Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!bnr.co.uk!bnrgate!nott!uotcsi2!micor!vicuna.ocunix.on.ca!frampton From: Steve Frampton Newsgroups: soc.couples.intercultural,soc.answers,news.answers Subject: soc.couples.intercultural FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions Summary: Frequently asked questions about inter-cultural relationships. Message-ID: Date: Sat, 26 Feb 94 17:05:27 EST Expires: 26 Mar 1994 17:04:59 EST Sender: news@vicuna.ocunix.on.ca Reply-To: Steve Frampton Followup-To: poster Distribution: world Organization: Vicuna Systems Company, Kingston, Ontario Approved: system@vicuna.ocunix.on.ca Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 269 Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu soc.couples.intercultural:3876 soc.answers:913 news.answers:15706 Archive-name: intercultural-couples-faq Version: 1.04 Last-modified: 12 Feb 1994 Frequency: monthly Frequently Asked Questions on soc.couples.intercultural. -------------------------------------------------------- Q-00. Do you have any legal disclaimers to get out of the way first? Q-01. What is this newsgroup for? Q-02. Are there any magazines devoted to inter-cultural relationships? Q-03. D'oh! How can I get it through his thick skull that...? Q-04. Are the postings for soc.couples.intercultural archived anywhere? Q-05. This group is new...what topics would be good to talk about first? Q-06. How many people read this newsgroup anyway? Q-07. How can I increase the awareness and popularity of this group? Q-08. I don't have posting access to net.news. Help! Q-09. Who contributed to this FAQ document? Q-10. How can *I* contribute to this FAQ document? Q-11. In the perspicacious words of Janet Jackson, "Is that the end?" ---=== Q-00. Do you have any legal disclaimers to get out of the way first? Neither myself (Steve Frampton) nor any of the contributors (listed at the end of this document) shall be held liable for any damages caused by the information (or mis-information, as the case may be) contained within this document, including but not limited to, special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. The information contained herein consists largely of opinions of a small group of people, and may or may not provide the best solutions to your questions. Although the majority of soc.couples.intercultural readers seem to agree with the material in this document, your mileage may vary. In short, USE THIS INFORMATION AT YOUR OWN RISK. ---=== Q-01. What is this newsgroup for? Welcome to soc.couples.intercultural -- an unmoderated forum where people involved in, or who are interested in, inter-cultural or inter-racial relationships, can come together and discuss issues that are common to such relationships. All topics related to these relationships are welcome here. These include, but are not limited to: - Differences in culture: family, religious, racial, etc. - Child rearing (cultural considerations, discrimination, etc.) - Racial prejudice and methods of dealing with this - Anything that could be applied to the "recipe of success" to keep these relationships thriving and growing. ---=== Q-02. Are there any magazines devoted to inter-cultural relationships? Yes! They should be available at your nearest book/magazine store. If they are not, you should politely ask, "Why not?". New People Interracial Classified c/o Yvete Walker P.O. Box 185 P.O. Box 47490 College Point, NY Oak Park, MI 48237 11356-0185 Price: $24/year Price: $20/year Interrace Magazine Bi-Racial Child Magazine P.O. Box 12048 P.O. Box 12048 Atlanta, GA 30355 Atlanta, GA 30355 Email: 73424.1014@compuserve.com Email: 73424.1014@compuserve.com Price: $24/year, 9 issues Price: $20/year, 4 issues ---=== Q-03. D'oh! How can I get it through his thick skull that...? Relax...it is a sad fact of life, but there are people out there who will say the most ridiculous things simply to start a flame-war. Or perhaps they really hold these ridiculous views. However, I have my doubts that anything we say here on net.news to try to convince these people of the error of their ways will make much difference to them. In short, it is probably best to avoid flame-wars wherever possible, or to not bother following up to one already in progress. ---=== Q-04. Are the postings for soc.couples.intercultural archived anywhere? Tom Haapanen has volunteered his services as official archiver of soc.couples.intercultural articles (thanks, Tom). They are located on his ftp.metrics.com site (198.133.164.1) in the ~/archive subdirectory. Access these articles via anonymous FTP. You can retrieve articles for a given month by downloading file sci.YYMM (where YY is the year, and MM is the month). Tom asks that people follow a few reasonable rules to keep things running smoothly: - "There are *no* writeable upload areas on ftp.metrics.com." - "There are *no* mail servers." - "Please do not abuse our poor little 14.4K link!" The archival of files began on or about October 31, 1993. Contact Tom if you require additional information about this service. --- Q-05. This group is new...what topics would be good to talk about first? Well, of course that is entirely up to you, but here are some sample questions that several people have submitted for possible resolution and inclusion here in the FAQ: - In my fiancee's culture a girl's parents have the final word as to who she should marry. In mine that is not true. We intend to get married. How do we and they deal with this? - My husband is from Pakistan, and I'm from India. Our daughter has had some questions about the tension