Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!enea.se!sommar
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: These stubborn group champions
Message-ID: <8910081919.AA15665@helios.enea.se>
Date: 8 Oct 89 19:19:15 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 41

Greg Woods wrote some days back:
>  I personally think that the real problem is that the group champion is the
>one who gets to make the final name selection. Until this is changed we will
>continue to create misnamed groups.

Did I hear single transferable vote? Modified of course to allow votes
like: !sci.aquaria or even !sci.* meaning that you vote NO as long
as sci.acquaria is there. Admitted, this is more complex than the
current scheme, but it is certainly more efficient than having two
votes as in one of Peter's many proposals.
  But to make it work, there has to be some real alternative beside
the one proposed by the group champion. We have been talking about
a name czar troika. Well, give them the right to introduce an
alternative to the vote. If they come up with an alternative, it must
be included in the call for votes. (Which is easily controlled with
Greg as moderator.) Even better the guidelines would recommend that
any proposal that have met some support should be included in the
voting form.
  The important point here is that both the champion's original proposal
as well as the "serious" one are included. None should be deleted from 
the vote.

Why not simply have the vote czar troika to decide the name? I'm
absolutely against that. First it would give to birth to flamefests
seldom seen. Second, and more important, would this troika do things
all right? Is there an absolute truth in these matters? I submit 
there is not.
  Take comp.society.woman for example. If we had had a news czar system
at the time, and the news czar had been Greg, the group would never
have been created. (In fact, this is the one case I know of where the
net.gods did manage to get a name change. The proposal we voted on
was comp.women, but the group created was comp.society.woman.) I for
one, I'm glad there was no name czar, because I think comp was the
right place. (In lack of a better alternative. "soc" was *not* the 
place.) And, oh, I was not the only one thinking so. Spaf was another.
  Clearly with absolute name czars we risk that they make mistakes.
With my proposal above, Greg, Spaf and Chuq gets some influence, but
the net community still decides.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
"My baby's a 26. On a scale from one to ten, my baby's a 26." - Chic