emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (02/17/90)
I propose a mercy rule for new group creation, designed to kick in when the vote is non-controversial and overwhelmingly positive. This will let deserving groups be created more quickly and with less fuss, while preserving the existing structure for most groups. Discussion period is unchanged, though there need not be a "formal" call for discussion. Evidence of two weeks worth of rumor and innuendo would be enough. Call for votes is still "formal", i.e. gets cleared through news.announce.newgroups. The vote can be ended at any time with the following strict conditions (subject to haggling of course over the details): - minimum 200 more yes votes than no (100) - 20 times as many yes votes than no (2) - no more than 20 no votes (unlimited) - vote may end in 5 days (21) So a vote of 216 to 5 could be ended 8 days into the voting period because it's obvious what the outcome would be. On the other hand a vote of 236 to 25 is likely to be more controversial and should wait out the whole period. I don't know if any of the votes up to now would have been called by the mercy rule, though if it had been in place the debacles of alt.fusion and comp.sys.next/alt.next could have been avoided. --Ed
piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum) (02/19/90)
In article <EMV.90Feb15175723@duby.math.lsa.umich.edu>, emv@math (Edward Vielmetti) writes:
`I propose a 'mercy rule' for group creation. You know the
`story -- the Bombers are beating the Slugs 234 to 4 in the
`bottom of the 6th, and it's getting late, and the Slugs
`really want to go out for beer anyway and graciously
`concede. New groups with widespread interest and little
`controversy should be created quickly.
`
`
`I'm curious to those who have data, which existing proposals
`this would have affected.
I looked into the votes for comp.text.tex and it passed the 210-10 line
at Jan 19. The call for votes went out on Jan 11, appeared on the net at
sometime between Jan 12 and 15, and the first vote came in Jan 15. Most NO
votes came in very early:
Jan 16: 7
Jan 17: 1
Jan 19: 2
Jan 22: 1
Jan 25: 1
Jan 30: 1
Feb 3: 1
--
Piet* van Oostrum, Dept of Computer Science, Utrecht University,
Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Telephone: +31-30-531806 Uucp: uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!ruuinf!piet
Telefax: +31-30-513791 Internet: piet@cs.ruu.nl (*`Pete')lori@hacgate.scg.hac.com (Lori + 7/9) (02/20/90)
In article <EMV.90Feb15175723@duby.math.lsa.umich.edu> emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes: >I propose a 'mercy rule' for group creation. [...] > >A "mercy rule" vote might look like > > 200 more yes votes than no votes > 95% of the votes are yes (~20x as many yes as no) > No more than 20 no votes. > 2 week discussion, 10 day vote, create group. I think this is a great idea, but I would add the criterion that "Mercy Rule" warnings be posted in case there is a NO lobby out there which hasn't spake its piece. (All the players on the ballfield should know the score, so they can either anticipate an early beer break or rally some runs in.) ...lori
woods@snowmass.scd.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (02/20/90)
In article <EMV.90Feb15175723@duby.math.lsa.umich.edu> emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes: >New groups with widespread interest and little >controversy should be created quickly. First, why? Why is a new group proposal so critical that it can't wait a few weeks? Would the net REALLY have fallen apart if we had had to carry on the Next discussions in comp.misc for a couple of weeks while a vote was held? Second, unless a vote is held, how do you determine that there is "widespread interest"? A few vocal proponents in news.groups does not guarantee widespread interest. >If there is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that the >group will be created with no substantial opposition, then the >vote results can be sent in and the group created "early". I think this puts way too much power in the hands of the vote-taker. Sure., there are some lopsided results, but I really don't see why group proposals have to be created in such a hurry. It just isn't that critical. --Greg
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (02/20/90)
