Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!chuq From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Sci.ad.nauseum.aquaria redux Message-ID: <35951@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 27 Oct 89 02:43:44 GMT Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps Lines: 126 Richard asked me the following question last night: ]And show me the ``rule'' (your words) I broke, Chuq. To which I replied: -- begin excerpt -- Rule breaking: >1) A call for discussion on creation of a new newsgroup should be posted > to news.announce.newgroups, and also to any other groups or mailing lists > at all related to the proposed topic if desired. You posted to news.groups, not news.announce.newgroups. It was later transferred, but that's against protocol. You also neglected to include rec.pets, even though there was a significant overlap of interest there because of the naming. >3) The name and charter of the proposed group and whether it will be moderated > or unmoderated (and if the former, who the moderator(s) will be) should be > determined during the discussion period. If there is no general agreement > on these points among the proponents of a new group at the end of 30 days > of discussion, the discussion should be taken offline (into mail instead of > news.groups) and the proponents should iron out the details among themselves. > Once that is done, a new, more specific proposal may be made, going back > to step 1) above. There is *no* way you can argue that there is general agreement in the naming. But it wasn't taken offline, it wasn't ironed out or negotiated, and it wasn't held up until it was resolved. You bulled it through anyway. If *I* were Greg, I would have rejected the call for votes on this point. You also tried to define the group as 'semi-moderated' which isn't an acceptable form of newgroup. Effectively, it's unmoderated, exept that you promise to keep an eye on it and cry home to mommy if people don't do it your way -- which, once the group is created, means absolutely nothing. >1) AFTER the discussion period, if it has been determined that a new group is > really desired, a name and charter are agreed upon, A good argument can be made that the charter wasn't agreed upon, since you can't agree on a charter for a group that has no agreed upon name. >3) A couple of repeats of the call for votes may be posted during the vote, > provided that they contain similar clear, unbiased instructions for > casting a vote as the original, and provided that it is really a repeat > of the call for votes on the SAME proposal (see #5 below). You have been politicking this vote mercilessly since the announcement, which is in violation of this rule. Two serious violations and one trivial one. We'll see what else comes up later in the voting. But you're in obivous violation of the letter, not to mention the spirit, of the rules. -- End of excerpt -- I want to thank Richard for bringing this to mind, because it wasn't until he asked me that I sat down and thought about it. There are multiple rule violations in the sci.aquaria voting. The major one is that the voting was started even though there is clearly *no* consensus on the name. That's a specific requirement of the rules, and Richard is ignoring it. The second major violation bothers me even more -- I've had some people write and tell me that they've been asked to vote *for* sci.aquaria, even though they aren't interested one way or another. Richard continues to actively politick the voting in news.groups and elsewhere, even though the rules state that this isn't to be done (example: "A bunch of things" posted the other night. One can argue that he's simply continuing to argue his position in the debate over the group and the name, but that simply returns to the point that the name was never made a consensus, and therefore the vote call was incorrect there. My position on this, then, is simple. I wish to see the sci.aquaria vote declared invalid for rule infractions. It's obvious that this whole thing is a politicking sham, that the rules are being used when convenient and ignored when not, and that the spirit of the rules are being demolished at the same time the letter of the rules is being ignored. I've asked Greg to invalidate the vote for these reasons. Whether he does or not I don't know. My suggestion is the following: o the current sci.aquaria vote is thrown out completely. o a vote to create a naming consensus is run for a period of ten days by a party to be appointed by Greg and to exclude anyone screaming loudly on either side (specifically myself and Richard -- and anyone else Greg feels is too deeply involved). o Once that is done, a normal, 21 day vote on the group is run for the consensus group, again by an appointed party. My sources, by the way, currently show that the voting is running about 270 Yes to 200 No (or some such -- it's about 70 positive; not currently enough to succeed -- and with an exceptionally large NO contingent). I've also been told that Richard is pushing to get yes votes -- so I hereby wish to request that everyone who thinks this situation is out of control but hasn't voted yet to please send in a "no" vote, so if Greg doesn't rule the vote invalid we can still keep from creating sci.aquaria until we figure out what the right thing really is. Please send richard a no vote if you haven't already. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I feel it's only fair considering the kind of flogging for votes Richard's been doing. The addresses, if you need them, are: richard@gryphon.COM decwrl!gryphon!richard gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.NASA.GOV I should *also* point out that I have notified both Richard and Greg of my intention to challenge and verify the voting should sci.aquaria succeed. I've heard enough rumors of questionable votes that I feel it has to be checked out. Note that I am *not* accusing Richard of vote fraud -- just that there are enough rumors that I want to make sure. And I'm making sure that Richard has enough notice of this that he can be sure that no vote fraud of any kind occurs. chuq -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking] Trust Mama Nature to remind us just how important things like sci.aquaria's name really is in the scheme of things.