the early adoptors of the Net. Visitors and potential visitors
are also interested in keeping abrest with happenings here, and
often seek answers to their queries about Goa.

 Goa has long been seen as an important meeting point for East and West, 
and a global trading centre -- in both goods and ideas -- for centuries. 
This results in the Internet being strongly relevant to the region, and 
unofficial estimates put the number of cybercafes in this small region at 
a few hundred (over 500, according to one estimate).

This region has been discussed via mailing-lists at least since
1994. Currently there are quite a few mailing lists discussing
general Goa-related issues, or specific concerns (relating to
researchers, the Konkani language which is spoken locally,
journalists, computer professionals, specific expat Goan
communities, plant-enthusiasts etc).

Currently, a search for Goa-related postings (after ensuring the
specific exclusion of terms like the Gun Owners of America, the
acronym of which also reads GOA but is not remotely related to this
subject) show that there are a total of approx 11,000 references in
newsgroups. On an average day, there are 5-10 postings related to
Goa in some way. (See groups.google.com) There is a need to
encourage more people to post and contribute to the building up of
public-accessible body knowledge about this region. Facilities to
post to Newsgroups via mail2news services, and the ability to read
postings via websites such as http://groups.google.com could enable
greater participation in such a venture.

Three of Goa's main mailing lists attract between 6-20 posts each,
per day. In all, the total number of subscribers of various
Goa-linked mailing lists would range to an estimated 6000 (six
thousand) email addresses.

Clearly going by interest shown on mailing-lists and websites, there
would be considerable interest in having a newsgroup devoted to Goa;
right now, none such exists. Some Indian states have their own
dedicated newsgroups, but not Goa. (Currently existing groups deal
with other Indian regional entities such as Delhi, Gujarat,
Jammu-Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala and languages such as Marathi and
Telugu, among others.) A dedicated newsgroup soc.culture.indian.goa
could fill a gap. This would be a sub-category nested within the
wider category of soc.culture.indian

Currently, Goa-related postings to newsgroups are scattered across
a wide range of groups. While this is desirable (in as much as these
postings related to a wide range of subjects -- travel, Indian
classical music, radio, history, etc), there is also a need for
having a newsgroup that would consolidate postings directly related
to Goa and encourage further postings of direct relevance to Goa.

This proposal is for launching a newsgroup called
soc.culture.indian.goa

CHARTER: soc.culture.indian.goa

The newsgroup soc.culture.indian.goa shall be a forum devoted to the
discussion of Goa -- its peoples, arts, culture, traditions,
literature, books, news, history and the like -- in a free
atmosphere.

Issues related to politics, language, religion, and such are to be
discussed in a non-abrasive fashion, and then only if specifically
relevant to Goa's past or present. Queries, requests for information
and replies to the same would be appreciated. Discussions promoting
or advocating hatred, especially based on religion, language, ethnic
origin, etc., are not to be conducted via this forum.

All postings must be in ordinary text format only; no special format
files (BinHex, MIME, UUEncode, etc.) are to be posted. Crossposting
of articles irrelevant to Goa is strongly discouraged. Also
discouraged are personals and personal messages, any postings of a
purely commercial nature, and ad hominem attacks of any kind.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: soc.culture.indian.goa

Moderator:  Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org
Moderator:  Archana Nagvenkar <archana@goa.nic.in
Moderator:  Tariq Siddiqui <tariq@Bayou.UH.EDU>

Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist who has been involved
with Goa-related mailing lists since 1995, and more recently on
newsgroups. Nagvenkar is a computer engineer who is also interested
in the social relevance of computing, and has been active in
supporting IT-for-development debates and campaigns in South Asia.
Siddiqui is an aerospace engineer, currently in the US, but
originally from Dona Paula in Goa.

This group is being kept moderated. Needless to say, every attempt
will be made to promote free speech, while at the same time avoiding
all sorts of spam, irrelevant postings, offensive and abusive
postings and thus retain quality and usefulness of the proposed
newsgroup.

Duties of the moderators would be to ensure maximum openness for
expression of views, while at the same time ensuring the
minimization (if not elimination) of all form of spam, abusive
postings and those which do not take further onwards the general
awareness about Goa. Multiple moderators are envisaged to ensure the
continued activity of this group, if agreed to and set up.

END MODERATOR INFO.

PROCEDURE:

This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this
phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed
newsgroups should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will
continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD
for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which
a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the
discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this
happens.

All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.

This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and
"How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to
these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have
any questions about the process.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD has been posted to the following groups:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups
soc.culture.indian
alt.politics.india.progressive
soc.culture.indian.karnataka

It will be reposted to:

alt.movies.indian
soc.culture.indian.delhi
soc.culture.indian.gujarati
soc.culture.indian.info
soc.culture.indian.jammu-kashmir
soc.culture.indian.karnataka
soc.culture.indian.kerala
soc.culture.indian.marathi
soc.culture.indian.telugu

Also to the following mailing lists:

goanet@goacom.com
goa-goans@yahoogroups.com
goancauses@yahoogroups.com
goanews@goacom.com
goajourno@symonds.net
goa-research-net@goacom.com
konkani-net@yahoogroups.com
seculargoa@yahoogroups.com
goanvoice-uk@goacom.com
goanet-usa@goacom.com
goanvoice-ca@goacom.com
goanvoice-usa@goacom.com

Proponent: Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org

-- 
Frederick Noronha    : http://www.bytesforall.org : When we speak of free
Freelance Journalist : Goa India 403511           : software we refer to
Ph 0091.832.409490   : Cell 0 9822 122436         : freedom, not price.