max@zion.Berkeley.EDU (Max Hauser) (11/26/87)
> From: fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) > Newsgroups: news.groups > > Votes will be posted to the network by ignorant people no matter > what we do. news.poll will not change this. > > Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu As though in an effort to confirm Erik's assertion, articles of the following content have since appeared in news.groups (edited to essence): > I vote YES for Amnesty International > Here is my vote for cricket. > Here is my vote for comp.binaries.apple > I vote YES. > NO > Yes > >I give up on finding a path to cunyvm... I vote yes > YES FOR ME TOO!!!!!!!! > Sorry about this posting, but I, too, have been unable to find a path. Sorry about this reminder, but posted votes are not only invalid, and are disregarded by the cabal and other readers in any authentication proceeding, but they are obnoxious too. If someone cannot find a mail path, that is simply too f'ing bad. The burden is on the voter to reach the vote collector by e-mail, and on the vote collector to demonstrate a *substantial* volume of support for the new group. If the support is so marginal that e-mail paths make a critical difference in the number of received votes, there is obviously not adequate support for the creation or change of the group! If the vote counter's site is "hard to reach by e-mail" then that person should not collect votes. Is it not obvious that the loss of some votes because of mail problems is far less harmful than cluttering the Usenet with articles containing votes (THOUSANDS of copies of which then go out all over the world)? People are reminded of all this regularly on news.groups - a strict protocol of that group that they are expected, as with other groups, to be familiar with before posting (or cross-posting!) articles to it. Usenet, like Un*x, is a non-self-documented system that relies on user competence for smooth operation. It is therefore obvious, or should be, that it is up to users to know about things like voting procedure before they do them, and it is furthermore legitimate to hold users responsible for such knowledge (whether "anyone told them" or not). In an effort to preach beyond the realm of the converted, I have cross-posted to the same groups as the offending vote articles. Appended is further authoritative guidance on this specific topic. M. Hauser, curmudgeon > From: spaf@arthur.cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) > Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.groups,news.admin > Subject: How to Create a New Newsgroup (Last changed: 31 October 1987) > > ... action on Usenet > newsgroup creation or deletion that does not follow these guidelines > may be ignored by the backbone sites and the majority of Usenet sites > that usually follow the examples set by the backbone... > ... > 3) Post an article to the newsgroup "news.groups" describing your > proposed new group. Be sure to describe why you think the group is > needed and/or interesting, and what you think it should be named. Ask > for comments to be posted and for votes to be *MAILED* to you. Be sure > to cross-post your article to any newsgroups where there might be > interest, but set the "Followup-to" header so that responses only > go to the "news.groups" group. > ... > 5) Collect MAILED votes on the issue of the new newsgroup. The > threshold currently set as necessary for creating a new group is 100 > more "yes" votes than "no" votes in a 30 day period... > From: blarson@skat.usc.edu (Bob Larson) > Newsgroups: news.misc,news.groups,news.admin > Subject: Newsgroup vote counting: a proposed modifacation > Any vote posted for creating a new newsgroup shall count as > two votes against creating that newsgroup. The same person will be > allowed to mail a single vote to the vote counter as well. .Anl