woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (11/17/89)
In article <2562D3D9.16489@ateng.com> chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >Of course. The 100 vote requirement should not be weakened. Chuq's >proposal (with which I agree) is to add an _additional_ 2/3 majority >requirement on top of the 100 vote differential requirement. This is what I would like to add to the guidelines. It has the virtues of being simple, verifiable, and does not require any major changes in the voting procedure. Furthermore, the only groups that would have been defeated by this rule are exactly those that had huge flame wars over the name. The intent of this rule is not so much to block the creation of groups, but to use the THREAT of blocking creation to force the group champions to consider naming issues realistically. It is based on the assumption (which I believe to be correct) that few people ever bother to vote against a group just because they themselves are not interested in the topic. I believe that most NO votes are generated by naming considerations. The results of a number of recent votes posted in news.announce.newgroups would seem to confirm this, since the only group that got more than a handful of NO votes was sci.aquaria. I'm going to take a survey. Please MAIL me your opinion: should the rule that would require at least 2/3 of the votes to be YES, in addition to the 100 more YES than NO rule, be added to the creation guidelines? I will count up the responses for a couple of weeks and post the results just like a regular vote, but it should be noted that this is not a binding vote. I just want to guage the opinion of the net. It seems clear to me that SOME kind of change is needed in the creation guidelines, and this seems to be the one that has generated the LEAST amount of controversy while addressing the problem of misnamed groups. --Greg P.S. I will probably post a call for votes on this to news.announce.newgroups too.
dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) (11/17/89)
In article <5289@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes: >I'm going to take a survey. Please MAIL me your opinion: should the rule that >would require at least 2/3 of the votes to be YES, in addition to the 100 more >YES than NO rule, be added to the creation guidelines? I will count up >the responses for a couple of weeks and post the results just like a regular >vote. Ah yes...but are we going to determine the results of this vote by the old rules or by the new rules? Seems to me, the only fair thing to do is to go by the new rules if and only if the vote passes. So, let's say we get 60% YES votes. By the old rules, it passes, so we have to use the new rules. By the new rules, it fails, so we have to use the old rules. Hmmmm... [P.S. :-)] -- Dave Chalmers (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu) Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University. "To live outside the law you must be honest..."
maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) (11/17/89)
In article <5289@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes: >In article <2562D3D9.16489@ateng.com> chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >>Of course. The 100 vote requirement should not be weakened. Chuq's >>proposal (with which I agree) is to add an _additional_ 2/3 majority >>requirement on top of the 100 vote differential requirement. > This is what I would like to add to the guidelines. It has the virtues of >being simple, verifiable, and does not require any major changes in the voting >procedure. Furthermore, the only groups that would have been defeated by this >rule are exactly those that had huge flame wars over the name. > The intent of this rule is not so much to block the creation of groups, but >to use the THREAT of blocking creation to force the group champions to consider >naming issues realistically. It is based on the assumption (which I believe >to be correct) that few people ever bother to vote against a group just because >they themselves are not interested in the topic. I believe that most NO votes >are generated by naming considerations. The results of a number of recent >votes posted in news.announce.newgroups would seem to confirm this, since >the only group that got more than a handful of NO votes was sci.aquaria. Greg, I don't have the figures at hand, but would this additional criterion have made any difference at all in the comp.women controversy? My memory tells me it would not have. What I see is that certain newsgroup-creation processes are encumbered by a political power play component that no fix I've yet seen proposed here would address. I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "realistic" in terms of naming, either. When push came to shove with comp.women, it was not the net at large that had to be satisfied, it was a couple of powerful backboners. So where does all this lead us? Naming committee, backbone, whatever, examining the comp.women debacle along with this latest brouha seems to indicate that 100-vote margins and 2/3 majorities aren't going to make any difference at all when net.politics are involved. I guess I share what I perceived as Brian Reid's exasperation with all this. Valerie Maslak
geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) (11/18/89)
