Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!usc!rutgers!att!cbnews!wbt
From: wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Sci.ad.nauseum.aquaria redux
Message-ID: <10763@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 30 Oct 89 14:56:35 GMT
References: <4848@ncar.ucar.edu>
Reply-To: wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker,00440,cb,1D211,6148604019)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 67

In article <4848@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes:
>In article <35951@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>
>>Richard continues to
>>actively politick the voting in news.groups and elsewhere, even though the
>>rules state that this isn't to be done
>
>   Yes, hardly "unbiased instructions for casting a vote" which is the only
>thing allowed by the guidelines to be posted after the call for votes.

This is news to me, but if you say it's in the guidelines, I'll believe
you.

I'll also call for a revision of the guidelines, because it's completely
unworkable.  Do you mean to say that once Richard calls for a vote on a
group, you and Chuq and others are free to attack it at will, but he's
not allowed to defend himself ?   

>  Despite what some people think, I have never been a fan of rigid enforcement
>of the letter of the guidelines. However, it seems clear to me that the
>entire intention of them has been violated in this case. This is not a trivial
>procedural infraction, it is a total ignoring of accepted guidelines, and
>the creating of a situation that is clearly detrimental to the entire net,
>just to get a single newsgroup created. As a system administrator, I do not
>feel like I have to honor this vote even if it passes. It's a joke.

Hoo-hah.  I both agree and disagree.  It *is* a "trivial procedural
infraction", because the procedures themselves are trivial.  Let's take a
step back for a moment; why do we vote on newsgroups ?  My understanding
is that the vote justifies to the various net administrators that there is
sufficient interest in the group to warrant their creating it.  (Otherwise,
we'd go back to the "newgroup anything you want; run it up the flagpole
and see who carries it" philosophy).  Thus, the only reason to have the
vote is to gain immediate acceptance.

To whatever extent the guidelines are violated, the vote becomes less
convincing.  That means that some administrators may choose not to carry
it, as Greg has.  Others, though, probably don't care.

As for this situation being "clearly detrimental to the entire net,"
hogwash.   Suppose this unguideline-like vote passes, someone issues a 
newgroup, and 75% of the sites carry it.   What does that tell us ? Simply,
that 75% of the sites don't give a hoot about the guidelines, or other
peoples' notions of what's good for the net.  If nobody carries it, then
the reverse is shown.  *But in either case*, I submit that all this
grandstanding is quite pointless, because when it comes right down to
it, that decision should be made at each site, not centrally by
Greg, Chuq, or Richard.

The vote is flawed.  Let it run its course, then publish the results.  If
the results pass, newgroup it as usual.  If you don't want it on your site,
rmgroup it.  Let the rest of the net think for themselves, OK ?

>  I'd like to, but I really don't have the power to single-handedly 
>invalidate a vote. The best I can do is ask the other site admins
>on the net not to honor it if it should pass.

Why ?  Why bother ?  Let 'em do what they want.

Now, what I'm hoping to see is that both sci.aquaria and rec.aquarium pass,
so we'll have *three* groups for this topic.  To that end, I've voted for
both groups, and encourage others to do likewise; just to see what happens.


- - - - - - - - valuable coupon - - - - - - - clip and save - - - - - - - -
Bill Thacker						wbt@cbnews.att.com
	    Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero