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From: mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups
Subject: Re: These new voting schemes
Message-ID: <5730@inco.UUCP>
Date: 21 Oct 89 20:22:20 GMT
References: <4771@ncar.ucar.edu> <6618@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: McDonnell Douglas Electronic Systems Co. McLean VA
Lines: 51

In article <6618@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
>Verification.
>
>Yes, a good point. And a good argument for the Alien Wells scheme. It
>would be easy enough to list the votes without a lot of bandwidth:
>
>----------
>	"PROPOSAL: discussions of War of the Worlds, the TV show"
>
>The winner was "rec.arts.wotw" with 110-34. Because this did not meet
>the 100 vote majority the group was not created:
>
>				YES	NO
>1	rec.arts.wotw		110	 34
>2	sci.space.wotw		  1	172
>3	rec.arts.tv.wotw	 87	  1
>4	rec.arts.war-worlds	102	 34
>
>Votes:
>
>1 2 3 4	Name
>Y - Y Y	peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva)
>Y N Y N peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
>N Y N N sexton@gryphon.com (Richard Sexton)
>...
>------------

A most amusing example, which illustrates the problem with this scheme.
It fails to separate the two issues which are actually being voted on:
whether or not a group devoted to the topic should exist, and if so,
what its name should be.

I suggest that this approach be expanded as follows: a vote simply
saying "No" or "topic: no" would be considered a vote against the
group regardless of its name. Any vote containing "yes" or "topic: yes"
and/or a list of name yes/no votes would be considered a "yes" vote
for the group. A "topic: no" vote would have no influence on the
name vote.

Group creation would be based on (topic:yes) >= (topic:no) + 100.
The name under which the group should be created would be based on
the maximum of (name:yes) - (name:no) with maximum (name:yes) as a
tie-breaker.

Under this scheme, the group name in your example (assuming the
topic vote passed) would have been "rec.arts.tv.wotw". 

-- 
Dave Mack				McDonnell Douglas Electronic Systems
uunet!inco!mack, inco%mack@uunet.uu.net			(703)883-3911
All opinions expressed are my own and do not reflect those of MDESC. Ever.