In article <5806@unix.SRI.COM> maslak@unix.UUCP (Valerie Maslak) writes: >Greg, I don't have the figures at hand, but would this additional >criterion [requiring a 2/3 majority] have made any difference at all in >the comp.women controversy? While I don't have the data for comp.women, requiring a 2/3 majority *would* have caused sci.aquaria to fail. Check out the following article by me: From: geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Recent Voting Stats Message-ID: <855@pmafire.UUCP> Date: 13 Nov 89 17:47:35 GMT Organization: WINCO Computer Engineering, INEL, Idaho Lines: 30 In it, I give the results of several recent votes. Every vote in the last month or so has passed by *at least* 2/3 (usually more like 80%-90%), with the notable exception of sci.aquaria. [Acutally, I'm a little surprised at the lack of response to my article. Everyone was screaming `We need facts! Where's the data?!' Then I post some data and am greeted with silence. What gives? (I did get an e-mail response from Richard Shapiro, so I assume the article got out to y'all.) ] -- Geoff Allen \ Driggs, Idaho -- cultural hub of the west! {uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \ (Tom Harper in rec.skiing)
hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis) (11/18/89)
In article <5289@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes: >In article <2562D3D9.16489@ateng.com> chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >>Of course. The 100 vote requirement should not be weakened. Chuq's >>proposal (with which I agree) is to add an _additional_ 2/3 majority >>requirement on top of the 100 vote differential requirement. > This is what I would like to add to the guidelines. But what will the REAL effects of this be? As the net gets bigger, there will inevitably be more and more group proposals -- too many to get careful attention from very many people. But the larger the vote on anything, the harder it will be to get a 2/3 vote. So this would seem to promote two outcomes: 1. Groups will have a better chance being created where the total vote is small, thus favoring creation of groups catering to smaller and smaller of the net as a whole. >... the only groups that would have been defeated by this >rule are exactly those that had huge flame wars over the name. Exactly... there will be a bias against anything controversial... so we have the other outcome: 2. Groups will tend not to be created if there are even a small number of vocal opposers, because they will be able to generate enough controversy to make 2/3 support difficult if not impossible. So what is this? A backhanded way to restore the Old Oligarchy? (AKA "The Backbone" ;-)) What do you _really_ want to do? >... to use the THREAT of blocking creation to force the group champions ... Exactly... and using anything, including a rule or a guideline, as a "THREAT" is the best way I know to encourage people to try and subvert it... so you will be BEGGING for the very rule violations, irregularities, politicking, and so on, that you seem to want to prevent. > I'm going to take a survey. Please MAIL me your opinion: should the rule that >would require at least 2/3 of the votes to be YES, in addition to the 100 more >YES than NO rule, be added to the creation guidelines? I say NO. I will send you mail... >It seems clear to me that SOME kind of change >is needed in the creation guidelines, and this seems to be the one that >has generated the LEAST amount of controversy while addressing the problem >of misnamed groups. Give it time, Greg... I'm sure a controversy can be stirred up if we all put our minds to it......................... 1/2 :-) hb -- Hank Bovis (hb@Virginia.EDU, hb@Virginia.BITNET)
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (11/18/89)
>As the net gets bigger, there will inevitably be more and more group >proposals -- too many to get careful attention from very many people. That was the reason for the creation of news.announce.newgroups. A low-volume group that lets you keep an eye out for things you're interested in. A group proposal shouldn't need careful attention except from the people who have an interest in it. If they had to scan news.groups for it, I might agree with you, but we've already dealt with this problem. >But the larger the vote on anything, the harder it will be to get a 2/3 >vote. I don't agree. Right now (if you look at the numbers produced in rec.models.rocket) most groups that pass do so with numbers closer to 5:1 or 10:1, rather than 3:2. There would have to be major shifts in voting patterns to have most groups that are currently passing start to fail. The exception was sci.aquaria, which sort of proves the point (IMHO)> >1. Groups will have a better chance being created where the total vote > is small, thus favoring creation of groups catering to smaller and > smaller of the net as a whole. The current voting results don't prove this out. >2. Groups will tend not to be created if there are even > a small number of vocal opposers, because they will be able to > generate enough controversy to make 2/3 support difficult if not > impossible. The current voting results don't prove this out, either. Most groups are passing with numbers like 200 Yes, 20 No. So there would have to be major changes in voting patterns before your dire predictions come true. >What do you _really_ want to do? Restore a little sanity and make it harder to politick a bad group in. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking] All it takes is one thorn to make you forget the dozens of roses on the bush.
