gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) (03/09/86)
In article <2273@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > The bottom line is that more people want to keep net.general around > than want to delete it. In one way I'm relieved at the result; if it had been > 2:1 in favor of deleting it, we would then have to start fighting over whether > that constituted enough of a majority to do it. I'm sorry that this isn't already clearly defined, but then I am not surprised (is *anything* on Usenet News clearly defined ... ?). Well, it would be better to decide the issue of how many votes it takes to *delete* a newsgroup (as opposed to creating a new one) *before* this decision is made. (tho' not as though it weren't made in other cases already). I hereby propose that newsgroups not be deleted unless 2/3rds of the voters want the newsgroup to be removed. A simple majority is not sufficient for two reasons: [1] Since a simple majority is needed to create the group, such a majority can become a minority by the vote of one person. A rather silly situation could lead to a newsgroup that is periodically created and deleted. [2] I do not feel that a simple majority of the net should have the authority to remove a newsgroup which, not surprisingly, a majority of the net did not read. This is an attempt to uphold freedom of the press and provide support for a diversity of discussions on Usenet. OK, I'm taking yet another poll. This poll seeks to define for future reference what sort of vote should force a newsgroup to be deleted. "QUESTION: By what fraction of the total vote must the votes to delete a newsgroup be in order to force the newsgroup to be deleted?" I believe that if this were already defined somewhere by some people, it would probably call for a simple majority, which I thus seek to overturn. -- Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,seismo,hplabs}!amdahl!gam Everything you know is wrong.