🚀 go-pugleaf

I would like to call your attention to the below proposal to establish two
newsgroups about Ethiopia.  As you can see, a Call for Votes (CFV) is in
progress to establish these newsgroups; a copy of this CFV appears below.

I urge anyone interested in Ethiopia to cast a ballot in support of these 
newsgroups.  Please follow the instructions on the CFV.  Official copies 
of the CFV are available on news.announce.newgroups as well.

---------- Forwarded article  ----------
Date: 14 AUG 1996 16:27:24 -0000 
From: David Bostwick <david.bostwick@chemistry.gatech.edu>
Newgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, rec.travel.africa,
    soc.culture.african, soc.culture.african.american, soc.culture.italian,
    soc.culture.kenya, soc.culture.nigeria, soc.culture.south-africa
Subject: CFV: soc.culture.ethiopia.{moderated,misc} 

                     FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
             unmoderated group soc.culture.ethiopia.misc
            moderated group soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated

Newsgroup line:
soc.culture.ethiopia.misc	Ethiopian culture. (Unmoderated)
soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated	Ethiopian culture. (Moderated)

Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 4 Sep 1996.

This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party.  Questions about
the proposed group should be directed to the proponent.  Questions about
the vote itself should be directed to the votetaker.

Proponent: Belete K. Muturo <r2bkm@vm1.cc.uakron.edu>
Votetaker: David Bostwick <david.bostwick@chemistry.gatech.edu>

RATIONALE: all groups

There are several well-established mailing lists that deal with issues
related to Ethiopia and Ethiopians.  Together, they have more than
1000 subscribers.  The number of messages sent via these networks
averaged over 30 per day during November 1995.

Given Ethiopia's rich traditions and diversity of the cultures of her
people; her significant role in Africa's anti-colonial movement; her
role in the formation and maintenance of the Organization of the
African Unity; and the fact that Ethiopian athletes have on several
occasions won Olympic gold medals in marathon, many Usenet readers
might be interested in knowing more about Ethiopia.

Moreover, internet access will soon be available in Ethiopia, and an
increasing number of software programs for Ethiopic languages are
appearing on the market.  Soc.culture.ethiopia.* logically will serve as
an introduction to Usenet for such users.

Unmoderated soc.culture.* groups suffer from an unacceptably low
signal-to-noise ratio, and soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated will therefore
be moderated to ensure that submissions conform to the group charter.

The proponents recognize that some people prefer the free-for-all of
unmoderated groups.  Talk.politics.african.ethiopia was originally
proposed as an unmoderated companion group to the moderated Ethiopian
group.  Several prominent members of important Ethiopian mailing lists,
however, disliked the placement in talk.*.  We therefore have compromised
and chosen the name soc.culture.ethiopia.misc.

CHARTER: soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated

Soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated will serve as a forum for the discussion of
cultures, politics, history, economics, science, and other issues related
to Ethiopia.  Usenet readers interested in Ethiopia, including Ethiopians
of all ethnic backgrounds, are welcome to participate.

Topics for discussion will include, but are by no means limited to,
the following:

1) Culture, history, politics, geography, and language;

2) Human rights concerns in the aftermath of the Mengitsu regime;
political parties; Ethiopia's role in decolonization

3) The concerns of Ethiopia's various nationalities; prospects for
ethnic harmony in Ethiopia;

4) Impediments, real or perceived, to democratization and economic
development in Ethiopia; the role of international lending
institutions, donor states, and non-governmental organizations;
commerce and trade, including exchange rates; joint ventures and
investment in Ethiopia; copyright and patent law for those who wish to
invest in Ethiopia

5) Literacy and folklore; literature, arts, music

6) Religion in Ethiopia

7) Tourism; hotels and restaurants

8) Ethiopian cuisine

9) Education in Ethiopia

10) Ethiopian sports figures

11) Science and technology in Ethiopia.  Computer technology
development, standardization, and patent and copyright use in
Ethiopia; internet access in Ethiopia; word processing programs for
Ethiopic/Amharic script; internet access in Ethiopia

12) Ethiopians living outside of Ethiopia, and non-Ethiopians who want
to visit, live, or invest in Ethiopia.

Soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated shall be a moderated group.

