[news.groups] call for votes, comp.text.dwb

rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (10/31/90)

jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) writes:
  npn@mhuxo.att.com (Nils-Peter Nelson) writes [as excerpted from the call
  for votes]
> > In the preliminary discussion, the only negative indication
> > was that dwb sounds like "dweeb."...

Unfortunately, there was almost *no* preliminary discussion.  I didn't see
enough interest to expect the group to have come to a vote.

The purpose of comp.text.dwb
> > is a forum for those interested in the tools packaged in
> > the Documenter's Workbench ...[etc]

> This name is meaningful only for System V people:...
[shot at AT&T for making money]
> ...Folks using BSD-based systems or Suns, etc,
> won't have a clue what "dwb" means, even if you spell it out.

It's not that bad; most folks have managed to figure out what it means.
The name is getting around.

> If you want a group to discuss troff, nroff, and associated tools,
> try comp.text.troff as a name.

Of course, it's mostly futile to wait until after the CFV to suggest a
different name.  This should have happened during the discussion period;
then someone could have taken a shot at Buck because "troff" doesn't
suggest that the group would also cover eqn, tbl, grap, pic, picasso, as
Nelson suggested, and also (one might hope) the macro packages, bib, ptx,
refer, and maybe even monk and some others.

The real problem is that there wasn't a consensus before the group went to
vote.  It wasn't controversial; there just wasn't any response at all.  (On
USENET, silence doesn't mean assent.:-)  Personally, I'd like to see a
group about the topics suggested for comp.text.dwb, but I don't think the
discussion period showed any need for the group.  (What little discussion
there is has lived happily in comp.text for quite a while.)
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...but Meatball doesn't work that way!