Subject:
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Re: Why these news groups were created
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.nntp
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Date:
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Wed, 22 Sep 2004 18:19:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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7004 times
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In lugnet.admin.nntp, Frank Filz wrote:
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Rob Limbaugh wrote:
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In addition, “LGBT” is a name that leads to discrimination by
pointing out an irrelavant difference between people just for the
sake of doing so. Specifically, it creates reverse discrimination, as
there is no group called “straight” or “heterosexual”.
Discrimination is a byproduct of defining differences.
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Is it truly an irrelevant detail? If it was, wouldn’t that NOT create
discrimination? True, on a day to day basis, for the most part, we don’t
care if any individual is LGBT, married, single, straight, young, old, or
whatever. But Lugnet is not just a cold place devoted soley to discussion of
LEGO.
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Well, maybe it should be.
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Lugnet is attempting to create a community (and it’s a very real
community, one of the most real communities I participate in),
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Maybe the purpose of LUGNET shouldn’t be to create a community, but rather be
a resource center for all things pertaining to LEGO. Boards are useful for
communication among AFOLs, and many AFOLs have come to know each other as a
result of LUGNET, but I think the goal of creating a LUGNET community might be
questionable.
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and as such,
considerations beyond the simple purpose of discussing LEGO come into play.
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Which I think is a mistake.
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As such, we find out that some of us are teens, some are older than 40, some
are married, some are divorced, some have dealt with the loss of a parent,
child, or spouse, and some are LGBT. We have identified that some groups
might benefit from a dedicated newsgroup because they are small and often
uncomfortable in sharing their very real, and very meaningful to their LEGO
experience, life circumstances.
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Well, therein lies the rub. Because very quickly, these groups begin to relate
to each other in terms of their specific nonLEGO interests, and the thing that
brought them together (LEGO) is forgotten. LUGNET quickly becomes just another
adult/teen/whatever board that has nothing to do with LEGO, even if the
participants are AFOLs. Many if not most of the .people hierarchy discussions
quickly spin off-topic, if they even started there at all. I think it is a
mistake not to put .people in off-topic, because our lives (for most of us:-),
though we may be AFOLs, are not on-topic for LEGO.
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And in a way, we do have groups for straight folks to discuss the meaningful
effects of their life circumstances.
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If these discussions are not within the specific context of LEGO, what good are
they to the “community” as a whole?
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We have lugnet.people.couples and
lugnet.people.singles. Now these groups of course aren’t specifically
straight, but they will tend to take on a general tone of straightness
simply due to the relative numbers of straight couples and singles in the
world compared to LGBT couples and singles. Now I do expect to see some LGBT
posts in these two groups, but they will more likely be there because the
topic of discussion does not differentiate based on sexuality (for example,
an unmarried gay couple asking about ways other unmarried couples have
shared a home and LEGO collection together might do so in .couples. The
issues don’t depend on the sexuality of the couple at all because the lack
of a marriage eliminates almost any legal consideration based on sexuality
now if this couple were to be talking about looking to purchase a home,
they might then find .lgbt more useful since their sexuality may now more
important than their unmarried status - due to differences in
discrimination - even though unmarried straight couples will also experience
discrimination in homebuying).
And see, that’s where it comes in. LGBT people suffer additional
discrimination and difficulties that straight folks don’t. So their
sexuality becomes more of an issue in their lives. Almost no one takes a
second look at a straight couple. Well ok, there is one place where a gay or
lesbian couple is less likely to get a mistaken impression, I can’t tell you
the number of times I’ve been talking in church with a woman and had people
assume we were a couple, whereas two guys or two gals in the same situation
would not run into the same problem (except perhaps in a church with a
primarily LGBT congregation - but I would also expect such assumptions to be
far less common there). On the other hand of course, two straight men
hugging on the street (in the US at least) might be mistakenly assumed to be
gay, but the overall impact of assumptions of sexuality on straight folks
tends to be way way less than for straights than for LGBT folks. So that’s
why we have a .lgbt group but not a .straight group.
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A more relevant “people” subgroup would be in regards to those with
physical ailments or restrictions that would limit their ability or
aptitude when building with LEGO. How a gay person builds with LEGO
is of no significance compared to how quadriplegic or blind people
build with LEGO. For that reason, a group to denote
physically/mentally challenged builders is more appropriate than a
group based on who one chooses to sleep with or whether they want a
sex change.
Why should LGBT people have a special place and hermaphrodites don’t?
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LGBT is generally understood to include hermaphrodites. T stand for
transgendered which is an attempt to include all other gender issues without
resorting to an unmanageable overall inclusive term.
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Where is the group for divorced people? LGBT (and groups like
it--including religion) belong in organizations, off-topic, or
LGBTNet (if it’s really imperative that the world knows a LEGO
builder’s sexual orientation/choices).
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Divorced people have a home in lugnet.people.support (and perhaps
lugnet.people.singles). It might be reasonable at some point in the future
to provide sub-groups of .support (or even .singles). Religion is a much
trickier one. Religion groups might well be appropriate, but how do you
decide which one’s to create?
