mhw@lock60.UUCP (Mark H. Weber) (12/10/89)
[Here's a sampling of comments I received as part of my survey. This is
pretty long, but contains some ideas from people who are not regular
news.groups readers. I'll be following up with my conclusions - Mark]
=============================================================================
I don't like the 100 yes minimum, now that I think about it.
I can't convince myself that votes with small returns are bad, or even
that groups with small numbers of postings are bad. Or even that groups
with small numbers of readers are bad.
It is my suspicion that people will post an article to an incorrect group,
if no correct group exists, rather than not post at all. So why not give
people lots of groups to choose from? My conjecture is that the number of
newsgroups available doesn't greatly influence the total number of
articles. Perhaps the only bad effect of lots of newsgroups would be an
increase in crosspostings?
Things you left out:
A way to call for a group rename, rather than creation
A way to call for a group removal, rather than creation
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My statement to the STV voting scheme:
I think it's too complex to vote with it and to count the votes.
For example in the voting above there are some items which you can hardly
compare: 'Less restictive requirements for moderated groups' better than
the 'MAUVE voting scheme' if you want to have both.
And I think there would be many votes with different alternatives on equal
places, because many people can't decide which one is the better alternative
and they will consider them equal and place it therefore on the same place.
e.g.:
Item A [2]
Item B [1]
Item C [3]
Item D [2]
How would you count such double votes?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name voting destroys all consistency in the namespace. We can have a
*name* czar (as an independent question) without a newgroup czar.
CHANGE YES
But not any of the proposed changes.
MAUVE scheme is too complex. We get enough flames with the simple scheme
we have now.
MAUVE NO
READER YES
Create any group. Test readership on the sites that get it. If, after
6 months readership is not at least 1 reader/2 sites, rmgroup it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my opinion, the biggest problem is properly selecting the name and
the hierarchy. This hierarchy selection should be done by a group of
experienced net people. The name (ie. the last token in the newsgroup
name) can be recommended by this group of people, but probably should
be selected by the persons trying to get the group created.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I feel (and I think that most people (silently) also feel) that the
rules are fine, and that putting in more restrictions is bad. If
people don't like a group, they don't have to read it or carry it.
You may notice that my only yes is for the MAUVE scheme, but that is
because it will create more newsgroups than the current rules do.
Everything else is a bad idea to a terrible idea -- especially the
"central committee" idea which will only consist of power-mad people,
and anything that makes it more difficult to create a group.
Of course, I'm sure that I could resubscribe to news.groups, and join
the flamefest myself, but that would be a waste of time. That
newsgroup serves the same purpose that alt.sex does; it moves all the
people that want to argue about that to their own newsgroup which
everyone else can ignore.
Well, I've flamed on enough myself, so I guess I'll let you get back
to counting those votes.
Don't forget that there is no "legal" way to change the rules.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 7) No change NO
> 8) Any change YES
It is a mistake to give these separate numbers. The theory behind
approval voting breaks down when dependent issues are given separate
numbers in this fashion. You should have said: ``If you think no change
is needed, vote NO for everything or simply say a one-line NO. If you
think any change would be an improvement, vote YES for everything or
simply say a one-line YES.''
> Both of these plans could include a
> "No group" and "Any Group" option, which would allow the voter to vote
> for or against the existence of the group, no matter what name was chosen.
Once again: These should not be separate. It's fine to have a one-line
YES or NO vote as an abbreviation for all YES or all NO, but it's a big
mistake to have a separate line for them.
> If you have an additional proposal which I have not mentioned, write it
> in at the end of your ballot.
The theory (and practice) break down quite awfully with write-in votes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your vote will have some annomalies because in some ways the MAUVE and
STV systems are designed to pick the best one of many, but in this
vote several of the options could be applied at the same time. 1c, for
example, could go with any system, 1a and 1b would work together,
there are a couple of people already who have volunteered to hold votes
on behalf of others (5)...
I think write-ins are a bad idea -- either they have no chance of winning,
so why bother, or they can be used in a behind-the-scenes campaign to
upset the vote. But then, who gets to make the name list? That can
be abused as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as I'm concerned, there is only one satisfactory solution.
Split name and charter. Have YES/NO vote on charter, STV on name.
Simple. Could you make this an option, please?
This avoids the awkwardness of having to express feelings on the charter and on
the name in the same breath. Only if the charter vote receives 100 more YES's
than NO's (and maybe a 2/3 share) will the name votes need to be examined.
