woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (04/10/89)
Needless to say, I received quite a few comments on the proposed official guidelines for newsgroup creation. I tried to include changes reflecting some of them that were either repeated a number of times, or that I felt were particularly valid and should have been included the first time. Here is a summary of the changes from the original posting. The complete text of the second draft appears in a companion posting. The second draft is minus the group deletion stuff. There is no consensus on this yet, so I can't really include it in anything called "official". I just want to get current practice formalized before proceeding on to what, if any, changes or additions should be made. I would also like to thank everybody for keeping the flames down to a reasonable level. Even those who had objections to me personally doing this were able to state them without needless personal insults and ad hominem attacks. I appreciate the restraint :-) and I'm sure everybody else on the net does also. 1) What are the guidelines? A number of people pointed out that no one has ever agreed on voting procedures being used to do anything other than decide if a new newsgroup is needed or not. An explicit statement to this effect has been included. 2) Moderated/unmoderated status of a group I also heard a lot of people say that whether or not a group will be moderated and who will moderate it ought to be part of what is being voted on. I agree, so this is now considered a required part of a new newsgroup proposal. 3) Length of the voting period Several people said things about the length of the voting period. The most common comment was that it takes too long to get a new group created. I tend to agree, and I would consider shortening the length of the voting period now that a preliminary two-week discussion is required. But there has been no consensus on this, so I haven't changed it yet. I also heard several complaints about the wording "exactly 30 days", and also a few suggestions that when the vote would end should be included in the calls for votes. I think this is reasonable, so the new version says "at least 30 days" and adds a requirement to state the vote termination date in all calls for votes. 4) Length of the discussion period I got the distinct impression that "at least 14 days" was too vague. True, we don't want discussions dragging on forever, and we also don't want a call for votes to come out of the blue 3 months after discussion on a proposal has died down. It is also true that some subjects will be more controversial than others and require more time for the proponents to agree on a specific, votable proposal. The only solution seems to be a variable length discussion period with limits on both ends. 14-30 days seems as reasonable as anything, so that's what went in. 5) Posting of partial results I really didn't consider this a big deal, so I didn't say anything about it in the original version. But it turned out to be the one thing that I got the most comments about, the vast majority of them being AGAINST the posting of partial results in repeated calls for votes. The new version reflects this. 6) The final waiting period (vote verification period) Almost everyone who bothered to comment on this said that 3 days was too short. I don't want to see TOO long a wait between a successful vote and creation of a group, however, because successful vote-takers will get impatient, premature newgroup messages might go out, and the votes lose credibility. But I agree that there must be reasonable opportunity to correct honest mistakes in vote counting and to guard against fraud. So I made it 5 days. [personal opinion section] If we shorten the voting period from 30 days to 2 weeks, with 2 weeks of discussion preceding and 5 days of vote verification at the end, we aren't too far away from the original 30 days for the whole process. [end personal opinion] 7) Failed votes In the results section, the original said that after a failed vote, "discussion of that proposal on the net should cease", or words to that effect. Almost everyone who commented on this said, essentially, "for how long?" Good point, I never meant forever. Things do change, and a group that failed a vote once might be perfectly appropriate and pass by a wide margin at some future time. On the other hand, we don't want to be bogged down with repeated proposals for the same group from a minority who were unable to come up with the required number of votes the first time around. The most common time period suggested was 6 months, so that's what I put in. Look for the full text of the new proposed guidelines in another posting to appear immediately after I finish this one. --Greg
bee@cs.purdue.EDU (Zaphod Beeblebrox) (04/10/89)
Said woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods): (in article <2959@ncar.ucar.edu>) | | [ misc. about revised guidelines ] | |--Greg I'm somewhat suspicious about this. It seems that the newgroup procedure is slowly but surely getting more complicated all the time. Putting in clarifications all over the place for everything will only necessitate clarifications of the clarifications, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. For example, it's generally a net.consensus that once a subject has been brought up and voted down, it should not reappear for a while. So now we have the add-on that a subject should not be discussed for 6 months after an unsuccessful vote. Now this opens up a whole new can of worms. When exactly does this 6-month period begin? Do we count from the start of the discussion, start of the vote, end of the vote, end of the discussion following the vote, etc.? And do we flame somebody that's only been on the net for 4 months that brings the subject up again? Carry this to its logical conclusion, and we end up with something that looks like the American legal system. IMHO, the only place where we need a solid time boundary is in the duration of the voting period. If someone wants to run a vote on some proposed new group that failed 2 months before, I've got no problem with that. After all, it's their time that they're using to collect votes, not mine. If discussion dies off enough after a week that a call for votes can be made on the 10th day after a subject is brought up, that's OK by me too. Making too many rules (or "guidelines", if you insist) just gets in the way. (No flames intended in the above, BTW.) B.E.E. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox | Now why is it, friends, when you have all you can bear, alias B.E.E. | You can always count on some clown being there, bee@cs.purdue.edu | With exactly the right words to say to make ..!purdue!bee | things even worse?!? -- Ray Stevens
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (04/10/89)
In article <2959@ncar.ucar.edu>, woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) writes: > If we shorten the voting period from 30 days to 2 weeks, with 2 weeks of > discussion preceding and 5 days of vote verification at the end, we aren't > too far away from the original 30 days for the whole process. My experience has been that 2 weeks discussion and 30 days for the vote is just and reasonable. Less than 30 days for the vote would have killed some recent votes on worthwhile groups. Where did the "original 30 days" come from? -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (04/11/89)
>My experience has been that 2 weeks discussion and 30 days for the vote >is just and reasonable. Less than 30 days for the vote would have killed >some recent votes on worthwhile groups. Where did the "original 30 days" >come from? Well, we decided we needed a standard voting period. Two weeks was suggested, but it creates problems for people on vacations or out at the end of the propogation. Two months was too long. So 30 days seemed like a nice, round number. Chuq Von Rospach -*- Editor,OtherRealms -*- Member SFWA chuq@apple.com -*- CI$: 73317,635 -*- Delphi: CHUQ -*- Applelink: CHUQ [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.] USENET: N. A self-replicating phage engineered by the phone company to cause computers to spend large amounts of their owners budget on modem charges.