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (11/18/89)
In article <5806@unix.SRI.COM>, maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) writes: > What I see is > that certain newsgroup-creation processes are encumbered by a > political power play component that no fix I've yet seen proposed here > would address. Miss Maslak is correct about the problem of "power plays". As I see it, it was a "power play" which caused the creation of an unnecessary, improperly-named newsgroup: comp.society.women. Fortunately, however, there seems to be certain checks and balances inherent within the Net which results in newsgroups generally becoming what they deserve. In the case of comp.society.women, this is clearly evidenced by the fact that there has been no article posted since 5-Sep-89 - TWO AND ONE-HALF MONTHS AGO! At the time of its formation comp.society.women was touted by its proponents as being an oh-so-important and oh-so-necessary newsgroup. Time, however, has proven otherwise. Just look at the wealth of recent articles in comp.society.women... I suspect that the same will happen to sci.aquaria. As of this writing, my site, which has good Net connectivity, has seen only 27 articles in the past week of sci.aquaria, many of which were submitted by the infamous Richard Sexton himself. Of course, in this instance, the fact that my site and others alias sci.aquaria to junk or alt.aquaria may be an additional factor. In any event, sci.aquaria appears to be getting what it deserves. One merely needs to be patient. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?"
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (11/19/89)
In article <1530@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> hb@Virginia.EDU (Hank Bovis) writes: > As the net gets bigger, there will inevitably be more and more group > proposals -- too many to get careful attention from very many people. So most people will continue to not vote. > But the larger the vote on anything, the harder it will be to get a 2/3 > vote. This completely contradicts observed behavior, where most groups get a NO vote between 10 and 30 regardless of the YES vote. Larger groups will have an *easier* time getting that 2/3 majority. Perhaps your confusing this with the 100 NO vote proposal. > 2. Groups will tend not to be created if there are even > a small number of vocal opposers, because they will be able to > generate enough controversy to make 2/3 support difficult if not > impossible. This again doesn't match observed behaviour. Groups with a controversial charter may end up with 30 NO votes, rather than 10, but they still fall within the 10-30 NO vote band. Even a little controversy over the name isn't going to kill a group: look at comp.unix.i386, comp.sw.components, or comp.object. > so you will be BEGGING for the very rule violations, > irregularities, politicking, and so on, that you seem to want to prevent. You got a better idea? -- `-_-' Peter da Silva <peter@ficc.uu.net> <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>. 'U` -------------- +1 713 274 5180. "vi is bad because it didn't work after I put jelly in my keyboard." -- Jeffrey W Percival (jwp@larry.sal.wisc.edu)
geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) (11/20/89)
In article <864@pmafire.UUCP> I wrote: >[Acutally, I'm a little surprised at the lack of response to my article. > Everyone was screaming `We need facts! Where's the data?!' Then I > post some data and am greeted with silence. What gives? (I did get an > e-mail response from Richard Shapiro, so I assume the article got out to > y'all.) ] Well, I got a pretty good e-mail response to this comment. The general consensus seems to be that the facts pretty well spoke for themselves, and there was little need for comment. I guess I'd have gotten more response if I'd nominated Richard for President! :-) -- Geoff Allen \ Driggs, Idaho -- cultural hub of the west! {uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \ (Tom Harper in rec.skiing)
chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) (11/21/89)
According to hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis): >As the net gets bigger, there will inevitably be more and more group >proposals -- too many to get careful attention from very many people. >But the larger the vote on anything, the harder it will be to get a 2/3 >vote. Oh, piffle. Two-thirds is a _fraction_ of the _total_ vote. If 200 people vote, you need 133 YES votes. If 2000 people vote, you need 1333 YES votes. No scaling problem, no matter how big the net becomes. This proposal is _not_ the same as the 100-NO-vote-veto proposal, which would become more and more of a problem as the net continues to grow. The 100-minimum-difference part of the current (and proposed) guidelines keeps a group from passing if the net at large isn't interested enough. The absolute number of 100 is an imperfect distillation of the cost of newsgroups vs. mailing lists. -- You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. Chip Salzenberg at A T Engineering; <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> "Did I ever tell you the Jim Gladding story about the binoculars?"
