Call For Discussion: rec.arts.wrestling
Nicholas J. Simicich
I've been following the pro wrestling discussion in rec.sport.misc for
a while, and contributing to it occasionally. I'm frankly not
interested in Triathelons, Cricket, and so forth, except occasionally.
I'm never interested in World Cup results. Thus, I've been attempting
to construct a kill file suitable for seeing only wrestling articles.
It's not working. It takes longer to run the kill file than to read
the newsgroup.
If I were more interested in sports in general, I wouldn't mind. But
frankly, pro wrestling doesn't seem to go with the potpourri of sports
discussed there. Pro wrestling is a soap opera, with some staged
acrobatics. Many of the wrestling readers don't want to see the other
articles, and the sports fans don't want to see ours. When I posted
an article in rec.sport.misc, asking for email responses so that I
could determine interest in splitting out a wrestling group, I got one
favorable response from someone who has been attempting to build a
kill file to get rid of wrestling articles, and had missed mine.
Wrestling just doesn't fit in.
About the newsgroup name: There is a real sport of wrestling that is
practiced at the Olympic level and in High School and College. If
there is ever to be a newsgroup to discuss that sport, it should
probably be rec.sport.wrestling. With pro wrestling out of
rec.sport.misc, "real" wrestling could be discussed there as well.
Another possibility is rec.arts.tv.wrestling. But there is a lot more
to wrestling than goes on on TV. There are local shows by independent
promoters which never make it to TV, and may not even be advertised.
So the TV part of the label is not appropriate.
A final possibility was talk.wrestling. rec.arts.wrestling just
seemed more appropriate, since going to matches or watching them on TV
is a recreational activity.
I briefly thought about sci.wrestling, so that it could get into
Europe :-), but discarded the idea.
As for a charter, how about:
A newsgroup to discuss Professional Wrestling and related
exhibition "sports".
I can't imagine that this group should have a moderator or be
moderated.
Followups to news.groups.
--
Nick Simicich --- uunet!bywater!scifi!njs --- n...@ibm.com (Internet)
Geoff Allen
Well, I guess you can't call it a sport, either.
If soap operas can be art, I guess pro wrestling can be an art, too.
:-)
(Seriously, though, there's got to be a better place for this, doesn't
there?)
--
Geoff Allen \ I don't speak for WINCO or DOE,
{uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ and they don't speak for me.
ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \
William David Haas
>
>I briefly thought about sci.wrestling, so that it could get into
>Europe :-), but discarded the idea.
>
(Well, I thought it was funny).
Chip Salzenberg
distinction between wrestling-as-sport and wrestling-as-entertainment.
--
You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise.
Chip Salzenberg at A T Engineering; <ch...@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip>
"'Why do we post to Usenet?' Naturally, the answer is, 'To get a response.'"
-- Brad "Flame Me" Templeton
Rick Gillespie
>practiced at the Olympic level and in High School and College. If
>there is ever to be a newsgroup to discuss that sport, it should
>probably be rec.sport.wrestling. With pro wrestling out of
>rec.sport.misc, "real" wrestling could be discussed there as well.
>
>seemed more appropriate, since going to matches or watching them on TV
>is a recreational activity.
I wouldn't care too much for talk.wrestling since we don't get talk
groups here, but I don't think we need to worry about that. We're
in a rec group now so I can't imagine being forced to a less
distributed hierarchy.
I don't have much problem with the "arts" designation. But a little
voice in my head keeps complaining: the wrestlers ARE athletes, and
some of the best in the world. I would like to see Magic Johnson
super-plex someone off the top rope without destroying himself or
his opponent. I hate to see the wrestlers, themselves, denigrated.
But it *is* only entertainment (gee, unlike other professional sports)
and scripted at that. So, I can live with the "arts" designation.
>I briefly thought about sci.wrestling, so that it could get into
>Europe :-), but discarded the idea.
I guess "scientific" wrestlers like Curt Hennig don't count. :-)
>As for a charter, how about:
>
> A newsgroup to discuss Professional Wrestling and related
> exhibition "sports".
I would remove the "related exhibition sports" part. I wouldn't
look in a wrestling group to find roller derby articles.
