woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (04/10/89)
The most controversial issue in all of this seems to be the 100 vote rule. Most people who commented on it felt that it should be changed. I agree, but I didn't include any changes to it in the guidelines, because my intention was to try and formalize current practice rather than change it. I hope that we CAN discuss the possibility of changes. I personally favor the proposal that required both a 100 vote margin and a 2/3 majority for a creation vote to pass. One famous (but unnamed) net person even went so far as to say "100 votes is a joke. I could get 100 votes on ANYTHING", and Bob Webber proved that to us shortly after we started voting on things by getting the required 100 votes for comp.protocols.tcp-ip.eniac which was never intended as a serious new group proposal. (Now those of you new to this mess understand the recent April Fool's joke) I think we DO want to continue to create new groups, but we also need to be very careful about choosing the right name for a group (to make it easier to find the groups you want to read/post in) and, at least until we come up with a reasonable method for DELETING groups, limit new group creations to those that are really needed, or the namespace will become unmanageable. --Greg
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (04/10/89)
>comp.protocols.tcp-ip.eniac which was never intended as a serious new >group proposal. (Now those of you new to this mess understand the >recent April Fool's joke) That was a joke? Oh, I get it. Ha-ha. hee-hee. Chortle. 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.
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (04/10/89)
In article <2960@ncar.ucar.edu>, woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) writes: < < The most controversial issue in all of this seems to be the 100 vote rule. < Most people who commented on it felt that it should be changed. I agree, but < I didn't include any changes to it in the guidelines, because my intention < was to try and formalize current practice rather than change it. I hope < that we CAN discuss the possibility of changes. > > I personally favor the proposal that required both a 100 vote margin > and a 2/3 majority for a creation vote to pass. One famous (but unnamed) > net person even went so far as to say "100 votes is a joke. I could get > 100 votes on ANYTHING", and Bob Webber proved that to us shortly after > we started voting on things by getting the required 100 votes for > comp.protocols.tcp-ip.eniac which was never intended as a serious new > group proposal. (Now those of you new to this mess understand the > recent April Fool's joke) > I think we DO want to continue to create new groups, but we also need > to be very careful about choosing the right name for a group (to make it > easier to find the groups you want to read/post in) and, at least until > we come up with a reasonable method for DELETING groups, limit new group > creations to those that are really needed, or the namespace will become > unmanageable. > > --Greg I see no reason for the requirement of a 2/3 vote. In fact, if enough people want a group, it should be difficult to oppose. As proposed, the 2/3 requirement would only comes into effect if there are more than 200 yes votes. It seems to me that as more people want a group, that they should not even need a majority, so that, say, if 1000 people vote for a group, it should take 2000 no votes to override them. We should decrease the force of the opposition for groups which many want, not increase it. For deleting a group, it should require a substantial majority; here I would go along with 2/3, or even more if the group is popular. This is not a formal proposal. It should be discussed, but if many want to create a group, it should be harder to oppose. If many want to retain a group, it should be very hard to delete. I do not have suggestions about the voting procedure for making a group moderated/unmoderated or changing moderators. The present position, 100 more votes for a change than against it, is not outlandish. But it is too stringent for creating controversial popular groups, and too lenient for the deletion of controversial popular groups. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)