gil@banyan.UUCP (Gil Pilz@Eng@Banyan) (11/21/89)
In article <3503@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > At the time of its formation comp.society.women was touted by its >proponents as being an oh-so-important and oh-so-necessary newsgroup. > Time, however, has proven otherwise. Just look at the wealth >of recent articles in comp.society.women... Oh come on Larry, we all know why nobody posts to this group. The group that orginally WON by vote was named "comp.women" but certain net.patriarchs (not to be confused with noble net.patriots) stubbornly refused to honor any newgroup until the epithet "society" was inserted in the name (roughly equivalent to forcing the fish-heads to put "pets" somewhere in sci.fishbreath). As a result the group became totally unusable for whatever it was originally supposed to be usefull for, and we now have the current unused group. And people say that names fnord aren't important ?! "TALK !! it's *ALL* talk discussions, debates, dialogue, duologue declamations, diatribes, double-talk" - king crimson Gilbert W. Pilz Jr. gil@banyan.com (learned my lesson . . I will now vote YES for _anything_ . . send mail)
cj@inferno.wpd.sgi.com (C J Silverio) (11/21/89)
In article <3503@kitty.UUCP>, larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: [...] | I suspect that the same [attrition through lack of connectivity] | will happen to sci.aquaria. As of this | writing, my site, which has good Net connectivity, has seen only 27 articles | in the past week of sci.aquaria, many of which were submitted by the | infamous Richard Sexton himself. Of course, in this instance, the fact | that my site and others alias sci.aquaria to junk or alt.aquaria may be an | additional factor. This greatly irritates those of us who read alt.aquaria and wish to read sci.aquaria, i.e., those quiet people who voted in their quiet and inoffensive news.group and are now penalized for frivolous reasons. It seems to me that political or personal issues prompted most--if not all--of the controversy about the group (as with comp.women). With comp.women, we saw all the violent feelings about feminism boil up; with sci.aquaria, we saw all the violent feelings about Richard Sexton. I feel name-space issues were merest rationalization. And now that the alleged "name-space purists" lost the vote, they want to change the rules. And apply the change retroactively. | In any event, sci.aquaria appears to be getting what it deserves. Many of us disagree. Can you understand why? --- ucbvax!brahms!silverio C J Silverio/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 cj@modernlvr.wpd.sgi.com
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (11/21/89)
> This greatly irritates those of us who read alt.aquaria > and wish to read sci.aquaria, i.e., those quiet people > who voted in their quiet and inoffensive news.group > and are now penalized for frivolous reasons. It greatly irriates some of us that Richard could take what would have been a quiet and inoffensive group and turn it into a major controversy. If Richard had paid any attention to any of the commentary, rec.aquaria would have been created with an overwhelming mandate and we would have been done with it long ago. But by pushing his own agenda and ignoring anyone who disagreed with him, he barely squeaked by the election and has created a group that continues to live in controversy. Why does it continue to live in controversy? Because a lot of folks are unhappy with the way it was created. > It seems to me that political or personal issues > prompted most--if not all--of the controversy about > the group (as with comp.women). With comp.women, > we saw all the violent feelings about feminism > boil up; In both directions. The name 'comp.women' was chosen for political purposes; a political fight should not then be surprising. > with sci.aquaria, we saw all the violent > feelings about Richard Sexton. I feel name-space > issues were merest rationalization. No, the discussions started because many of us felt the name was wrong. That some of the discussion shifted over to Richard was because Richard argued the point in ways that encouraged people to get pissed at him as well. Many of us stuck to the issue as much as possible, and to say that people were flaming Richard ignores the large part of the discussion that stuck to the problem with the names. Sci.aquaria was a name chosen for political reasons. Again, it shouldn't be surprising that political arguments spring up. > And now that the alleged "name-space purists" lost > the vote, they want to change the rules. As Richard was *very* fond of pointing out, they are not rules. They are guidelines. And those folks who feel that the guidelines were violated in spirit are voting with their beliefs in doing what is good for the net rather than blindly rubberstamping what they think is a failure of the system. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking] All it takes is one thorn to make you forget the dozens of roses on the bush.