Rick Gillespie | Solbourne Computer, Inc.
UUCP: ...![uunet,boulder]!stan!rwg | 1900 Pike Rd.
Internet: r...@solbourne.com | Longmont, CO 80501
"If you want to BE the man, you've got | (303) 678-4723
to BEAT the man!" |
Kevin Kuhn
>I'd say "rec.arts.pro-wrestling" is a better name. It makes obvious the
>distinction between wrestling-as-sport and wrestling-as-entertainment.
>--
IMHO the obvious choice is rec.sport.rasslin. Everybody knows wrestling
is the olympic, college and high school sport, while rasslin is the T.V
and mud and jello type sport :)) .
--
===============================================================================
Kevin Kuhn ke...@mips.com
MIPS Computer Systems {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!kevin
Jeremy Billones
>In article <8...@scifi.UUCP> scifi!n...@uunet.UU.NET (Nicholas J. Simicich) writes:
>>As for a charter, how about:
>>
>> A newsgroup to discuss Professional Wrestling and related
>> exhibition "sports".
>
>I would remove the "related exhibition sports" part. I wouldn't
>look in a wrestling group to find roller derby articles.
But then we get the same problem: where *do* you go for
roller derby articles? rec.sports.misc?
That's one of my problems with creating r.a.w . It sets apart
one class of "sports entertainment" (pro wrestling), while
ignoring the others (roller derby, American Gladiators, etc.).
If you move one out, but leave the others in, why bother? Moving
them all out leaves the issue of naming. By the way, I probably
would look in rec.arts.wrestling for roller derby, if rec.sports.misc
didn't have it.
The big problem, though is that there just isn't enough traffic
in r.s.m to justify splitting of pro wrestling discussions. I
only see ~10 articles a day in the group, with the ratio of
soccer/wrestling going from 0 to 1/0. With cricket and the
rest thrown in, it seems to be just about the right size. I
would probably vote against a split, unless I learned some new
information.
Disclaimer: my idea of a large group is rec.arts.startrek.
J. Billones (net.bookie) jbil...@jarthur.claremont.edu
"So how the heck *do* we split r.a.s., anyway?"
Tim Chown
>I briefly thought about sci.wrestling, so that it could get into
>Europe :-), but discarded the idea.
I'm confused. I'm receiving rec.sport here in Britain, and seem
able to post to the rec.sport subgroups successfully. However,
the uk.ac.kent site that is a "backbone" in this country is
asking our site to do a rmgroup on rec.sport as it is supposedly
not an official news group. What is the situation please ??
If it is official, please split soccer and wrestling!
David C Lawrence
Tim> I'm confused. I'm receiving rec.sport here in Britain, and seem
Tim> able to post to the rec.sport subgroups successfully. However,
Tim> the uk.ac.kent site that is a "backbone" in this country is
Tim> asking our site to do a rmgroup on rec.sport as it is supposedly
Tim> not an official news group. What is the situation please ??
rec.sport is bogus; a renegade newgroup created it on a lot of sites
that are quite content to ignore rmgroups that go out after these
things to try to clean them up when the bogosity occurs.
Please remove it from your active file by hand; any rmgroup (or a
modified maint/delgroup from C News) which automatically removes the
spool directory of a group with rm -rf will also trash the directories
of the subgroups below it.
The following groups exist in the rec.sport.* world:
rec.sport.baseball Discussion about baseball.
rec.sport.basketball Discussion about basketball.
rec.sport.football Discussion about football.
rec.sport.hockey Discussion about hockey.
rec.sport.misc Spectator sports.
Dave
--
(setq mail '("ta...@pawl.rpi.edu" "ta...@ai.mit.edu" "ta...@rpitsmts.bitnet"))
Nicholas J. Simicich
to be chosen. I proposed several group names in my initial posting,
and have read the discussion posted to the net, as well as reading
some private email.
This discussion has changed my preference for naming the group. But
in any case, I'd like to try to hold an informal vote on the name of
the proposed group. Remember that this is not a vote on group
creation. So there is no "NO" category. You will have your
opportunity to vote NO later, if you desire to do so.
This is not a vote on creation. At some point, I hope to close
discussion and hold such a vote. This is an informal poll to try to
get an idea of what the sense of the group is as to what the news
group should be named.
Here are the choices that are in contention, far as I can tell, for
the main usenet hierarchy:
rec.sport.wrestling
rec.sport.pro-wrestling
rec.arts.wrestling
rec.arts.pro-wrestling
rec.sport.wwf
And an honorable mention has to go to the wag who suggested
rec.kvetch-as-kvetch-can, although I don't think that the proposal is
serious enough to include in the list.
Remember that the proposal is to form a group to discuss professional
wrestling, a sport which has little to do with competition, and much
to do with exhibition.
Some arguments for and against various names:
rec.sport.wrestling: People would look for wrestling articles in a
group named this, and it is likely to attract the people who want
to discuss the topic. On the other hand, there is a real sport
called wrestling, practiced in shools and at the Olympics, and
this takes the namespace that rightly belongs to them away.
rec.sport.pro-wrestling: Again, this has a name that is clearly
expository of what the group would be formed to discuss. Although
one can argue as to whether wrestling is a sport or not, the
wrestlers are athletes, and the "moves" are important. This
currently leads my preference for names.
rec.arts.wrestling: My original thought when I proposed the group was
that pro wrestling had a lot more to do with such groups as
rec.arts.tv and so forth since it was basically the performance of
a work of fiction with incidental tumbling, kicking, and gouging.
Since this was my idea I still have a sentimental fondness for it.
The group clearly would say wrestling, but might not be easily
found because it is not off of rec.sport.
rec.arts.pro-wrestling: Marginally better than rec.arts.wrestling.
Rest of arguments regarding that name apply here.
rec.sport.wwf: There is a lot more to pro wrestling than the WWF.
The name is not as obvious as one that has the word "wrestling" in
it.
I'd like to make this a STV ballot, and I hope that Peter doesn't
flame me if I do it wrong. (I've voted for the Hugos.) Cut where it
says cut here, fill it in, and mail it to:
uunet!bywater!scifi!njs, or, if you really can't reach that address,
to n...@ibm.com. (If you really, really, really must, mail to
n...@watson.bitnet).
I'm going to close off this poll by Midnight of the 14th. I probably
won't post ballots, just results, but I will email them to anyone who
asks me. So your ballot, emailed to me, and other contents of that
email, may be forwarded or possibly posted. Vote early and often. :-)
-----cut here-----
[ ] rec.sport.wrestling
[ ] rec.sport.pro-wrestling
[ ] rec.arts.wrestling
[ ] rec.arts.pro-wrestling
[ ] rec.sport.wwf
-----cut here-----
Example ballot:
[4] rec.sport.wrestling
[1] rec.sport.pro-wrestling
[2] rec.arts.wrestling
[3] rec.arts.pro-wrestling
[5] rec.sport.wwf
This means that I most like the name rec.sport.pro-wrestling, and I
least like the name rec.sport.wwf.
If you use the same number twice in your preference, I have to discard
that choice and all lower choices. In other words, if you mark two
names as "2", then I can use your first choice, but I have to toss
your ballot for second-fifth choices. Please use each number only
once.
Write-in instructions: Add your proposed name to the list, and follow
up this posting, so that others can add to the list as they vote.
Significant numbers of write ins with significant results will
probably cause me to hold this poll again, with the write-in as a
regular choice.
I'll count the ballots by hand if I must. Did someone say that they
had a program that would count STV's? If so, could you email it to
me?
Timothy Bell
r
D
Byron Howes
>
>rec.sport.wrestling: People would look for wrestling articles in a
> group named this, and it is likely to attract the people who want
> to discuss the topic. On the other hand, there is a real sport
> called wrestling, practiced in shools and at the Olympics, and
> this takes the namespace that rightly belongs to them away.
As I don't believe I have _ever_ seen an article about amateur wrestling
on usenet I can't believe this will be much of a problem. If so, we can
share the group with the amateur wrestling fans or vote to create yet
another group, rec.sport.pro-wrestling, if the need arises. I find
the argument that new readers can easily find the group to be compelling.
>rec.sport.wwf: There is a lot more to pro wrestling than the WWF.
> The name is not as obvious as one that has the word "wrestling" in
> it.
