[1] From: "Sue King-Smith." <asphodel@iaccess.com.au> (98)
Subject: Re: 12.0221 a complaint
[2] From: Dan Price <dprice@tui.edu> (40)
Subject: RE: 12.0221 a complaint
[3] From: "Dr Donald J. Weinshank" <weinshan@cse.msu.edu> (69)
Subject: Re: 12.0221 a complaint <= Should this be a closed
list server?
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Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 13:48:00 +1000
From: "Sue King-Smith." <asphodel@iaccess.com.au>
Subject: Re: 12.0221 a complaint
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A Response to Lou's Comments which were:
> What a pity to see that Humanist is now being used for market research
> purposes. Or maybe I should be pleased to see evidence that it's
> being taken seriously by the marketeers.
This was not the reason for our questionnaire. As you could appreciate it
is extremely time consuming and expensive to put out quality online
arts/humanities journals for nothing. The only way to make it viable ...
and thus to further the humanities and the arts in general is to find a way
to sell something (a magazine, a CD_Rom) and ... thus find a way a) to
feed ourselves for our effort and b) to pay the artists/academics etc. who
submit their intellectual and creative works to us. Here at The Animist we
are unfunded at present and thus are unable to pay the many excellent
creative people who kindly send us their material for publication. Apart
from that, responses from our research (which have come from many
concerned artists, poets and academics world wide) will also be
forwarded to arts/humanities funding bodies, editors of arts e-zines etc.
so that they can assess the need among artists/writers etc. for income
support/etc., and also to save ezine and small press editors what little
spare cash they possess before they founder on the shores of multimedia
magazines that no body wants to buy (the sad history of small press poetry
worldwide). As you will appreciate, unlike many tenured academics, most
artists, poets and writers live at or below the poverty line. Here in
Australia our tenured humanities academics are being sacked in droves at
the same time as our government is withdrawing funds to arts related
projects like 'online ezines' and 'writing grants' - it amounts to a full
scale attack on the arts and intellectual endevours in general, and
represents a significant threat to cultural and intellectual freedom in
this country. The trend is not only Australian, however, the impulse to
'gettign and spending' seems to be endemic to many Western nations. Just
the other day students stormed the campus of Monash university Melbourne
as a protest against massive cuts to the university arts faculty. La
Trobe, the university I am most familiar with, has lost about 1/3rd of its
arts lecturers. Around the country whole classics departments have been
routed in the name of economic rationalisation.
The goal of The Animist is to promote the arts and the humanities to a
more general audience and to raise the consciousness of general public to
the arts and humanities generally and in the new mediums. As an editor,
published poet/essayist and recently layed off humanities academic I do
not feel myself to be one of the 'marketeers' you refer to ... though
I can understand your dislike of such people.
Best wishes
Dr. Ian Irvine, PhD (Human Relations), BA (Hum), BA (Hon)
Co-Editor, The Animist
http://www.diskotech.com.au
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Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 10:01:06 -0400
From: Dan Price <dprice@tui.edu>
Subject: RE: 12.0221 a complaint
Agreed.
Sincerely,
Dan Price, Ph.D.
Professor, Center for Distance Learning
***********************************************************
The Union Institute (800) 486 3116 ext.222
440 E McMillan St. (513) 861 6400 ext.222
Cincinnati OH 45206 FAX 513 861 9026
http://www.tui.edu/Faculty/FacultyUndergrad/PriceDan.html
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[inclusion of Humanist 12.221 deleted]
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Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 18:18:17 +0100
From: "Dr Donald J. Weinshank" <weinshan@cse.msu.edu>
Subject: Re: 12.0221 a complaint <= Should this be a closed list
server?
lou.burnard@computing-services.oxford.ac.uk
Willard.McCarty@kcl.ac.uk
==>> Let me relate a similar incident to you. As a person in
Computer Science whose major effort goes into Computer Science
Education, I belong to SIGCSE, which is the A.C.M. special
interest group on education.
Some weeks ago, we were "spammed" with an ad for Toyotas!
The outrage was enormous, and several dozen messages flew
back and forth that day. (Needless to say, the sender
used a "spoofed" address to which we could not reply.)
By the end of the day, the group moderator had closed the
discussion to allow only people who were members of
SIGCSE and were sending E-mail from their registered
E-mail addresses to post to this conference.
We regarded that step as unfortunate but necessary to prevent
similar occurrences in the future. What we lost was the
input from interested non-members who might have valuable
contributions and comments. Henceforth, their contributions
will have to be "vetted" and posted by members.
I do not know how Willard has this listserve organized,
but perhaps a comparable step might be in order.
Although I have been subscribing for at least a decade,
this is the first instance of this abuse which I can recall.
Sadly, it may not be the last.
djw
_______________________________________________________________
Dr. Don Weinshank weinshan@cse.msu.edu
Phone (517) 353-0831 FAX (517) 432-1061
Comp. Sci., Michigan State http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weinshan
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