spaf@gatech.CSNET (Gene Spafford) (11/06/85)
I've gotten megaflames for my rmgroup of net.internat, and I've been
accused of being everything from someone intent on taking over the net
to "one of those Americans who believes the US is the world." I've also
been accused of removing the group without any prior communication or
thought.
Wrong on all counts.
Let me try to set the record straight here. You can verify this
history with both inset!jr and inset!mikeb (the two who created the
original group and the original flames).
1) People at some EUUG meeting decided they wanted a group to talk
about international standards formation. I'm still not sure if it was
about Unix or not.
2) Jim Oldroyd (inset!jr) posted to net.news.group and asked if someone
would create the group.
3) A few people (myself included) posted to net.news.group and
suggested alternative names. Some others also suggested making it a
moderated group.
4) The group was created less than a week after the first discussion in
net.news.group appeared. mikeb@inset was the one who issued the
"newgrp" message.
5) I was away from our system for a few days so I didn't see it right
away. When I came back, I sent mail to the person who sent out the
"newgroup" message asking why it had been done -- that there had been
no complete discussion in net.news.group nor had a vote been taken.
6) Mike (inset!mikeb) responded and we exchanged 1 or 2 notes about the
procedure for creating newsgroups. He appeared quite co-operative. I
explained that I felt duty-bound to delete the group until such time as
the procedures were followed. I asked him to post something to
net.internat explaining the situation.
7) The article Mike posted mentioned my suggestions (to him) that the
group start out as a mailing list, moderated group, or group with
something less than "net" distribution (e.g., "eunet") where a volume
level could be established before we make it a "net" group (or, in the
case of the much more sensible "mod" group, we wouldn't really need to
establish such a volume). I believe that his phrasing of the article
was ambiguous and was misunderstood by many people.
8) I posted something to net.announce about the proper procedure for
creating groups. This was due to the mess over net.bizarre, proposals
to create net.doc and net.personals, and so on.
9) I posted the "rmgroup" as Mike and I had discussed after a delay of
about 1 week. Only about 30 articles had made it to my site at the
time of the "rmgroup," and over half of them were of the form "Yes, I
agree ASCII is too limited."
10) I have received large amounts of public of abuse and flames since
then. Oddly, my personal mail is about 8 to 1 in favor of what I did,
but those people haven't posted as much as the flamers. Many people
seem to understand why I did the rmgroup, and both Jim and Mike will
tell you that I did contact them prior to issuing the delete.
I have had *lots* of support for the idea of recreating the group as
mod.std.internat, including 4 volunteers for moderators. However, Jim
informs me that the group will be recreated as a "net" group based on
the mail he has received. I will not dispute this even though I
personally believe "net.internat" to be an ambiguous name and that the
topic will be better served as a "mod" group. Jim has taken the vote,
and I will respect his tally. If someone else cares to argue the
issue, leave me out of it. I do reserve the right to say "I told you
so" should the situation warrant :-).
I have never been against the purpose of the group. I think the idea is
commendable and well worth reasoned discussion. I believe, in fact,
that the net needs more international co-operation and discussion to
meet its potential. I was against the hasty manner in which
net.internat was created, and the lack of discussion. I also had
reservations about starting up a group with no prior volume --
especially since "net.std" was removed without a complaint just a few
months ago.
I am deeply saddened at the number of jerks out there who are so quick
to criticize with no knowledge of the facts or circumstances of the
matter. It has disturbed me that so many people are willing to cut a
person down without knowing him/her or knowing that person's
motivations and intentions. If it wasn't for the large number (100+) of
positive mail messages I received, I might have just quietly left the
net. However, there seem to still be a number of sane and reasonable
individuals on the net, and maybe it is still worth some of my (our)
effort.
That's the story. Thanks to all of you who bothered to write civil
letters or reasoned articles.
--
Gene "wedding done, thesis to go" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ Relay.CS.NET
uucp: ...!{akgua,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spafmsb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (11/24/85)
Gene Spafford (spaf@gatech.UUCP) writes: > 10) I have received large amounts of public of abuse and flames since > then. Oddly, my personal mail is about 8 to 1 in favor of what I did, > but those people haven't posted as much as the flamers. This is easy to explain. The people that sent mail (like me) are the responsible ones who understand everything perfectly, and the people who posted articles (like ...) are the irresponsible ones who don't understand anything. Well, :-), but only partly. Posted flames ARE inappropriate. Net.news.group is getting HUGE amounts of traffic, much of which is on topic more appropriate for net.news, and much of which is simply uselessly repetitive. People don't have time to read the group. Render unto Usenet the things that are Usenet's, and unto Mail* the things that are Mail's! *or mail Mark Brader