Blatantly silly, particularly as a number of us regard the WWF as a
necessary evil at best.
Well, I've cast my vote and hopefully others will do likewise.
--Byron
--
Byron Howes UNC Educational Computing Service
b...@uncecs.edu W: 919/549-0671 H: 919/933-2859
"Ya talk the talk, but do ya walk the walk?" -- Animal Mother
Dan Mallon
>In article <8...@scifi.UUCP> n...@scifi.UUCP (Nicholas J. Simicich) writes:
>>
>>rec.sport.wrestling: People would look for wrestling articles in a
>> group named this, and it is likely to attract the people who want
>> to discuss the topic. On the other hand, there is a real sport
>> called wrestling, practiced in shools and at the Olympics, and
>> this takes the namespace that rightly belongs to them away.
>
>As I don't believe I have _ever_ seen an article about amateur wrestling
>on usenet I can't believe this will be much of a problem. If so, we can
>share the group with the amateur wrestling fans or vote to create yet
>another group, rec.sport.pro-wrestling, if the need arises. I find
Not to be nit-picky, but I did see an article once about amateur wrestling
about 2 months ago I believe. The article was in reference to the Canadian
team and a match that they won. I don't remember details, but I did note
the article since I am an avid semi-wrestler.
I have wished that someone else would post an article about amatuer wrestling
since it's my favorite sport. I hadn't had much to say since I hadn't been
following any of the national or international tournaments. Now, however, I
guess I can post since I just took a high school wrestling coach position.
Anyone wish to discuss the differences of folkstyle (high school) and free-
style? I'd be willing to share some conversation with anybody who is
knowledgeable or even only just interested. I used to know who made the
rules for Freestyle/Greco-Roman, but I can't remember. I want to say FILA
or FIFA, but I don't know if I'm being influenced by the soccer articles I've
been reading. Who makes the rules for high school? Are they governed by the
states seperately or what? Are all high school sport's rules adopted by each
state for its own use?
Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
--
Dan Mallon mal...@hsi.com
Health Systems International {uunet,yale}!hsi!mallon
pmo...@kean.mun.ca
> As per the guidelines, during the discussion period, a group name is
> some private email.
>
> [2] rec.sport.wrestling
> [1] rec.sport.pro-wrestling]>
Those are the only two names which accurately reflect the addiction
regardless of what any "pencil-necked" non fans would say. Wrestling
is a sport, "whether you like it or not."
On a seperate point, has anyone ever commented (I'm new to this
bboard) on the abundance of Canucks in pro wrestling now and then.
Bret the Hitman, Rowdy roddy (from Winnipeg, manitoba), the Montreal
and Quebec based wrestlers spawned by the George Cannon Milt
Dombrowski organization including Bravo, Rougeaus, Martel, even Ronnie
Garvin. What about the Vachons, or the great Eduard Carpentier, or wrestling
in the Maritimes on Grand Prix Wrestling the Beast and the Stomper?
As for the Survivor series, is it only me or has anyone else noticed
that Randy Savage has been treating Scary Sherie like a piece of dog
meat lately? Maybe Sherie will turn?
Stig Stiletto (Sailor White and Hartford Love: the two greatest
wrestlers from Newfoundland - the two and only!)
Nicholas J. Simicich
for a name to the group that I had proposed. I recieved 30 votes
through the mail, 27 of which were more or less in the format I
requested.
A couple of people picked the name they liked from the list, and sent
me email with just that name, indicating that they didn't want any
other name. A couple of other people gave me their first couple of
preferences, and then gave me nothing for the remaining votes.
Because of this, I changed the way I counted votes slightly. One
thing that I did was that I allowed for fractional votes. If a person
had voted for two separate categories at the same level, I allowed a
proportional fractional vote in each non-eliminated category. And if
the vote was equal to the highest number voted by that voter, I did
not transfer it nor count it in the tally. This was done in a vote
counting program that I wrote, having received none in the mail.
As it turned out, neither of these things mattered in this case.
Fractional votes did not come up, and rec.sport.pro-wrestling won
outright, having gotten more than 1/2 the first place votes as a first
choice. But the program is written.