In article <6358@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@snowmass.scd.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) writes: I write: >New groups with widespread interest and little >controversy should be created quickly. First, why? Why is a new group proposal so critical that it can't wait a few weeks? Would the net REALLY have fallen apart if we had had to carry on the Next discussions in comp.misc for a couple of weeks while a vote was held? Greg, you weren't reading the NeXT discussions. They were all over the place -- in comp.misc, comp.sys.mac, comp.arch, four or five other groups. Despite the existence of a proper and well-formed .misc group, human nature took its course and people talked about the stuff wherever it pleased them. The net *did* fall apart, at least for the purpose of discussing that topic. Second, unless a vote is held, how do you determine that there is "widespread interest"? A few vocal proponents in news.groups does not guarantee widespread interest. A few vocal anything in news.groups is almost a sure sign that the group has way too much controversy for its own good. In general the more heat the less light. Extended polemics about how a group should be named such and such is not a reliable indicator. What does serve to indicate that a new group would have immediate interest and quality discussion is the existence of that discussion already scattered among a number of groups. If a group could sustain itself simply by reposting selected articles out of ten or so existing groups then it has enough interest to make it worthwhile. Oh yes, then issue the formal call for votes & cross-post it into the other groups & see what you get. >If there is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that the >group will be created with no substantial opposition, then the >vote results can be sent in and the group created "early". I think this puts way too much power in the hands of the vote-taker. Sure., there are some lopsided results, but I really don't see why group proposals have to be created in such a hurry. It just isn't that critical. And I think that your arbitrary voting rules put way too much power into your hands. What do you gain from delaying except delay ? --Greg
bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (02/20/90)
In article <EMV.90Feb19165418@duby.math.lsa.umich.edu> emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes:
What do you gain from delaying except delay ?
A damping, or at least phase-shifting, effect on behavioral feedback
loops. More deliberated thinking from the intellect than from the
brain stem or from wrist reflexes.lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot) (02/21/90)
Actually, I have only one problem with Ed's proposal. I am worried about people going off in a stampede and placing a group in the wrong hierarchy. If we had much better definitions for the hierarchies, this wouldn't be so much of a problem. -- Eliot Lear [lear@TURBO.BIO.NET]
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (02/21/90)
In article <BOB.90Feb20105007@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes: >In article <EMV.90Feb19165418@duby.math.lsa.umich.edu> emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes: > What do you gain from delaying except delay ? > >A damping, or at least phase-shifting, effect on behavioral feedback >loops. More deliberated thinking from the intellect than from the >brain stem or from wrist reflexes. An interesting counter example to this is a network known as USENET. On this network, for those unfamiliar with it, longer discussion and "voting" periods actually engender *more* discussion, more tangents and more bouts of personal attack and overzealous debate. (Ok, I'm being sarcastic, of course you've heard of USENET) The delays here do not give us a time to pause and reflect. They give some a chance to argue, campaign and look for trouble to make. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (02/21/90)
[ Eliot worries about a stampede ] Are you worried about creating groups in the wrong top-level hierarchy (i.e. sci vs. soc) or in the wrong second-level hierarchy (like comp.sys vs comp.soft-sys) ? Or both, I suppose. If there were good descriptions of the existing hierarchies, especially the more convoluted ones, it would probably generate both ideas for new groups and a more clear sense of where new groups would fit in. --Ed
tli@phakt.usc.edu (Tony Li) (02/21/90)
In article <EMV.90Feb20233524@duby.math.lsa.umich.edu> emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes:
If there were good descriptions of the existing hierarchies,
especially the more convoluted ones, it would probably generate
both ideas for new groups and a more clear sense of where new
groups would fit in.
One of my pet ideas for a while has been to have the charter for each
group available as an article somewhere in the tree. This seems like
a logical extension....
