chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (05/25/84)
{look out, Martha! he's gone wild again! Run for the hills!}
Good grief, I seem to have been storing all of this up for a while. Here
goes Chuqui again. Warning. Major flame. All flammable materials should be
stored no closer than 50 feet from your terminal.
This absurd business of 'voting' on new topics has GOT to stop. It doesn't
do any good. It drives many people completely bonkers. If you REALLY REALLY
REALLY want a topic, show some need for it, for gawds sake!
The whole administration of the network seems to have gotten completely out
of hand. There are now thousands and thousands (can you say 'Billions and
Billions? I knew you could) of sites out there and lots of users. To date
we've been able to survive as a loosely knit anarchy where the person with
the biggest stick (and/or loudest voice) has been able to get something
done, but in the last six months it has gotten to the point where a small
tactical thermonuclear device can't even make a dent in things. We are now
spending all of our time arguing and very little time being at all
productive on getting anything done. The net has simply gotten too large to
continue as an anarchy.
WAIT! don't hit that 'F' key yet. This is NOT Yet Another Usenet Inc. I
don't want to see that. What I think we need is (*gasp* Has Chuqui gone
sane?) a committee. Someone needs to oversee the process of creating (and
deleting perhaps) topics. I heartily suggest that we create a group of our
peers on the net who work on a voluntary basis. Instead of posting a
suggestion to net.news.group, you submit a proposal to this group with
justifications for its existence. Usage in another topic is a good one, but
there are many reasons for having topics. If they can get a positive
consensus, the group is created. If they disagree with you, it isn't. There
should be some way of appealing their decision, of course, but it has to be
an agreed upon procedure rather than something arbitrary like creating it
anyway.
I suggest a group of something like five people that the majority of the
network users can agree with. If any three agree on something then that is
the decision. If the network decides that someone in the group (or the
group itself) blew it then they can be re-called (hmm.. voting and such. Is
this the beginning of a *gasp* democracy?)
Who? Well, for starters I immediately think of people like Mark Horton, the
networks paternal grandfather, Adam, Lauren, Armando, and other well known
and respected users. Most of these have had a large part in shaping what
the net is today and have done a good job of it. I think they can continue
to do so into the future as well if we cooperate with them.
flames to /dev/chuqui. Comments welcome
--
From the closet of anxieties of: Chuq Von Rospach
{amd70,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui (408) 733-2600 x242
I'm really gonna miss her. A tomato ate my sister...spaf@gatech.UUCP (Gene Spafford) (05/28/84)
A steering committee. I like the idea. Something to avoid all this
foolishness about voting. I like the idea. Good show, Chuq!
I vote YES for a committee (oops, sorry Chuq). Mark, Adam, and Lauren
seem natural choices for such a group. I think Chuq himself might
be good for such a group (they could debate nuking woebegone).
--
Off the Wall of Gene Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!spaf
...!{rlgvax,sb1,uf-cgrl,unmvax,ut-sally}!gatech!spafbarto@celerity.UUCP (David Barto) (05/28/84)
I agree with Chuq. A steering group. I do not post lots of things
to the news, I just read it. I use the news to get my job done.
The amount of time I have spent passing over the "I want to create
a new group, lets all vote on it" messages makes me sick. The
group he proposes sounds great.
Sorry about the 'Yes' vote. :-)
--
barto
(david barto)
uucp : {decvax || ucbvax || ihnp4 || philabs}!sdcsvax!celerity!barto
uucp : akgua!celerity!barto
arpa : sdcsvax!celerity!barto@nosc
Tele : (619) 271 9940ed@mtxinu.UUCP (05/29/84)
Chuq hasn't gone sane, not by a long shot. He just wants a camel for the net! :-) -- Ed Gould ucbvax!mtxinu!ed
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (05/29/84)
>I vote YES for a committee (oops, sorry Chuq). **ACK** >I think Chuq himself might be good for such a group (they could debate >nuking woebegone). I left myself out on purpose, and not because of my innate modesty (which I have never been known to have anyway) or because I wanted someone else to nominiate me. I left myself out because I don't feel I am appropriate for the committee. I have taken a number of stands in the past that have turned out to be rather radical or unpopular. I feel that I would either polarize the group or reduce its ability to work with the rest of the net because of my tendency to jump on a 'great cause' with both fee regardless of its ability to become reality. I'd much rather see wiser and cooler heads than me at the helm. (If nominated, I shall not run, If elected, I shall not serve. Or something like that. - Ted Kennedy) -- From the closet of anxieties of: Chuq Von Rospach {amd70,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui (408) 733-2600 x242 I'm sure I have my death ray in here somewhere...