Anyone may volunteer to join the moderation panel with the consent of
a two-thirds supermajority of the current moderators.  Moderators also
may be removed by a 2/3 supermajority of the moderation panel.  Of
course, moderators may resign of their own volition at any time.

Submissions that fall into the following categories shall be rejected:

1) Posts that do not pertain to Ethiopia; posts that do not fall
within the charter of soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated.

2) Commercial advertisements unrelated to Ethiopia; "spam" articles.

3) "Me too" posts; excessively repetitive posts; posts that do not
contribute any new discussion to an ongoing thread; posts containing
an unreasonable amount of quoted text.

4) Posts containing profanity or excessive rudeness; posts that lack
appropriate civility and tone.  While well-placed heckles are
certainly acceptable, flamewars are not.

5) Excessively ungrammatical posts; posts containing excessive
misspellings; posts exceeding the limit of 75 characters per line.

Moderation is by no means intended to impede freedom of speech, but
merely to help readers make the most of their time by ensuring
conformity to the objectives outlined in the charter.

Individuals who believe a particular moderator has unfairly rejected a
submission can appeal to the entire panel of moderators.  The panel
will reevaluate the submission and make a majority decision as to
whether it will be posted.  In the event that the moderation panel is
evenly split over whether a submission ought to be posted, the
submission shall be posted.

This appeal is final; however, the moderators at any time may suggest
ways in which a submission might be edited so as to be acceptable for
posting.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated

The following individuals shall act as moderators for
soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated:

Moderator: Zewuditu Bachore <zbachore@kumc.edu>
Zewuditu is a programmer analyst who holds a B.A. in business and computer
programming and an M.S. in measurement and evaluation in education.

Moderator: Joe Ciuffini <ciuffini@ctpcsa.ENET.dec.com>
Joe once served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Harrar, Ethiopia.  He is
currently a software engineer at Digitial Equipment Corporation.  Joe
holds a B.S. in mathematics and an M.S. in computer science.  He is active
in the Ethiopian Philatelic Society, acting as librarian for the
organization.  He also serves on the board of the Boston Area Returned
Peace Corps Volunteers, under whose aegis he is putting together materials
for elementary school classes use when studying African countries.  Joe
particularly enjoys Ethiopian and Eritrean music and dance.

Moderator: Aseffa Endeshaw <amohammed@ntuvax.ntu.ac.sg>
Dr. Endeshaw is a professor of law at the National Technological
Institute of Singapore.

Moderator: Jennifer Habte <Jenschaefe@aol.com>
Jennifer holds a B.A. and M.A. in history and served as a spokesperson for
the United Nations in Ethiopia from 1987 to 1991, where she enjoyed
extensive exposure to the international diplomatic community.  She also
published a bimonthly newsletter called UNEPPG about relief and
development issues in Ethiopia.  Jennifer is currently working on her MBA.

Moderator: Mohamed Hussein <mhussein@osf1.gmu.edu>
Mohammed is a PhD student in Information and Software Systems at George
Mason University and is currently a Senior Software Engineer for Unisys
Corporation. He has previouly earned a masters degree in Business
Administration (MBA) from Calfornia State University and a B.S in
mathematics and physics from Somali National University.

Moderator: Ouguocha Ike <oguocha@sask.usask.ca>
Ouguocha is a graduate student in mechanical engineering at the
University of Saskatchewan.

Moderator: Shahn Mekuria <Smekuria@cctr.umkc.edu>
Shahn is a student at the Univesity of Missouri, Kansas City, with great
interest in Ethiopia.

Moderator: Belete K. Muturo <r2bkm@vm1.cc.uakron.edu>
Currently a doctoral student in education administration, Belete holds a
B.A. and M.A. in economics, and an M.A. in secondary education.

Moderator: Binyam Reja <breja@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Binyam is currently a doctoral student in economics at the University of
California, Irvine. He is very much interested in promoting understanding,
through constructive dialogs, among Ethiopians.

Moderator: Paulos Segaro <Psegaro@snakemail.hut.fi>
Paulos is pursuing an M.S. in structural mechanics with the National
Research Institute of Finland. He holds a B.S. in civil engineering and
was a commercial pilot with Ethiopian Airlines.

END MODERATOR INFO.

CHARTER: soc.culture.ethiopia.misc

Soc.culture.ethiopia.misc will serve as an unmoderated forum in
which to debate the politics and political economy of Ethiopia.