Then, everybody's preference counts. On the fish vote, for instance, I could
abstain from the charter vote while voting [1] rec.aquaria on the name. My
preference will be taken into account only if needed. Making the name vote
STV rather than MAUVE allows a much more satisfactory range of preferences to
be indicated.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The principle of proportional representation is very simple; election
requires a quota of votes, not a majority, and votes that would otherwise be
wasted on a candidate who does not need them are utilised by transfer, on
those voters' instructions, to other candidates" (Enid Lakeman, ERS, 1971)
ERS is the Electoral Reform Society of G.B. and Ireland. Enid Lakeman was
its Director for many years; now in her mid 80's, she is still campaigning
for fair electoral systems.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It used to be that decisions on newsgroups were reached by weighing
the arguments (which were not necessarily just pro or con).
Nowadays it seems that no matter how well-reasoned the point,
it's considered just an opinion, everybody's is worth exactly
the same as anybody else's, from the most thoughtful oldtimer
to the most ignorant newuser. Our input is reduced to less
than a number -- to a single bit, YES or NO. The vote-taker
doesn't care what we have to contribute, but instead wants to
know "are you with us or against us?" and decisions are made
based on which side outnumbers the other. This way lies
mediocrity -- as well as polarization of the Usenet community.
The purpose of this "voting" stuff (which is really a lot more
like canvassing for signatures on a petition) was to answer two
questions:
1) are there too many readers for a mailing list?
2) are there problems with the newsgroup as proposed?
The first question, potential readership, is served well by getting
100 names (YES votes) on a petition.
The second question breaks down to several facets:
a) does the name make sense to the readers?
b) are the feed sites willing to carry it?
c) is it in the right hierarchy?
Part of the reason for classifying newsgroups in a tree structure is
to keep sys files small. The newsadmins of the feeding sites are
the authorities on this facet, and the best-qualified Name Czar
would be the newsadmin who has to deal with the most bytes of sys
files (i.e. dozens of partial-feed sites). The readers are the
wrong group to ask about this facet.
Most of the rest of the reason for classifying newsgroups in only 7
top-level categories to reduce the number of decisions about what
to carry. First, because justifying groups to management one at a
time is a lot of work; it's much easier to decide "we carry sci.all".
Second, to make it easier to get a feed. If the feeding sites have
less incentive to pick and choose what they carry, they're more likely
to have what you want, and if they don't, you only have a few top-level
categories to shop for, rather than 500 individual newsgroups. For
practical purposes, arranging feeds becomes almost impossible if
every site picks and chooses only the newsgroups it really wants;
you'd have to call dozens of sites to get everything you wanted.
For this facet too, you have to ask the newsadmins of the feeding sites,
not the readers. I suppose the non-leaf newsadmins could vote on it.
By having the readers determine the charter and the newsadmins
determine the name, we'd end up with a bicameral system, like
many Western governments. Having two voting bodies would give
us some badly needed checks and balances.
It's become obvious that our "100 more YES than NO" criterion isn't
working, and some people would like to patch it up. The best-
sounding suggestion so far is the one that goes:
100 more YES than NO,
AND not less than 2/3 YES
(I don't remember who proposed it, news.groups is huge). It
has two straight-line criteria that intersect at 100 NO votes.
(Interesting number, that... it gets harder to create the group
beyond 100 NO votes, which should please the supporters of the
100-NO cutoff rule).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think that the entire creation process needs to addressed as a
whole. If there were preliminary votes on controversial issues, then
the number of NO votes would mean something different than if these
preliminary votes were omitted. I think that much of the cause for few
NO votes on comp.object were due to the rational and open manner in
which the group name was chosen.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found the survey too confusing and not worth the time to figure it out.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I actually think that reviving the backbone cabal would be great, but I don't
think it can be done. The only reason the cabal "worked" in the past is that
we had the power (due to our connectivity) to ENFORCE our decisions. NNTP
and NSFnet have done away with this. Alien's MAUVE scheme is too complicated.
New users will never figure it out, and vote-takers will never get it right.
We obviously need some kind of change, since the sci.aquaria, soc.rights.human
and sci.skeptic debacles demonstrate clearly that misnamed groups can be
bullied through under the current conditions. Therefore the only thing that
will work is some way of preventing the creation of groups with lots of
opposition.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately, the way that the proposals are framed there is no
way to effectively prioritize the list. Usually, when designing surveys
for STV analysis, one tries to make the items a bit "purer" than those
that you have designated.
Additionally, it takes a lot more time to rank the listed proposals.
And time is one thing that most people will not give. Netnews already
consumes too much time as it is.
Actually, a module or two for rn/nn/vnews could be written that takes
items received on a moderated newsgroup (say news.surveys) as a set of
instructions for a special news survey program. The reader, if they
subscribe to the group, is presented a text frame presenting the question;
a refusal to continue is the first (default) question (i.e. hitting 'n'
skips the question and returns no response). Then the various answer
options can be presented and single keystrokes generate an automatic mail
response to a nearby and well connected site that has special software
set up to accept the mailed responses and tally the results.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope this is easy enough for you to count.
Thanks for putting the effort in!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, in a fit of facism, I'm casting my vote in the direction of
the BackBone Cabal* (TM). I am getting tired of having to send off
two 'no' votes per day against sci.feminist.korean.aquarists.under.98.pounds
and similar groups, and to no avail, since so many net.people are
apathetic as to how many hundreds of groups are eating up their disk
space.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think you're making matters *far* too complicated. I already
had problems trying to answer your poll, let alone understanding
what is really going on. I *do* agree that the current newsgroup
creation situation is becoming a mess, but I think that your proposals
are overkill. Maybe a whole different approach to newsgroup creation
should be taken, like a more centralized one (despite the fact that
I prefer distributed control a *lot* better than centralized control)?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am against all changes, and dislike all of the proposed voting systems
enough to not want to read the instructions involved. Sorry.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Really, what I'd rather see is a simultaneous vote for name and for
charter, with charter under basically the old rules and name a simple
majority-rules vote (with multiple votes allowed, though).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think that STV is appropriate to this type of survey - it
is designed to determine the single (or n) least unpreferred choice(s)
available out of a slate. This does not mean that it is of any value
in choosing which combination of a group of inter-related choices
should be taken. I started to respond in both MAUVE and STV fashion,
but there was no way that I could express my choices in STV. That
does not mean that STV is wrong for its *proposed* purpose of selecting
a name for a group - I think that it is perfectly good for that purpose.
(However, I think that it is trickier to administer than MAUVE, and
there would almost never be a different result from the two methods.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 1b) Change to 2:1 Yes:No ratio NO
NOTE: I would enthusiastically vote YES to this proposal if it also
said that there had to be a threshold number of YES votes (like 100,
or 100 more than NO to dovetail with current requirements.) But a
21-5 vote just doesn't cut it for a new newsgroup.
I realize that this is what you probably meant, but you didn't specify
it, and specification is very important for a vote like this. (I think
this sort of voting works find for group names, but with more complicated
proposals, it's much more problematic, since you have to be sure to get
your specifications exact ahead of time.
> 4a) Newsgroup Committee YES
with appropriate limitations and override chances. I'm not as
enthusiastic about this one as MAUVE, but the idea that a noncontroversial
group could get created quickly with this committee is appealing.
The committee idea, however, is potentially open to lots of new
sources of irresponsibility and flaming. I have the feeling if it
got bad enough, it would probably collapse on itself, though. (That's
why I'd want people like Spaf, who maintains the newsgroup list, NOT
to be on the committee-- if the committee collapses, I don't want
it taking him down with it)
> 4b) Newgroup Czar NO
I don't see how this is any better than a committee, and the potential
for abuse is, in my view, a good deal worse.
> 6) Trial Newsgroups ABSTAIN
I'm not really convincce this is going to be worth the trouble. On
the other hand, I don't see any major flaws with it.
As I mentioned above, I don't think MAUVE or STV are particularly designed
for this kind of vote. They would work differently with a simple name
vote. (And in that case, I think MAUVE works quite well.) Keep this
in mind when going through the ballots.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Trial Newsgroups YES(*)
(*) Using the alt hierarchy, as was done with alt.sca and alt.fusion,
this is a very nice way of doing things. The advantage is that you
get to skip a lot of hassle at the expense of somewhat reduced
propagation. Nevertheless, a well-used group in alt is a clear
indication that, barring politics (alt.sex), it should be able
to find a place in the established hierarchy. I do *not* support
the concept of a trial newsgroup if it is surrounded by red tape.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This should be simple to count. I vote for NO changes to the current
"rules" on news.group creation. At all. Nada.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are my opinions. If you publish the result of the vote, I think
it would also be useful to tabulate the votes from just the USENET
administrators.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>4) Centralized control of newsgroup naming and creation. It has been suggested
>that a Newsgroup committee be formed to choose names for and create new
>groups. The membership of this committee could be determined by the site
>administrators, or by the net at large. The decisions of this committee could
>be appealed to and over-ridden by a vote of the net at large. Taken to the
>extreme, this function could be performed by a single individual, a "Newsgroup
>Czar".
This will never work. All that will happen is the central commitee will
be permanently swamped by flames. It's censorship by commitee.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I would vote on your proposals, but frankly, the voting scheme(s)
are just too damn complicated. For what it's worth, I preferred the
days of the backbone cabal; there are some decisions that just can't
be made by more than N people, N = 10-40 or so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am for 6) Trial Newsgroups.
I am also for the idea of only creating a group as a spinoff
of other groups. What happens now is that newsgroups get
started without any natural momentum, just with a good idea.
Trial newsgroups might expose such situations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments: A MAUVE vote works better than a STV vote in those cases where more
than one of the choices might be implemented. This particular survey, for
example, has several choices that might go along with each other. Neither has
the ability to say, e.g. "2:1 Yes:No ratio, but only with a MAUVE scheme".
STV should work better for something where all the choices are mutually
exclusive, as they would be in naming a newsgroup.
There should be no need in an STV scheme to disallow giving more than one
choice the same value. This actually boils down to the MAUVE scheme if someone
votes all YES choices 1, "no change"/"no group" 2, and all NO choices 3.
For STV, I'd prefer having a vote of X to mean "No", rather than have an
artificial "No Change" to set the threshold between YES and NO.
STV certainly requires more thought of the voter. For that alone I think it
is preferable.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In principle, I am in favor of newsgroup creation by committee review in
preference to a public vote of any kind, except, under rare circumstances, by
referendum. The voting process discriminates against academic sites, whose
users have better things to do than involve themselves in petty Usenet politics.
I prefer election of committee members to represent constituent groups.
If we must have a vote, it should be strictly by ratio, with no absolute number
of NO votes nor any absolute differential. User apathy notwithstanding, I
predict we will soon see a 1,000+ YES vote, and if any of these fail, the whole
system will collapse.
I am casting this vote under mild protest, on the grounds that this process is
itself alienating more academic sites. The proper procedure would be to call
for a Usenet conference, perhaps in conjunction with an existing internetworking
conference, where representatives from NSF, the Internet and UUCP backbone
sites, and other interested individuals, can hash out the major issues face-to-
face and see where we stand. The prospective changes (a separate EDU hierarchy,
for example) are sufficiently dramatic to preclude effective discussion via
e-mail.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 1a) Raise NO vote threshold to 200 YES
Better make that a certain percentage of the reader population
tallied by 'arbitron', since it keeps growing - 1/2000 looks about right.
> 4a) Newsgroup Committee YES
> 4b) Newgroup Czar YES
There's one already - Gene Spafford of Purdue U. He got the position
by taking the time to assemble and post a monthly checkgroups message.
Nobody is obliged to follow it, but in practice almost everybody does.
The "Committee" is composed of those sysadmins who care enough to
manage their sys files actively. We do not have to fear self-appointed
loudmouths, since their stamina is inversely proportional to their
loudness. Those who are serious, will cooperate.
IMHO, whatever we do, the net is going to break down eventually
into semi-disjoint nets of Czars and their followers, each with its
own rules. Clari.net is just the first swallow.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for taking this poll.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
No change, period. The whole problem of newsgroup creation is entirely
bogus, and is proposed by people who can't seem to deal with the idea
of freedom. Some of these people, unfortunately, used to
think the other way, but maybe theyve gotten too well
known.
Nuts. No change.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wish to vote for "No Change." I think the guidelines are sufficient as
is, and oppose the adoption of any of the methods enumerated.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think it should more properly be:
1: Yes/No/Abstain on the charter
2: STV on name
This allows people who dont care whether a group exists or not, to vote
against a particular name, without lending support to another name, or
to the charter in particular.
============================================================================
Thanks, folks, for your ideas:
Benjamin Chase <bbc@rice.edu>
sluka@stoch.fmi.uni-passau.de (Bernd Sluka)
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
cals@cals01.Newport.RI.US (Charles A. Sefranek)
rafferty@macbeth.crd.ge.com (Colin Owen Rafferty)
Dan Bernstein <brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu>
Dan Veditz <dveditz@ashtate.A-T.COM>
David Chalmers <dave@cogsci.indiana.edu>
dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright)
csvax.caltech.edu!mangler (Don Speck)
mitchell@community-chest.mitre.org (George Mitchell)
gmp@rayssd.ssd.ray.com (Greg Paris)
woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods)
wolves.uucp!ggw@cs.duke.edu (Gregory G. Woodbury)
Ian Dickinson (Vato) <cudep%cu.warwick.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK>
jad@dayton.DHDSC.MN.ORG (J. Deters)
Jack Jansen <piring.cwi.nl.UUCP!jack@relay.EU.net>
Jean Marie Diaz <ambar@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
jbeard@ntvax.uucp (Jeff Beardsley)
coolidge@cato.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
burdvax!vrdxhq!uunet!eci386!jmm (John Macdonald)
John.Ockerbloom@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Jonathan Story <Jonathan@jspc.wimsey.bc.ca>
!Jonathan@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca Sat Nov 18 09:05:03 1989
amiga!kim@uts.amdahl.com (Kim E. DeVaughn)
Paul Digby <pgd@dsbc.icl.stc.co.uk>
amiga!paul@oliveb.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Paul Hudson)
Rich Kulawiec <rsk@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
stan@floyd.ATT.COM (Stan King)
peltz@cerl.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz)
W C Newell Jr <WCN@MAX.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
amos@taux01.nsc.com Wed Nov 15 16:08:46 1989
dalamb@qucis.queensu.ca (David Alex Lamb)
jj@alice.att.com
wbt@cbnews.att.com
--
Mark H. Weber ( mhw@Schuylkill.Canal.Org ) "Schuylkill" (skool' kill)
Mont Clare ( ...!uunet!lgnp1!lock60!mhw ) is a Dutch word meaning
PA USA ( ...!psuvax1!burdvax!gvlv2!lock60!mhw ) "hidden river"mhw@lock60.UUCP (Mark H. Weber) (12/10/89)
[Last in a series. For reference, the entire series (with slight corrections)
has been posted in news.misc. Thanks for bearing with me - Mark]
First, a word about possible biases in the survey. Certainly, the way the
survey was presented made it seem that some change was necessary, so a
majority of the responses were from people who feel that some change is
required. Also because Approval Voting (MAUVE) and Transferable Voting (STV)
were involved, the majority of responses were from people who felt that
these mechanisms were worth trying. Whether the survey results reflect
the feelings of the USENET community at large is difficult to say. At a
minimum, the results reflect the feelings of group which cares enough about
the community to try some new approaches to making USENET run more smoothly.
Secondly, a passing mention of my personal biases. If you really need to
categorize me, you could throw me in with the dreaded "namespace purists".
I believe that a concise, well structured namespace hierarchy is a key to
the usefulness of USENET. It allows users to find the appropriate place to
post their ideas, and allows administrators to control the overall categories
of information which flow through their computers. If users can't find
where to exchange information, and administrators feel they have no control,
then no one will bother with USENET (yes, the Imminent Death of the Net as
We Know it).
So, taking this into account, on to my conclusions as to what needs to be
changed. I see three ways to proceed 1) a simple, quick fix, 2) a slightly
more complex, slightly more satisfactory fix, and 3) a fairly radical change
which could reduce the amount of useless discussion in news.groups by a
factor of about 10. All three of these possible solutions are supported by
the results of the survey, the comments I received during the survey, and
the general discussions in news.groups over the past 6 months or so. Note
that I am not proposing specific guideline language here, I am just
presenting the overall idea of the changes I am proposing. These proposals
will require some further refinement before adoption.
1) Quick fix - The quick fix is to add the 2:1 Yes:No ratio check to the
existing guidelines, in addition to the existing 100 more Yes's than No's
rule. This is the single most popular proposal among all people who
responded to the survey, whether by MAUVE or STV. At this point, it appears
that Greg has already gone ahead and made this change to the gudelines,
and has not been flamed to a crisp yet, so no real further discussion
is necessary on this decision. This quick fix addresses the biggest problem
we are currently facing: how to prevent fragmentaion of the net when new
groups with significant opposition are approved. It does not make it any
easier to resolve controversy over popular, but mis-named groups.
2) Slightly better fix - Separate voting for the charter of the group and
the name of the group. This has been suggested by many posters, and was
mentioned in many of the comments from survey respondents. In it's simplest
form, it would allow voters to vote yes/no for the group and select name
choices name from a pre-selected list of names (write-in doesn't really
work well) all on the same ballot. Either MAUVE or STV could be used for
the name choice. Several of the recent newgroup proposals are attempting
to use this mechanism; it will be interesting to see how the net reacts
to this, and how well this will work in practice. This should resolve the
problem of selecting the appropriate name. It still does not address other
pending issues - removal of outdated groups, and renaming of groups as
the net evolves. No guidelines exist to address these issues.
3) Major overhaul - Newsgroup committee with net-at-large to veto/override
comittee decisions. A large percentage of newgroup proposals are non-
controversial. Wouldn't it be nice if these groups could be created without
having any extensive discussion or voting by the net-at-large? Under this
proposal, the newgroup creation process would go something like this:
A) Newgroup proponent petitions newsgroup committee to create new group.
Included in petition is 1) Proposed charter of group, 2) Proposed
name of group, and 3) Supporting documentation showing need for
new group. This would take the form of a) existing volume in a group
which needs to be split, b) heavily used and/or growing mailing list,
or c) alt newsgroup (or other trial newsgroup mechanism). Committee
considers request, and either agrees or disagrees with proponent.
If the disagreeement is over the name, the committee may propose an
alternate name to the proponent, which he may or may not accept.
All of this would take place in private email, not on the net. The
elapsed time here would probably be about 1 week.
B) Committee posts announcement of newgroup proposal including
committee decision to news.announce.newgroups. General discussion
in news.groups follows. If proponent (or someone else) disagrees
with the decision of the committee (whether for or against creation
of the group), he or she can call for a vote by the net-at-large,
which takes us back to the situation we have currently. If no one
makes a formal challenge, the decision of the committee will be
considered final, and the newgroup created, assuming that was the
decision of the committee. Due to net propogation, this phase will
probably need to last about 2 weeks.
So, for a non-controversial group, we could have a new group created in about
3 weeks, without a vote of the net-at-large. If someone wanted to mount a
formal challenge, it would take as long as the current procedure does. Ideally,
only 1 group in 10 would be truly controversial (after being pre-processed by
the committee), so the traffic in news.groups could be reduced by a factor of
10. The committee could also be empowered to consider petitions to remove and
rename groups. Once again, the decisions of the committee could be challenged
and overruled by the net-at-large.
Obviously, the makeup of and selection process for the committee would be
critical in making this proposal work. I envision a committee of about 7,
with staggered expiration of terms, with a term lasting for a year or so.
This proposal will need more development before it is ready for implementation.
A few last words. I only discovered this net a year ago. When I did, I was
amazed that anything so user-oriented and free could survive. Now that I
have take the time to try to understand the history and operation of the
net, I am still amazed. Despite the amount to bitter feelings netters express
toward each other, they still find the time and energy to try to make the
net a more and more useful system. I hope I have made a contribution toward
this effort. I have not made these proposals out of a personal desire to
assert some control over the net. I feel that the net must adopt some
additional structure in order to enable it to continue to evolve and grow.
--
Mark H. Weber ( mhw@Schuylkill.Canal.Org ) "Schuylkill" (skool' kill)
Mont Clare ( ...!uunet!lgnp1!lock60!mhw ) is a Dutch word meaning
PA USA ( ...!psuvax1!burdvax!gvlv2!lock60!mhw ) "hidden river"wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) (12/12/89)
In article <373@lock60.UUCP> mhw@schuylkill.canal.org (Mark H. Weber) writes: > >Whether the survey results reflect >the feelings of the USENET community at large is difficult to say. At a >minimum, the results reflect the feelings of group which cares enough about >the community to try some new approaches to making USENET run more smoothly. Your MAUVE survey had 116 respondents. The most popular change called for by that survey garnered 71% of these, or 82 votes. Your STV vote had 68 respondents. Neither of these votes would have been sufficient to create a newsgroup by the *existing* standards, which so many people seem to feel are too lenient. I submit that your surveys demonstrate that there is simply insufficient interest to warrant modifying the guidelines. - - - - - - - - valuable coupon - - - - - - - clip and save - - - - - - - - Bill Thacker AT&T Network Systems - Columbus wbt@cbnews.att.com "C" combines the power of assembly language with the flexibility of assembly language.