between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. How should we deal with this? - My Asian wife's family hates me. We live comfortably, I have broadened my horizons by learning her language, appreciate her culture, but they can't seem to get past the fact that I'm not Asian. These people are, of course, very important to my wife. How can I get them to accept me? - My son, 6 years old of European-Maghreb origin, doesn't accept people of Maghreb or other origins than European. Is this for a cultural, racial or social reason? - How do I make my fundamentalist Christian girlfriend and in-laws cope with, or accept, if not understand, my athiest/agnostic/differing views? --- Q-06. How many people read this newsgroup anyway? According to the "USENET Readership report" (arbitron) published monthly by Brian Reid , about 37,000 people are estimated to read soc.couples.intercultural world-wide. This does not include those people who participate via the gated mailing list. Please note that the Arbitron data is compiled slightly differently beginning January 1, 1994 -- this may explain the lack of data for December and the slight apparent decrease in the group's popularity. Here is the complete data since the group's inception in October, as follows: (a) - Ranking (out of approximately 2840 groups) (b) - Estimated number of readers world-wide. (c) - Actual number of readers in sampled population. (d) - Percentage of sites receiving soc.couples.intercultural. (e) - Number of messages in given month. (f) - Size (in K) of all messages in given month. (g) - Percentage that articles are cross-posted to other groups. (h) - Cost per month (in US $) per reader. (i) - Percentage of all newsreaders who read soc.couples.intercultural. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) 1315 37000 451 40% 541 1158.1 25% 0.02 0.9% January 1994 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a December 1993 1297 29000 394 34% 918 2086.3 9% 0.04 0.8% November 1993 2366 8000 109 15% 1301 2674.3 0% 0.08 0.2% October 1993 --- Q-07. How can I increase the awareness and popularity of this group? First of all, bear in mind that this forum is brand new. It may take some time before many sites carry this group. However, if you wish to help increase people's awareness of this group, perhaps one of the suggestions listed below may appeal to you: - Word of mouth. Don't underestimate the power of word of mouth. Tell your friends if they are interested in inter-cultural or inter-racial relationships, perhaps consider posting something around your university or work site, etc. - If you carry the soc.couples.intercultural newsgroup on your system, perhaps you'd consider taking part in the 'arbitron' survey compiled by Brian Reid? Each month, the top 2840(?) groups are listed, including the number of readers world-wide, the percentage of sites that carry the group, the number of articles, etc. This information is compiled by data sent from participating sites, purely on a volunteer basis. This is one way the soc.couples.intercultural group can climb higher on the ratings list, thereby possibly gaining the notice of sites or subscribers not currently aware of this group. I'll post this information from time to time to soc.couples.intercultural for your interest. --- Q-08. I don't have access to soc.couples.intercultural. Help! The best solution would be for you to put in a request to your system administrator asking him/her to carry the newsgroup. News is by far the most efficient mechanism for wide distribution of articles (assuming a large audience is reading them). Alternately, the soc.couples.intercultural is being bidirectionally gated and offered as an e-mail mailing list. So if you can't get access to net.news, and wish to participate in the discussions, this solution is for you. To use this option follow the directions below: SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE: To subscribe, send an e-mail message to 'lserv@psg.com' with "subscribe int-couple" in the BODY of your message. This only works if your 'From:' header contains a valid address. If not, then instead you should state in the body, "subscribe int-couple " where 'subscription address' is the e-mail address you wish to receive all articles. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail message to 'lserv@psg.com' with "unsubscribe int-couple" in the BODY of your message. ARTICLE SUBMISSION: To submit an article to the mailing list (where it will be also distributed on the news-side of soc.couples.intercultural as well), send your articles to 'int-couple@psg.com'. Do *not* send subscription requests to this address, you will be annoying potentially thousands of people. :-) This gated mailing list is being run solely as a volunteer effort by Randy Bush . Many thanks, Randy. ---=== Q-09. Who contributed to this FAQ document? This document would not have been possible without the generous and informative contributions made by the following people: Chris Goringe Fazia Begum Rizvi Yvon Vernaillen Aaron P. Brink Randy Bush Tom Haapanen Dolan Andrew Ray Normandeau & Rita Frazier Normandeau ... and many others ... ---=== Q-10. How can *I* contribute to the this FAQ document? If you have some useful information you would like to have mentioned in the FAQ, please send your contribution to: Intercultural FAQ If your submission is appropriate it will inserted and your name will be credited (if you don't like this, you can request to remain anonymous). ---=== Q-11. In the perspicacious words of Janet Jackson, "Is that the end?" Yes, it is. Thank you for reading.