cj@inferno.wpd.sgi.com (C J Silverio) (11/22/89)
In article <36675@apple.Apple.COM>, chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: [hey Chuq dude, you're deleting attribution lines] I wrote: | > This greatly irritates those of us who read alt.aquaria | > and wish to read sci.aquaria, i.e., those quiet people | > who voted in their quiet and inoffensive news.group | > and are now penalized for frivolous reasons. | It greatly irriates some of us that Richard could take what would have been | a quiet and inoffensive group and turn it into a major controversy. As far as I can tell [& I read as much of the discussion as I could stomach], he didn't turn it into a controversy. It BECAME one, with that awful bloating roiling eruption we see so often in news.groups. [...some deletions, as they are off the point I want to make] | The name 'comp.women' was chosen for political purposes; | a political fight should not then be surprising. I won't disagree. Perhaps a better past example would be sci.military? I could argue that there's just as much "sci" there as in the aquaria group. Perhaps less. Richard made his argument about the name issue, and the group content itself makes an even better one. The idea here is not to reopen the discussion, but to note that some people disagree with your opinions. But this is off my point, as well. [...] | And those folks who feel that the guidelines were violated in | spirit are voting with their beliefs in doing what is good for the net | rather than blindly rubberstamping what they think is a failure of the | system. Here we reach my point: I feel that since the vote passed, the cooperative thing to do is carry the group. Work with the system, and change it later if you REALLY think that sci.aquaria is so EVIL and WRONG that you need another great renaming. It is petty and juvenile to attempt to sink the group out of frustration over the lost vote. Believe it or not, some people with opinions different from yours care about the Greater Good of the Net, just as much as you do. I pay attention to what happens here, and I find the attitudes of some sysadmins to be more damaging to the net-entity than sporadic name-space squabbling. More opinions available on request. --- ucbvax!brahms!silverio C J Silverio/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720 cj@modernlvr.wpd.sgi.com
davidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) (11/22/89)
According to hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis):
-As the net gets bigger, there will inevitably be more and more group
-proposals -- too many to get careful attention from very many people.
-But the larger the vote on anything, the harder it will be to get a 2/3
-vote.
Indeed.
In article <71632@uunet.UU.NET> in news.lists, Rick Adams said...
-52865 articles, totalling 92.091339 Mbytes (114.360331 including headers),
-were submitted from 5928 different Usenet sites by 13975 different
-users to 797 different newsgroups for an average of 6.577953 Mbytes
-(8.168595 including headers) per day.
Now...sci.aquaria got about 1000 votes, not counting various accounting
errors, making it the largest vote turnout yet. In other words, even with
the serious campaigning on both sides (whether right or wrong) only about
7% of the total Usenet population *that posts* voted.
Hell, even US national elections get a better turnout than that.
And perhaps that's a blessing. Because if there are "too many [proposals]
to get careful attention from very many people" we (I, anyway) *want* it to
be difficult to create a new newsgroup.
The net isn't going to get too much bigger in the future, even if it does,
it's irrelevant. Instead more people are going to be participating in trying
to control it (hah! as if such a thing could be done...). And when that
happens, a 2/3rds for newsgroup creation isn't such a stiff price to pay.
--
David Bedno, Systems Administrator, The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Email: davidbe@sco.COM / ..!{uunet,sun,ucbvax!ucscc,gorn}!sco!davidbe
Phone: 408-425-7222 x5123 Disclaimer: Speaking from SCO but not for SCO.
" -- they're normal. terrifyingly, appallingly normal -- like they've gone
through normal and come out the other side." - neil gaiman in _Sandman_ #11maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) (11/22/89)
In article <36675@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >In both directions. The name 'comp.women' was chosen for political purposes; >a political fight should not then be surprising. That's a bunch of boloney. The truth is that the proposers and the voters thought that comp.women was a fine group name that made sense in the hierarchy. Certain members of the junta didn't agree. THEY injected the politics. Chuq refers to guidelines versus rules. IT SEEMS THAT HE AND A FEW OTHERS CAN MAKE RULES; the rest of us have to settle for guidelines. Valerie Maslak
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (11/22/89)
>Chuq refers to guidelines versus rules. IT SEEMS THAT HE AND A FEW >OTHERS CAN MAKE RULES; the rest of us have to settle for >guidelines. If I could make rules, we wouldn't be aruging about sci.aquaria weeks after the thing had theoretically been settled -- we'd be using rec.pets.aquaria. And, if I recall, I sat out comp.women anyway. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking] All it takes is one thorn to make you forget the dozens of roses on the bush.
tale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) (11/22/89)
In <45039@sgi.sgi.com> cj@inferno.wpd.sgi.com (C J Silverio) writes:
CJ> It seems to me that political or personal issues prompted most--if
CJ> not all--of the controversy about the group (as with comp.women).
CJ> With comp.women, we saw all the violent feelings about feminism
CJ> boil up; with sci.aquaria, we saw all the violent feelings about
CJ> Richard Sexton. I feel name-space issues were merest
CJ> rationalization.
Do you sincerely believe that the opposition to comp.women was because
all of us evil male chauvanist pig news admins got together over a few
brewskis and said, "Wot's wit dem chicks, thinkin' we'll akchully give
'em a place to talk?! NO WAY!! We'll just show 'em dat da name is
bad and dat will shut up dese feminist fools!!"
Sorry, it didn't happen that way. Just how does the name comp.women
fit with the rest of the USENET namespace? Awkwardly. A square peg
wedged into a triangular hole. I have zero problem with equal rights
for women. For _people_. My opposition to the group comp.women does
not come from opposition I have for the topic or the people that tried
to create it.
As for sci.aquaria, I did not vote against Richard. I voted against
the name. Period. I don't have any grudge against him; I have no
vengeful desire to see him faulter. For almost all of the period of
discussion and voting of sci.aquaria I think he carried himself quite
well. That does not mean that I have to agree with everyone for whom
I have some measure of respect. I don't.
Dave
--
(setq mail '("tale@pawl.rpi.edu" "tale@ai.mit.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (11/22/89)
In article <5969@unix.SRI.COM>, maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) writes: > In article <36675@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: > >In both directions. The name 'comp.women' was chosen for political purposes; > >a political fight should not then be surprising. > That's a bunch of boloney. > The truth is that the proposers and the voters thought that > comp.women was a fine group name that made sense in the hierarchy. > Certain members of the junta didn't agree. THEY injected the > politics. That the proposers and those who voted for the group may have thought it a fine name, but many others, who have no connection with the "junta", considered, and still consider, the group to have essentially nothing to do with computing in any way. I still believe that the main reason for this group is to have a female- moderated group for discussing women's issues with a comp designator. | Chuq refers to guidelines versus rules. IT SEEMS THAT HE AND A FEW | OTHERS CAN MAKE RULES; the rest of us have to settle for | guidelines. | | Valerie Maslak -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
tjw@unix.cis.pitt.edu (TJ Wood WA3VQJ) (11/23/89)
In article <5969@unix.SRI.COM> maslak@unix.UUCP (Valerie Maslak) writes: >The truth is that the proposers and the voters thought that >comp.women was a fine group name that made sense in the hierarchy. >Certain members of the junta didn't agree. THEY injected the >politics. >Chuq refers to guidelines versus rules. IT SEEMS THAT HE AND A FEW >OTHERS CAN MAKE RULES; the rest of us have to settle for >guidelines. RULES! GUIDELINES! RULES! GUIDELINES! I say "LESS FILLING!" The bottom line is that we all cooperate to make this possible. If we become unreasonable (or too complex) with these "rules/guidelines" administrators will start honoring/ignoring NEWGROUPS and setting up alternate hierarchies. With the coming of the internet, the backbones are dead -- we can set up our own newsfeeds and "nets". Nobody makes rules anymore. If the guidelines are changed at whim of the few, only a few will follow them. >Valerie Maslak Terry "Tastes Great" Wood -- INTERNET: tjw@unix.cis.pitt.edu BITNET: TJW@PITTVMS CC-NET: 33802::tjw UUCP: {decwrl!decvax!idis, allegra, bellcore}!pitt!unix.cis.pitt.edu!tjw And if dreams could come true, I'd still be there with you, On the banks of cold waters at the close of the day. - as sung by Sally Rogers
karl@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (11/23/89)
maslak@unix.sri.com writes: The truth is that the proposers and the voters thought that comp.women was a fine group name that made sense in the hierarchy. When the point was made that many people thought that the name was positively atrocious within the comp hierarchy, politics were simultaneously injected by both sides. Anyone trying to fix blame on "the other side" is completely off the mark. (I remember very clearly the first article which arrived here in response to the initial request for discussion, which was about 3 lines long from a person I'd never heard of, before or since. It said something to the effect of, "`comp.women?' Do you really think that's good placement?" Politically neutral. That poster was flamed into oblivion, for daring to suggest that the initial choice might need reconsideration.) I, for one, thought that comp.women was an atrocious name, and comp.society.women is just barely acceptable as a compromise. But it _was_ a compromise. (I newgroup'd c.s.w, to the seemingly undying flames in my mailbox, notwithstanding that skyler@violet.berkeley.edu herself had offered it as an acceptable compromise.) Certain members of the junta didn't agree. THEY injected the politics. Yes, they did. So did the champions of the proposed group. It was in approximately equal proportion, from my perspective. Chuq refers to guidelines versus rules. IT SEEMS THAT HE AND A FEW OTHERS CAN MAKE RULES; the rest of us have to settle for guidelines. Please stop yelling. I don't hold to _any_ of the rules/guidelines. Not one of them makes any sense when forced to the boundary conditions that tend to rule the Usenet. I honor and generate newgroups when I, personally, feel that they make sense. If comp.women had been newgroup'd, I would have ignored it. I would have preferred a name outside comp entirely; but the compromise offered made sense to me, and that was sufficient. chuq@apple.com writes: And, if I recall, I sat out comp.women anyway. I beg to differ. I distinctly recall writing a somewhat toasty note in response to a similarly toasty note from yourself regarding the fact that you had been forwarded a(n apparently lopsided) pile of mail from the backbone mailing list. If I recall, you flamed about the internal politics of that list, based on what was clear to me as being only half the discussion. Until that note, I had sat out the discussion. It didn't matter enough until semi-private mail was treated to public abuse. Then it mattered, and I got involved. --Karl
hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis) (11/23/89)
In article <429@scorn.sco.COM> davidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) writes: >... we (I, anyway) *want* it to >be difficult to create a new newsgroup. > >The net isn't going to get too much bigger in the future, even if it does, >it's irrelevant. Instead more people are going to be participating in trying >to control it (hah! as if such a thing could be done...). And when that >happens, a 2/3rds for newsgroup creation isn't such a stiff price to pay. This the-masses-are-dangerous reasoning may be appropriate for amending the U.S. Constitution, but I think its relevance to USENET group cration is questionable. I would prefer to see _more_ flexibility, not less. I think it should be easier to create _and_ to remove newsgroups, in response to public will, and with less intervention from site admins. I mean, don't site admins have better things to do with their time than wage long flame wars in news.groups? Why not change the news software to allow groups to propagate according to reader demand, instead of at the pleasure of site admins? Why not use some sort of Arbitron-like stats to measure interest instead of relying on the whims of only those with the intestinal fortitude to wade through the flammage in news.froups? Just a thought... hb -- Hank Bovis (hb@Virginia.EDU, hb@Virginia.BITNET)
hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis) (11/23/89)
In article <25683F82.25276@ateng.com> chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >According to hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis): >>... the larger the vote ... the harder it will be to get a 2/3 [majority.] > >Oh, piffle. Two-thirds is a _fraction_ of the _total_ vote. If 200 people >vote, you need 133 YES votes. If 2000 people vote, you need 1333 YES votes. >No scaling problem, no matter how big the net becomes. Not the point. I was referring to the effect of _controversy_, _not_ scaling. If you stir up a controversy, otherwise disinterested people will tend to take sides. But the nature of debate, even on USENET, or maybe even especially on USENET, lends itself to equal time for pro and con, regardless of the number of posters taking one postion or the other. (If you don't believe that, take a look at alt.flame some time and see how easy it is for one or two people to match the volume of a veritable horde of people. Scale that up, increase the intelligence of the minority and the coherence of the minority position just a bit, and it is very easy to see how a 1/4 or 1/5 minority can _appear_ to represent about 50% of the population.) Into this mess wanders the casual reader, who sees reasonable arguments on both sides and an apparent 50-50 split in volume. I submit that the "disinterested" readers in such cases will split about 50-50. So essentially, the more "disinterested" people become "interested", the closer the vote will get to 50-50. And btw: >Keywords: bovis, paranoia This was uncalled for, I think. No offense, but I don't know you from a hole in the wall, Chip, and I rather doubt you have any qualifications to comment on my mental state... if on the other hand, you simply want to have a flame war with me, I invite you to x-post to alt.flame...... ;-) hb -- Hank Bovis (hb@Virginia.EDU, hb@Virginia.BITNET)
hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis) (11/23/89)
In article <7046@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <1530@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> hb@Virginia.EDU (Hank Bovis) writes: >> As the net gets bigger, there will inevitably be more and more group >> proposals -- too many to get careful attention from very many people. >So most people will continue to not vote. Oh, come on, haven't you been complaining about how uniformed people were pulled into the aquaria vote just a result of politicking? Of course they won't vote if they don't know what's going on, but suppose the discussion spills over into 50 zillion groups, withand every all sorts of people telling them that Demise of the Net is Imminent if this or that thing isn't STOPPED, cold, right away? >This completely contradicts observed behavior, where most groups get a NO >vote between 10 and 30 regardless of the YES vote. Larger groups will have >an *easier* time getting that 2/3 majority. Larger groups where there is no _controversy_, I agree. >Perhaps your confusing this with the 100 NO vote proposal. No, I'm not, but I think that one is BAD also. >... Groups with a controversial >charter may end up with 30 NO votes, rather than 10, but they still fall >within the 10-30 NO vote band. Even a little controversy over the name >isn't going to kill a group: look at comp.unix.i386, comp.sw.components, >or comp.object. Well, it's all relative, I suppose. A little controversy may be ok, but a lot may not. I haven't been doing any trend studies or anything, but aquaria got one of the largest votes in recent memory, didn't it? >> so you will be BEGGING for the very rule violations, >> irregularities, politicking, and so on, that you seem to want to prevent. > >You got a better idea? My idea would be to eliminate NO votes entirely, and increase the number of YES votes rquired to insure reasonable interest in the group. Based on your assertion about typical NO votes above, I would suggest 110 to 130 YES should be an appropriate number. hb -- Hank Bovis (hb@Virginia.EDU, hb@Virginia.BITNET)
karl@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (11/23/89)
davidbe@sco.com writes:
The net isn't going to get too much bigger in the future
What sort of evidence would you care to offer to support such an assertion?
--Karlpeter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (11/23/89)
In article <1601@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> hb@Virginia.EDU (Hank Bovis) writes: > Into this mess wanders the casual reader, who sees reasonable arguments > on both sides and an apparent 50-50 split in volume. I submit that > the "disinterested" readers in such cases will split about 50-50. > So essentially, the more "disinterested" people become "interested", the > closer the vote will get to 50-50. The problem is that this is completely at odds with observed behaviour on usenet. You talk a good line of theory, but the facts don't back you up. -- `-_-' Peter da Silva <peter@ficc.uu.net> <peter@sugar.lonestar.org>. 'U` -------------- +1 713 274 5180. "The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame." -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (11/25/89)
In article <1602@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> hb@Virginia.EDU (Hank Bovis) writes: > In article <7046@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: > >So most people will continue to not vote. > Oh, come on, haven't you been complaining about how uniformed people > were pulled into the aquaria vote just a result of politicking? The aquaria vote is a special case. And still, less than 1/10th of 1 percent of the net voted. > Larger groups where there is no _controversy_, I agree. [...] > Well, it's all relative, I suppose. A little controversy may be ok, > but a lot may not. In this message, you're confusing controversy about the group with controversy about the name. By a controversial vote I mean something like talk.religion.islam, where there is opposition to the charter. Opposition to the name is easy to avoid. Just don't choose a controversial name. To quote someone or other... it's not nuclear physics or anything. If people are telling you you made a mistake in putting your hot-air-ballooning group into "comp", then you should stop and ask yourself if you made a mistake. If you're offering a proposal in good will, you will not get more than 30 or so NO votes, no matter how controversial the subject. It's when you've got an ulterior motive that people get hot under the collar. > My idea would be to eliminate NO votes entirely, and increase the number > of YES votes rquired to insure reasonable interest in the group. Only if you have some other mechanism to prevent people from deliberately misnaming a group, such as a Name Czar. There are too many examples of cases where this is needed. -- `-_-' Peter da Silva <peter@ficc.uu.net> <peter@sugar.lonestar.org>. 'U` -------------- +1 713 274 5180. "The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame." -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM