Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site shark.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxm!sftig!sftri!sfmag!eagle!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!tektronix!orca!shark!shark!hutch From: hutch@shark.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Results of the Poll for Content Message-ID: <1279@shark.UUCP> Date: Sat, 9-Mar-85 04:15:04 EST Article-I.D.: shark.1279 Posted: Sat Mar 9 04:15:04 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 11-Mar-85 04:13:03 EST Sender: hutch@shark.UUCP Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR Lines: 135 [massage this lineage with your face] The number of respondents to the poll has died down so I am posting preliminary results. If there is much further mail, I will add it in and post supplementary results later. I will summarize the rankings (since some zealous disk cleaner has removed my copy of the article I posted the second time). Position 1: The newsgroup should be an open forum. Postings holding forth anything to do with Christianity are welcome, from proselytization to wholesale condemnation of Christians as witchburners. Position 2: The newsgroup is for friendly discussion of Christianity and related topics. Anyone is welcome to post, but it is not legit to attack the honestly-held beliefs of anyone. Position 3: Professing Christians and ONLY professing Christians are allowed to post to the newsgroup. Position 4: None of the above. Some statistics. I recieved 22 letters total over the approximately two weeks since I (re)posted the poll request. A few people, including Rich Rosen, requested that I repost or mail it since the first posting was damaged in transit, and I haven't seen anything new from them since that reposting. Since they expressed interest in voting, I will add their votes in to the supplementary posting. I did not vote. My opinion on the what I would like to see in this group may appear later as a followup. The distribution of responses was REAL odd. Position Respondents 1 4 1.5 1 2 10 2.5 1 3 4 The professed religious beliefs of the voters seems to be unrelated to how the voting went. I got requests from some of the most ardent Christians who want position 1, and from professed non-Christians who wanted position 3. The most common comments on position 2 held in common that open forum is a necessity for a REAL newsgroup, but that IN THIS NEWSGROUP we should not question the validity of the underlying assumptions of Christianity. Pithy quotes from the votes come below. I stripped names from them. I imagine that some of them might still be obvious. Hutch (\_____/) \*\ /*/ |\_=_/| \`_'/ ----- It is my feeling that although getting away from flames and attacks on our faith might be nice, we must not remove ourselves from the non-Christian with questions or shield ourselves from the types of probing questions that sometimes just wouldn't come up, except from a non-believer's perspective. ----- Definitely #1 -- OPEN. What are we Christians afraid of. The truth can stand without our help or defense. ----- I think all news groups should be open forms, whether net.religion.christian or net.religion.jewish. Obviously, in net.religion.christian Christianity should be discussed and not, say, science fiction. ----- ... I would prefer that net.religion.christian be handled similar to n.r.jewish, i.e. used for discussion of Christianity by Christians. ----- (4) None of the above. (you could have guessed) Actually, I have no way of telling which of the above I would have picked, because your article arrived cut in half. Please mail a copy so I can get to vote, too. Unless you'd rather I didn't get to vote. ----- What I really vote for is the abolition of any newsgroup whose "rules" essentially dedicate the newsgroup to the exclusive service of a particular group, ruling out opposing viewpoints. Since the net costs everybody something, it should be of potential use or interest to everybody. ----- My vote is that the group is open to postings by Christian and non-Christian alike, without the flamings. (#2 I think). ----- n.r.c was created along the lines of n.r.j. If the attitude would be inappropriate for n.r.j, it's inappropriate for n.r.c. ----- I like the idea of open, friendly discussion myself. Otherwise, the group would get too inbred. (And according to some of our less-tolerant brethren, my Catholicism would prevent me from contributing.) ----- One vote for number three(number two would be nice but unpolicable, due to the nature of both the net and religion itself.) ----- I vote for (2), but I'm not too sure how it differs from (1), except in ousting rudeness. I.e., if one who wanted to abolish Christianity were polite about it, it would fit in with (2). (Exactly, except that hopefully some real discussions of WHY might occur in the cooler atmosphere. - Hutch) ----- I suggest making it a forum for the discussion of Christianity, with the basic ideas of Christianity treated as axioms. This is somewhere between the first and second proposals. I don't think posting should be restricted to actual believers, but I do think that the discussion of which, if any, religions are true belongs in net.religion. ----- I don't see any reason to believe any religion, but obviously a lot of people do. I would like to be able to read their ideas, without the constant questioning of their basic assumptions. ----- i think that n.r.c should be an open forum. i will, however, suggest that n.r.c.only be formed to serve as the equivalent to n.r.j, because even if it was agreed that n.r.c should be a 'safe haven' for christians it would never work in reality, since just the mention of the newgroups makes peoples' n-key fingers itch...