wls@astrovax.UUCP (William L. Sebok) (05/29/84)
> A steering committee. I like the idea. Something to avoid all this > foolishness about voting. I like the idea. Good show, Chuq! > > I vote YES for a committee (oops, sorry Chuq). Mark, Adam, and Lauren > seem natural choices for such a group. I think Chuq himself might > be good for such a group (they could debate nuking woebegone). > -- > Off the Wall of Gene Spafford I hope the above is intended intended as a joke. I am totally opposed to the steering committee idea. Again the authoritarians attempt to take over. -- Bill Sebok Princeton University, Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno,princeton,vax135}!astrovax!wls
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (05/30/84)
The original idea behind voting was that people were supposed to MAIL their votes to the person proposing the group. Not follow up, reply. It's hard for a committee (or any one person) to decide whether a certain group makes sense. The question is whether there is enough interest in it, and what the name should be. A committee could choose the name, but it can't tell how many people are interested. Hence the voting (which is really more of an opinion poll.) Mark Horton
osd@hou2d.UUCP (Orlando Sotomayor-Diaz) (05/30/84)
Chuq,
Alternatives have been proposed, for example, the tiredgroups
idea that would liberalize the creation of new subgroups without
overburding the systems. Another idea was the temporary group
with a builtin time bomb. These require some software modifications
and all the technical issues must be resolved, though in the
case of the tiredgroup proposal, the issues are now well identified.
Your idea about a group of people making those decisions about
what groups come into being and what don't is not new either,
and because of the nature of the USENET community, is not going to
fly. Horton himself rejected it already.
About voting: This is one of the reasons I support better software
based proposals for making USENET a dynamic beast, and people, please
come up with more. Voting to the proponent of a new group has never
worked for several reasons:
a. People can't reply (or don't know how to reply) to the originator
of the proposal for a new group.
b. Mail gets lost far too often, so some people prefer to make a public
disclosure of their vote.
c. Politics gets in the way and some with strong feelings in favor or
against a new group will make their opinion public anyway hoping
to influence others.
d. Nobody trusts the vote count anyway.
So, let's think about automating the process of creating new groups
and maintaining them with little impact on system load. You are
in the software business, so think automation, not manual intervention.
--
Orlando Sotomayor-Diaz /AT&T Bell Laboratories, Crawfords Corner Road
/Holmdel, New Jersey, 07733 (Room 3M 325)
Tel: 201-949-1532 /UUCP: {{{ucbvax,decvax}!}{ihnp4,harpo}!}hou2d!osdlaura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (06/03/84)
Comittees are a bad idea. Having all these damn votes in net.news.group caused me to unsubscribe to net.news.group a long time ago. If the posters would put: "proposed group net.goats-and-garlic -- vote" in their titles (or stick the vote in the title as well) then I could get by with my 'n' key. Alas this requires intelligence on the part of netnews voters and I don't think that we can wait for them to develop it. The discussion on tiredgroups looks like it is going to take a long while. In the meanwhile, what about net.news.vote. I propose this as an experiement. It is MY proposal and here are the rules. 1. I am going to temporarily re-subscribe to net.news.group. 2. If I get one ``yes'' vote in net.news.group I am going to COUNT IT AS A NO. 3. If I get one ``no'' vote in net.news.group I am going to COUNT IT AS A YES. 4. If it is posted to multiple groups (like net.news) then the penalty will be multiplied by the number of groups it is posted to. 5. If you send me mail saying ``yes'' or ``no'' then I am going to count it is TWO YESes or TWO NOs. The object of the game is to see if people can actually refrain from posting votes and send it by mail. If we get a negative score out of the whole deal then we know that usenetters can't follow directions even when it is clearly in their own interest to do so and thus can give up believing that they will act reasonably when you suggest any proposal. If, on the other hand, you never see another vote for net.news.votes then the experiment will be considered a success and these rules should be propegated for all ``let's create a new newsgroup'' discussions. Now, for all of you who do not want to vote, but also want to get your $0.75 worth of ``why I want/do not want net.news.votes'' I have a solution. I am going to make up a mailing list of everybody who replies to me and ASKS TO BE PUT ON IT. (default is OFF, that is -- you won't see any discussion unless you ASK FOR IT.) And all the mail that I receive on this subject is going to go out on the mailing list. (ALL of it. Without editing. What you send me everybody who ASKS is going to read. Just like usenet, except you only get the interested parties.) This is it. discussion, howls of dislike, praise, promises of money -- ALL BY MAIL. or I guarantee I WILL penalise you for it. And if we can't get a better solution out of this then we deserve the Politburo. -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
alb@alice.UUCP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) (06/06/84)
net.news.votes is wrong. Votes are supposed to be MAILED to the author of the proposal, not submitted to the net.