Xref: utzoo news.admin:7312 news.groups:13535
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups
Subject: Re: These new voting schemes
Message-ID: <37323@looking.on.ca>
Date: 23 Oct 89 03:24:52 GMT
References: <4771@ncar.ucar.edu> <15249.253f3716@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <37123@looking.on.ca> <2970@splut.conmicro.com>
Reply-To: brad@looking.on.ca (Superuser)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 45
Class: discussion

In article <2970@splut.conmicro.com> jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes:
>Both pre-votes and naming czars will increase complexity, and they have
>their own problems: pre-voting will drag out an already lengthy process,
>and name czars will be subject to their own set of flames.

Pre-votes certainly increase complexity and are clearly not the answer.
A name czar is a very *simple* solution, in that it can be expressed in
one sentence:
	"The group champion should then mail to name-server@czarsite and
	request a name for the group that in the name-server's opinion
	is the best name for the group."

So it's simple, not complex.  Now will it cause flames?  That can only be
told for sure by experiment.  It is my opinion that choosing a name is
not rocket science.  Assuming we want hierarchies (something I am not so
sure of) then I think we can define them well, and if they are defined well,
I think an independent party can pick a name through a fairly logical
process that's not super-subjective.

That won't stop somebody from disagreeing, of course.  But either their
disagreement will be silly, and ignored, or it will be a true borderline
case.  If it's a true borderline case, we just have to get the message out
that in such cases it doesn't matter where it goes, and the name-server's
arbitrary decision is as good as any other decision making process.

Real-world society hires judges for this purpose to deal with far more
difficult questions.  It works because we've agreed in advance to respect
the judge's decision, even though we all admit that some things could be
argued either way.

------------------------
Now this aquaria case is tough.  If the name-server had said "rec" then
it is possible the "sci" proponenets would have then gone out and taken
the argument public etc. etc.  But this degenerate case is certainly no
worse than we have now.  And we would have one answer to give -- "it could
be argued either way, but an impartial judge has picked one of the ways, let's
go with that."

The only mess is if the judge picks wrong too many times and has to be
replaced.  I think we could find a judge who would not fail in this way.

Remember that the planets don't fly off the sun if a group has the wrong
prefix.  All that matters, if you believe this whole hierarchy thing, is
that the choice be consistent.  Two currently suggested methods -- group
champion selection and voting -- will *not* be consistent.