To illustrate the STV, I'll ask the program to give me a 99% majority:
$ stv .99 categ votes
Total vote count is 31, more than 30.69 votes required to win.
rec.sport.wrestling 8.00 8.00 8.00 8.00
rec.sport.pro-wrestling 20.00 20.00 21.00 23.00 31.00
rec.arts.wrestling 1.00 1.00
rec.arts.pro-wrestling 2.00 2.00 2.00
rec.sport.wwf 0.00
$
In English: No one voted for rec.sport.wwf, so that was the first
category eliminated. On the second round, rec.arts.wrestling, with
only one vote, was eliminated. That person's second choice was
rec.sport.pro-wrestling, so the vote was transferred to that category.
The next category to go was rec.arts.pro-wrestling, with 2 votes. One
of those people's second choice was rec.sport.pro-wrestling, so that
vote transferred directly. The other's second preference was
rec.arts.wrestling, but that category was already eliminated, and
their third preference was rec.sport.pro-wrestling, so the vote
transferred there.
In the same manner, votes from rec.sport.wrestling transferred. The
31 total matches the number of votes cast, indicating that
rec.sport.wrestling was no one's last choice. Examination of the raw
vote data indicates that, in fact, it was no worse than third for
anyone.
I believe that this represents a consensus on the name of the group.
Providing that there is no major dissent, I'm going to issue a call
for votes on Monday.
The raw vote data. See if you count it the same way I do.
1 3 2 4 5 uunet!samsung!schizo!mailrus!wuarchive!East.Sun.COM!evan (Evan Marcus (Sun NJ Systems Consultant))
2 1 2 2 2 Tom Griffin <gri...@blake.acs.washington.edu>
1 2 3 4 37 RICKENBACH <men...@vax1.acs.udel.edu>
4 1 3 2 5 uunet!pyrdc!eliot!reidc (Reid Carson/Development)
2 1 3 4 5 J Menes <uunet!garage.att.com!jcm>
1 2 3 3 3 Shane Rollans <rsro...@violet.waterloo.edu>
2 1 4 3 5 dciem!cognos!larryw (Larry Williams)
5 1 3 2 4 uunet!mtsu.edu!csjoey (mr. joey carruthers)
5 3 2 1 4 uunet!solsta.ericsson.se!etxtsg (Thomas Grennefors)
5 1 4 2 3 t...@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM
4 1 3 2 5 uunet!jarthur!jbillone
4 1 2 3 5 Herb Kunze <hek...@trillium.waterloo.edu>
3 1 3 2 3 Bengt Larsson <ben...@maths.lth.se>
1 3 2 4 5 CONTICELLO <booledog%vax1.acs...@yktvmh.watson.ibm.com>
3 2 1 4 5 he...@astro.as.utexas.edu (James Heath)
1 2 3 4 5 Scott Davis <mccall!sc...@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu>
2 1 4 3 5 hea...@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Don Hearth)
2 1 4 3 5 uunet!ccird4!rlgvax!lab (NY JETS Head Coach)
3 1 4 2 5 "Tony R. Marasco" <uunet!PSUVM!TRM900>
2 1 4 3 5 uunet!Solbourne.COM!rwg (Rick Gillespie)
4 1 2 3 5 uunet!CS.UCLA.EDU!ucla-cs!oahu.cs.ucla.edu!reeves (John F. Reeves)
4 2 3 1 5 uunet!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!dav (William David Haas)
1 3 2 4 5 Byron C. Howes <uunet!uncecs.edu!bch>
1 2 4 5 3 uunet!lzatt.att.com!drv (Dennis R Vogel)
2 1 2 2 2 uunet!ncar.UCAR.EDU!woods (Greg Woods)
2 1 4 3 5 uunet!cs.utah.edu!u-wbills@sunset (Wade Bills)
2 1 2 2 2 uunet!ateng.ateng.com!chip (Chip Salzenberg)
4 1 2 3 4 uunet!harpo.med.ge.com!scott (Scott Woskoff x4-6810)
2 1 4 3 5 Geoff Allen <uunet!pmafire!geoff>
1 2 3 4 5 uunet!ihlpc!walli (Gene V Walli +1 312 713 4205)
4 1 2 3 5 scifi!njs (Nick Simicich)