The charter shall be identical to that of soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated,
but there shall be no mechanism to ensure that posters observe the
charter.

Posters are asked to extend their fellow Usenet readers the respect
they deserve by avoiding excessive flamewars, namecalling, and
crossposting.  Discussion of ethnic issues is on-topic in
soc.culture.ethiopia.misc, as are rejected postings from
soc.culture.ethiopia.moderated and other appropriate groups.

END CHARTER.

DISTRIBUTION:

This CFV has been posted to the following newsgroups:

news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, rec.travel.africa,
soc.culture.african, soc.culture.african.american, soc.culture.italian,
soc.culture.kenya, soc.culture.nigeria, soc.culture.south-africa


It has also been mailed to the following mailing lists:

Afrique <afrique@univ.lyon1.fr>
Ethiopia-politics <pol.ethiopia@wn.apc.org>
Nigerian network <naijanet@mitvma.mit.edu>


Pointers to the CFV have been sent to the following mailing lists:

AFRICA-L@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu
Ethiolist@netcom.com
Ethioforum@netcom.com
Oromonet <makobili@netcom.com>

The proponent shall post unofficial pointers to the CFV in the following
newsgroups after it appears in news.announce.newgroups:

alt.peace.corps, bit.org.peace-corps, rec.music.afro-latin, rec.music.reggae,
rec.running, rec.sport.football, rec.travel.caribbean, sci.lang,
soc.culture.algeria, soc.culture.arabic, soc.culture.caribbean,
soc.culture.egyptian, soc.culture.maghreb, soc.culture.malagasy,
soc.culture.sierra-leone, soc.culture.somalia,
soc.culture.south-africa.afrikaans, soc.culture.zimbabwe,
soc.genealogy.african, soc.history, soc.religion.christian (moderated),
soc.religion.islam (moderated), talk.politics.mideast

HOW TO VOTE

Delete everything above the top "-=-=-" line and delete everything below
the bottom -=-=-" line.  Do not change anything between these lines,
except to add your name and vote.

Give your name on the line that asks for it.  For each group, put your
vote in the brackets next to the group name.  Valid entries are ABSTAIN,
CANCEL, NO, and YES.  Anything else may generate an invalid vote.  Don't
worry about changes in spacing or any quote characters (">") that your
reply may insert.

Mail the ballot to <david.bostwick@chemistry.gatech.edu>.  Just replying
to this should work, but check the "To:" line.  Votes must be mailed
directly from the voter to the votetaker.  Distributing pre-marked or
otherwise edited ballots is considered vote fraud.

Only one vote is allowed per person or per account.  Votes will be
acknowleged by e-mail.  If you have not received an acknowledgement
within a few days, contact the votetaker.  It is your responsibility to be
certain your vote has been recorded correctly.  If you want to change your
vote, you may vote again, but only the latest vote will be counted.
Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final vote ack.

The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest of
people who would read a proposed newsgroup.  Soliciting votes from
uninterested parties defeats this purpose.  Please do not distribute this
CFV.  If you must, direct people to the official CFV as posted in
news.groups.  When in doubt, ask the votetaker.

-=-=- BEGINNING OF BALLOT: DELETE EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE =-=-=-=-=-=-=
This ballot is available only from      |      FIRST CALL FOR VOTES      |
postings in news.groups or by e-mail    |      SOC.CULTURE.ETHIOPIA      |
from the votetaker.  It is distributed  |         <SCE-0001>             |
blank.  Votes are counted by computer,  ==================================
and failure to use this ballot increases the possibility that the software
will be unable to process your vote properly.  Do not edit this ballot
except to add your name and indicate your vote.

These are examples of how to mark the ballot.  Do not vote here.
[   YES   ] example.yes.vote
[   NO    ] example.no.vote
[ ABSTAIN ] example.abstain.vote
[ CANCEL  ] example.cancel.vote

The placement of the word within the brackets is not important, but use the
complete word, not just one letter.

Enter your name and indicate your vote in the spaces below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Give your real name here:
If you do not give your real name, your vote may be rejected.

 Your Vote   Group (Place your vote below in the brackets next to the group)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[         ]  soc.culture.ethiopia.misc
[         ]  soc.culture.ethopia.moderated
-=-=-=-=  END OF BALLOT: DELETE EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE  =-=-=-=-=-=-=