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ISN”T THAT THE WHOLE POINT? If you start splintering off sub-groups, it will
never end! Now is the time to pause and consider the ramifications of having
done this. It is like a pandora’s box, and I don’t see it as having any benefit
to the AFOL community as a whole (not to mention the youth).
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We could create lugnet.people.religion, but
I’m not sure that would be useful. We could create
lugnet.people.religion.christian, lugnet.people.religion.islam,
lugnet.people.religion.budhist, lugnet.people.religion.jewish, and, hmm,
what next. That short listing leaves out A LOT of people. I guess we should
add lugnet.people.religion.atheist, but is that sufficient to cover people
who aren’t religious? Hmm, what about Shintoism? What about different types
of Christianity? What about Unitarian Universalism, my own fairly small, but
hardly insignificant religion? And do we have separate places for Unitarian?
And do we have a separate place for British Unitarian and Transylvanian
Unitarian? (These religions share much in common with Unitarian
Universalism, but they are separate and unique religions - I also choose
these as examples for the issues with religions because I am more
comfortable talking about my own religion and it’s related religions). Oh,
and do we separate US and Canadian Unitarian Universalists? (Who have
formally separated, except the separation is not so complete and clean as
one would like). Oh, and if you want to start getting reall small, what
about the Unitarians of the Khasi region in India (who are not theologically
descended from any of the others, but who call themselves Unitarians after
discovering that they share theology with the other Unitarians)?
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Yes. You are illustrating beautifully the utter insanity of splitting .people
in the first place!!
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And by the way, the above is why LGBTs have spend no small effort coming up
with an inclusive term. They have a lot in common, and it’s useful to work
together, but they also have to recognize their individuality, but also be
realistic and acknowledge that every time they talk about themselves as a
class, they can’t name every individual subset. By the same token, American
Unitarian Universalists include all the other Unitarians when they talk
about Unitarian Universalists (as opposed to the Unitarian Universalist
Association which is a specific organization with specific membership). The
rest of the Unitarians probably include Unitarian Universalists when they
say Unitarian (as does a significant segment of Unitarian Universalists who
happen to be associated with a church that was Unitarian before the merger
of the Unitarian and Universalist denominations - which has a parallel in
the LGBT world, many folks just use gay to include all LGBTs).
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All of this, while interesting, obviously is completely irrelevant to LEGO.
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Adults, Kids, Members, Newbie, Parents, Organizations, Support, and
Teens are all sufficient group names that all people can fit in to
without any reference to race, creed, or sexual orientation. Are you
and others suggesting that someone LGBT doesn’t fit into any of those
groups?
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By that token, we don’t need lugnet.
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I don’t think that follows.
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Afterall, LEGO fans all fit into one of
the categories of adult, kid, parents, and teens (and heck, we don’t even
need parents and teens, heck, let’s just have one label “people”). Ok folks,
in the interest in not dividing people, I propose the internet be reduced to
a single domain name people. The website won’t be divided into any sort of
folders to organize things.
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There can’t be tolerance or equality with labels.
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Yes and no. We can never eliminate labels. You are someone who enjoys
playing with LEGO. AFOL is a label. LEGO fan in a label. Labels are
convenient ways to talk about groups of people with shared characteristics.
What is wrong is when labels are used to disenfranchise people
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But isn’t that exactly what you do when you aren’t all inclusive of creating
all groups for every group instead of a token few?
JOHN
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: Why these news groups were created
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| In lugnet.admin.nntp, John Neal wrote: <snip> (...) However, if certain people are uncomfortable posting in .general groups, or certain people are uncomfortable reading about certain things in .general groups, shouldn't there be sub groups made to (...) (20 years ago, 22-Sep-04, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Why these news groups were created
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| (...) I disagree. To attempt NOT to create a community, you can't really have post-to-able boards, but instead something more like MOCpages or BrickShelf where there's room to post Lego creations, but no back-and-forth communication. Hence, asking (...) (20 years ago, 22-Sep-04, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Why these news groups were created
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| (...) Oh, won't someone please think of the children?!? This is the same panic-driven slippery-slope reasoning that is used to justify all kinds of anti-gay action, so it's fitting that it should pop up here as well. It's pointless scaremongering to (...) (20 years ago, 22-Sep-04, to lugnet.admin.nntp, FTX)
| | | Re: Why these news groups were created
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| (...) From the main page: Where minds connect: You are not alone! LUGNET is home to thousands of LEGO fans of all ages. We are a community which never sleeps — and has been called "the friendliest place on the Internet." So it seems it has always (...) (20 years ago, 22-Sep-04, to lugnet.admin.nntp, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Why these news groups were created
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| (...) Is it truly an irrelevant detail? If it was, wouldn't that NOT create discrimination? True, on a day to day basis, for the most part, we don't care if any individual is LGBT, married, single, straight, young, old, or whatever. But Lugnet is (...) (20 years ago, 22-Sep-04, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
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