Tony Li - USC Computer Science Department
Internet: tli@usc.edu Uucp: usc!tli
Thus spake the master programmer: "A well written program is its own
heaven; a poorly-written program its own hell."werner@zephyr.sw.mcc.com (Werner Uhrig) (02/21/90)
In <Feb.20.13.21.10.1990.5235@turbo.bio.net> lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot) writes: >Actually, I have only one problem with Ed's proposal. I am worried >about people going off in a stampede and placing a group in the wrong >hierarchy. If we had much better definitions for the hierarchies, >this wouldn't be so much of a problem. oh, but we now have two net-gods watching over news-group proposals and creation (Greg moderating rec.announce.newgroups and Chuq creating the new groups after the voting is completed) and they are quite reasonable (not to say clever) in helping with the correct placement of new groups in the name-space. I'm not worried, really... I'm not saying that I support Ed's proposal, but rather that I don't think Eliot's argument is valid. "better definitions" sound like "hard and fast rules" and I'd rather have some reasonable people guiding the process of naming new groups than some inflexible definitions ... for me, Chuq and Greg are good enough definitions for the time being... -- --------------------------> please send REPLIES to <------------------------ INTERNET: werner@cs.utexas.edu or: werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet # 128.83.144.1) UUCP: ...<well-connected-site>!cs.utexas.edu!werner
werner@zephyr.sw.mcc.com (Werner Uhrig) (02/21/90)
In <8254@chaph.usc.edu> tli@phakt.usc.edu (Tony Li) writes: > >One of my pet ideas for a while has been to have the charter for each >group available as an article somewhere in the tree. This seems like >a logical extension.... yes, yes, yes - such an article should be the first article in each news-group and it should never expire but only be superceded by a later article (I am not sure if the first one should even get deleted when a later one supercedes it - a little history of where a group originally came from could prove both useful and interesting. In more recent cases, the call for a creation vote with the definition of the group and a highlight of the arguments which surfaced during the discussion would also prove useful to keep around) -- --------------------------> please send REPLIES to <------------------------ INTERNET: werner@cs.utexas.edu or: werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet # 128.83.144.1) UUCP: ...<well-connected-site>!cs.utexas.edu!werner
rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (02/23/90)
Things work well enough now that I do not see a need to get an "obvious" group created six days earlier. Who cares if one person's mailbox fills up? You say that "NeXT" discussions are running rampant all over the net and nobody can find them all and read them all? BFD -- think of it as less babble and misinformation you have to find. "Obvious" group creation delayed one week -- Usenet meltdown expected. /r$ -- Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net. Use a domain-based address or give alternate paths, or you may lose out.
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (02/23/90)
I still think that we need a net.cabal which can approve a group by
mandate, and in a timely manner. This would not *in any sense* replace
or supercede the current process, but would be in addition to it for
groups which are widely held acceptable, or which are topical. For
topical groups they could also specify a cutoff date, by which the group
would be deleted unless approved in the current manner.
--
bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -memsb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (02/24/90)
Rich Salz (rsalz@bbn.com) writes: > Things work well enough now that I do not see a need to get an "obvious" > group created six days earlier. ... From where I sit, this assertion about "working well" seems obviously wrong. I suggest that the person who proposed the "mercy rule" should conduct a survey on it. I say "survey" because, in the absence of a formal amending procedure for the voting guidelines, the results have to be non-binding. But they might, and I think will, be *convincing*. -- Mark Brader "I conducted a Usenet poll ... on this subject ... Toronto Laura is single. By a 2-1 margin." -- Ken Perlow utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com This article is in the public domain.
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (02/25/90)
In article <1990Feb23.183234.23830@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: > I suggest that the person who proposed the "mercy rule" should conduct a > survey on it. I say "survey" because, in the absence of a formal amending > procedure for the voting guidelines, the results have to be non-binding. > But they might, and I think will, be *convincing*. Since there is no central authority here, *convincing* is really about the most that any survey can claim to be. Certainly the results of an official vote have no power over any site. -- _--_|\ Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>. / \ \_.--._/ Xenix Support -- it's not just a job, it's an adventure! v "Have you hugged your wolf today?" `-_-'