brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (03/18/89)
With all this talk of bad precedent, I think a very bad precedent is being set right now by Karl Denninger. The question is, if a usenet vote/survey is held, and a person's cause loses in that vote, should we tolerate people calling for an immediate second vote? If losing a vote doesn't get people to agree to disagree, then what will? Clearly there are some cases where this can be tolerated. If most people agree that there was something seriously wrong with the first vote, to the extent that they believe it might have gone the other way if the problems had been corrected, then yes, another vote can be tolerated. But just as clearly, such flaws should be *proven* in the eyes of independent people before another vote is allowed. Otherwise we'll just get endless calls for re-votes on slightly different issues from sore losers. More chaos, and votes will become even less useful than they are now. This is a precedent we must not allow. Those are the general issues. To get specific: I have absolutely no doubt that if there were a 2nd vote, I would win in quite handily. I am not afraid of the vote, just annoyed by it. In justice, a man can only be tried once. Here on usenet it's constant attack and votes no matter what. I refuse to be tried endlessly for whatever "crimes" I am accused of. One can pick all sorts of nits of bias about the vote/survey that I held. Some have been noted here. I believe that none of these nits, even in an absolute worst case analysis, could cause any reasonable person to believe that the vote could have gone the other way, particularly by a 100 vote margin. If anybody can convince a knowledgeable, independent authority otherwise, this vote could be allowed. Let's face it. I don't think ANY vote in the news.* arena has ever gotten more than 180 No votes -- that was comp.protocols.tcp-ip.eniac. It takes a tremendous stretch of imagination to think that 600 No votes could appear to sufficiently surpass my current 500 yes vote tally. Denninger has said that if he loses this vote, he'll go away. I find it hard to believe. If I believed it, I would say let him hold his vote, just so that he would shut up. But even if he sticks to his word, then next month there will be somebody else. This endless trial and voting is not what I would call acceptable. If my survey had glossed over issues, it might have been called into question. Instead it came right out and identified the commercial nature of this multi-net expansion as the element of controversy. I didn't equivocate as I could have -- I talked about dollars changing hands. My survey was posted to rec.humor.funny. Not surprising, as it certainly belongs there. Some have said it should have gone to news.groups and sysadmins as well. RHF now has twice the number of readers of any of these groups, thanks to attempts to ban it. It is even possible that *more* sysadmins read RHF than read any news.* group. Anyway, that's all moot, because Karl reported the survey over here in the news.* groups within a day. Thanks, Karl, for removing that question of bias. At any rate, whether you believe there was bias or not, I would like to see if any rational person will argue that there was enough to reverse the vote. My survey described the expansion of RHF to commercial networks in detail, even quoting their hourly rates. I then asked readers if they approved of that, or disapproved. Karl's "highly different" vote will be on whether I should 'removed' from RHF because I am expanding it to commercial networks. Oh yes, that's an entirely different question entirely, sure to get hundreds of yes votes, folks. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (03/19/89)
In article <2966@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >At any rate, whether you believe there was bias or not, I would like to >see if any rational person will argue that there was enough to reverse >the vote. At the very least, if another vote is to be held, it should be held by an impartial returning officer, not by a major participant in the debate. Compounding one supposedly-biased vote with another won't help. -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu