[news.groups] More on Moderated news.group

woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (06/21/89)

I am delaying the call for votes on this, because it is clear from the 
discussion that a couple of key points have not yet been resolved.
They are:

1) The name of the group. The two alternatives are to put it under
   news.announce (news.announce.groups) or under news.groups 
   (news.groups.proposals). There is not yet, as far as I can see, a clear
   consensus on which is better. For my own part, I can see good arguments
   for either. I don't think either side is more numerous in its supporters,
   but the supporters of news.groups.proposals are more vocal; a number of
   them in private mail who are great supporters of the idea of a new
   moderated group for newsgroup proposals in general have threatened to vote
   NO on the group if it is to be placed under news.announce. If you have
   a strong opinion on this which you have not already expressed to me, please
   do so. I have logged, and will continue to log, all comments I get on this
   proposal, either posted or mailed.

2) Guidelines enforcement. Perhaps I can clear this up a bit by saying WHY I
   want to enforce the guidelines. Then I will make a compromise proposal.  It 
   appears clear to me that the vast majority of guidelines violations we have
   seen are inadvertent (e.g. misc.emergency-services, rec.music.bluegrass).
   It is these violations, rather than willful ones for topical groups, that
   I want to eliminate. So, how about this as a compromise: if the posting
   contains language making it clear that the poster is aware that s/he is
   in violation of the guidelines, it gets posted, assuming that it actually 
   is a well-formed proposal for a new group or a call for votes. This would
   allow for things like "I know this has not been discussed, but I think we
   need to quickly create net.blotto", or" This is a call for votes on 
   net.blotto, even if we have not discussed it yet"  or "the discussion seems
   clear after 5 days and I don't want to wait the required 14. Therefore this
   is a call for votes on the creation of net.blotto". Otherwise I will point
   out the violation to the poster and give them the options of either following
   the guidelines, editing their posting to insert a statement that they know
   they are in violation, or if they insist on posting it verbatim I will do
   so with a SHORT, concise parenthetical remark at the beginning that the
   guidelines are being violated. Would this satisfy everyone?

Once again my timing is not good; I'm leaving Thursday morning for a 4-day
camping trip. I will review posted and mailed comments when I return, and
hopefully THEN I can post a call for votes on this long-overdue newsgroup.

--Greg

olsen@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Jim Olsen) (06/22/89)

Greg Woods' revised proposal, set forth in article <3497@ncar.ucar.edu>,
seems quite reasonable to me.

The only remaining question I see is the group name.  In my opinion,
news.announce.groups makes the most sense, but a name like
news.groups.proposals would be acceptable.  Could someone explain why they
don't want the new group in the news.announce heirarchy?

jdevoto@Apple.COM (Jeanne A. E. DeVoto) (06/23/89)

In article <1444@xn.LL.MIT.EDU> olsen@xn.ll.mit.edu (Jim Olsen) writes:
>The only remaining question I see is the group name.  In my opinion,
>news.announce.groups makes the most sense, but a name like
>news.groups.proposals would be acceptable.  Could someone explain why they
>don't want the new group in the news.announce heirarchy?

Primarily because news.groups and news.[groups.proposals|announce.groups]
will be so closely coupled. Given this, it seems reasonable to put them
in the same hierarchy. They'll be next to each other in /usr/lib/news/active,
new users who see one group won't have to hunt for the other, et cetera.
====== jeanne a. e. devoto =================================================
                                            | You may not distribute this
jdevoto@apple.com                           | article under a compilation
jdevoto@well.UUCP                           | copyright without my permission.

tim@attdso.att.com (Tim J Ihde) (06/24/89)

In article <3497@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes:
>1) The name of the group. The two alternatives are to put it under
>   news.announce (news.announce.groups) or under news.groups 
>   (news.groups.proposals). . .

>   . . . I don't think either side is more numerous in its supporters,
>   but the supporters of news.groups.proposals are more vocal;

Well, just so someone else speaks up, I still think ANNOUNCEMENTS of
group discussions or votes should go under news.announce.  This is already
a moderated hierarchy where important meta-news is posted.

However, I would still vote yes for n.g.p.

>   a number of
>   them in private mail who are great supporters of the idea of a new
>   moderated group for newsgroup proposals in general have threatened to vote
>   NO on the group if it is to be placed under news.announce.

These people should switch to Sanka as soon as possible -- it really is just
as tasty as the regular brands.

-- 
Tim J Ihde				INTERNET:   tim@attdso.att.com
(201) 898-6687				UUCP:	    att!attdso!tim

dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) (06/28/89)

In article <3497@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes:
#   The name of the group. The two alternatives are to put it under
#   news.announce (news.announce.groups) or under news.groups 
#   (news.groups.proposals). There is not yet, as far as I can see, a clear
#   consensus on which is better. 

I very much prefer news.groups.announce to either of these.

I don't think you're going to resolve this before calling the vote, so
why not do it *with* the vote?    Let us choose the name by STV (Single
Transferable Vote), probably the fairest voting system yet devised for
many purposes (Irish and Australian elections, the Synod of the Church
of England, and the (UK) Social & Liberal Democrats internal elections,
to give a varied selection).

Voters who care about the name would vote for them in order, e.g.
1 news.groups.announce
2 news.groups.proposals
3 news.announce.groups

(leaving out any unacceptable names - and maybe writing in new ideas?).

If the vote for the group passed, then count the votes as follows:
1 - If one name has >50% of the votes, it is the 'winner'. 
2 - If not, transfer the votes from the 'papers' of the name with the
    least votes to their second preference.

Repeat until 1) applies.   Simple, yes?   And it shouldn't take long to
count.   Then we'll know that the name chosen is the prefered name, or 
at least acceptable, to the majority of the voters.

I recall some other group proposal recently having a vote like this, so
it would not be the first to try it.

----
Regards,    David Wright       STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex  CM17 9NA, UK
dww@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWW
Living in a country without a written constitution means having to trust in
the Good Will of the Government and the Generosity of Civil Servants.