bob@omni.com (Bob Weissman) (11/25/89)
In article <8911210433.AA00399@uunet.uu.net>, peter%ficc@uunet.UU.NET (Peter da Silva) writes: > This is a call for votes on the name of an aquarium newsgroup. The vote will > be held by the Single Transferrable Vote system: [... stuff deleted...] > rec.aquariums > This name was suggested by someone who was concerned > about the new-age connotations of "aquaria". There is > currently a poll being held on this name. The hell with new-age connotations. As long as this is a vote about the proper name of this group, let's at least keep up with proper English usage. Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged, 1986) shows "aquariums" before "aquaria" as the preferred plural. A vote for "rec.aquariums" is a vote for the correct name of this newgroup. -- Bob Weissman USENET administrator for omni.com Internet: <bob@omni.com> UUCP: ...!{apple,pyramid,sgi,tekbspa,uunet}!koosh!bob
bbc@nysa.rice.edu (Benjamin Chase) (11/26/89)
Yeah, I know, I signed off of news.groups. But then Peter da SIlva, peter@sugar.lonestar.org, had to screw things up: >This is a call for votes on the name of an aquarium newsgroup. The vote will >be held by the Single Transferrable Vote system: Peter, they're still debating the merits of STV in news.groups! It's not ready for use on a real issue. Specifically, how will you handle ties for last place in a given round? (I will agree that the absence of a "no" choice on the ballot is irrelevent for this vote, given your definition of its purpose, which is to rename an existing group.) Now, wait a minute. They're still discussing the events involved in changing the name of a group. And the time scale of these events. So, you're asking for a vote, using a voting procedure that's still being defined, to perform an action, which is also still being defined? Beautiful. > I will note right now that I am personally opposed to the name >sci.aquaria, (I feel it is inappropriate for you to announce your personal opposition in your call for votes.) >because I see it as an attempt to defraud certain groups of >people who wish to avoid the use of their facilities for recreational >purposes. There are other ways to correct these perceived problems. One would be to call for discussion on the creation of "rec.aquaria". No, not a sci.aquaria renamed, or a replacement, but a companion group. The recreational postings can go in rec.aquaria, and the scientific postings can go in sci.aquaria. And perhaps Richard would never be called on to fulfill his offer to moderate world-wide postings to sci.aquaria, if there was a more appropriate forum for guppy sagas? When I stopped reading news.groups, I asked that some reasonable, unbiased person undertake the creation of such a companion group. Of course, nothing seems to have happened. Greg Woods was right, the impartial people are too apathetic, or are perhaps (my theory, and autobiography) disgusted by the childish antics recently associated with group creation. And now I suppose it's inappropriate for me to undertake this myself, since your avante-garde call for votes hasn't been properly shouted down yet. I would have use for both of these groups, and have already posted many articles to alt.aquaria (yes, I made alt.aquaria's Bandwidth-Waster Hall-o-Fame) which were appropriate to each of these groups. I have posted scientific articles to alt.aquaria, and have gotten absolutely no response, in spite of an estimated readership of 6000. And I have refrained from posting some articles to alt.aquaria, because I wished that the conversation stay on a more professional level, and felt that a particular post would be too recreational. >There are other people who are opposed to >the name rec.aquaria because they believe it will attract a lower class of >posters, since people are likely to give more thought to postings if >they're in a scientific forum. Yes, I am one of those people. During the debate on sci.aquaria creation, I recall one wan poster admitting that he'd feel intimidated posting to a sci group. I think his reaction is fine, and commendable; it might even improve the quality of the net. If it only occurs in sci groups, well, too bad. If it would only occur more often everywhere, that would be great. >If no candidate acheives the required 100 vote margin, the existing group >alt.aquaria will remain. I don't see how this vote should directly affect alt.aquaria at all. If traffic on alt.aquaria whithers, then it should go away, someday. If it doesn't, it should stay. It is the alt way. Thus spake alt. >The sugar-uunet link appears to be down at the moment. My, this bodes well for the reliability of the data you are collecting. Oh, and do you expect us to be bound by your "analysis" of the "data"? Oh, and one more thing. I voted for "sci" and for "aquaria". You seem to be collecting data on that as well. -- Ben Chase <bbc@rice.edu>, Rice University, Houston, Texas ... thou art fishified!
alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells) (11/27/89)
In article <4598@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.lonestar.org writes: >This is a call for votes on the name of an aquarium newsgroup. The vote will >be held by the Single Transferrable Vote system: Without commenting on the propriety of calling for this vote (I suspect plenty of others will do that), I would like to point out some of the various technical problems with Peter's call for votes: - Peter is allowing 'write-ins', but write-ins are extremely problematic in STV and can lead to very paradoxical results. I don't have time to elaborate here, but the basic problem is with a ranking type of vote being applied to a set of choices that are unknown and unused by a large percentage of the voters. This is even worse in STV than in MAUVE, and people objected to it in MAUVE. - Peter didn't even make a legitimate attempt to include all the names that were proposed. Here is a partial list of omissions: rec.aquarium (no s) rec.pets.fish sci.aquarium sci.bio.marine sci.bio.fish rec.pets.aquaria rec.pets.aquarium rec.pets.aquariums I find it terribly amusing that the name used in the interference vote against sci.aquaria wasn't even listed in Peter's call for votes. - Peter started this without opening any sort of debate first. If he had opened it up for debate, he could have very quickly gathered a list of names - and even support/lack of support for the voting scheme. - Peter chose to use STV while there is still extremely active debate in news.groups about the relative merits of various multiple choice voting schemes. Perhaps this is one of the reasons he limited the number of name choices. The possibility of STV paradoxes increases dramatically with the number of names ... and his message makes it clear that he is doing this with a pretty strong agenda. I strongly protest to this action. It is, in my eyes, worse than anything that Peter has accused Richard of pulling. If Peter wants to salvage any pretention of a credible vote out of this, I suggest he do the following: - Pull the current vote. - Start a discussion in news.groups requesting feedback about the list of names and what voting scheme to use. - Call for a vote when the list is compiled and some concensus has been reached as to the voting method. Note that the news.groups poll on multiple choice voting is due to be published any day now ... -- --------| Rest assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls Alien | would scarcely get your feet wet. - Deteriorata --------| decvax!frog!cpoint!alien bu-cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien
daver@tekfdi.FDI.TEK.COM (David Robinson) (11/29/89)
In article <4598@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.lonestar.org writes: >This is a call for votes on the name of an aquarium newsgroup. The vote will >be held by the Single Transferrable Vote system: > >The following names are on the table for the name of the group. Some >of the groups listed have been created, but due to various reasons none >of them have a very wide distribution: I sincerely hope this is a joke. -Dave Robinson daver@tekfdi.fdi.tek.com