Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik
From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Some observations on this whole mess.
Summary: Why should sysadministrators vote as such?  What is a site?
	 Who is netnews for, anyhow?
Keywords: votes, newsadmin, coordination
Message-ID: <1711@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 14 Nov 89 13:36:19 GMT
References: <11171@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2752@cpoint.UUCP> <6803@ficc.uu.net> <1989Nov13.071055.9401@xenitec.on.ca>
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Lines: 51

In article <1989Nov13.071055.9401@xenitec.on.ca>, edhew@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) writes:
> In article <1989Nov8.175742.26013@alembic.acs.com> csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack) writes:
> >BFD. The net's gotten bigger, too. According to the latest arbitron stats,
> >there are over half a million people who read news.  ...............

These are the people who use usenet.  Should they not decide?

> ....and on the topic of wild ideas....
> Perhaps each newsadmin would accept opinions from his/her news readers
> and then issue one single "vote" for that site.  As it is quite true
> that the size of USENET is growing almost exponentially, each newsadmin
> in effect acting on his own user poll would serve to temper the flood
> of weighted opinion from individual sites (there were some complaints
> re. this point recently).

It is easier to point out for technical groups that this is not a particularly
good idea, but it is not limited to them.  One site may have more than 100
users in a given area, and another site 0.  Should these sites have the same
number of votes?  For a non-technical group, one site may have 100 people in
Middle Eastern politics.

> There are precedents in some political systems.  Sometimes elected
> officials make our laws, sometimes the bodies involved in lawmaking
> aren't elected at all (eg. Canada's appointed Senate - I'm not trying
> to justify this, merely to illuminate this possiblity).  Would such
> a system be viable or even desireable?  Should all valid votes originate
> from "usenet@site_name" ?
> 
> Spare the flames, I'm merely posting a point for discussion.
> 
> Would one vote per site be viable?
 
What is a site?  Is it a single machine, a collection of machines with
a single sysadmin, a collection of machines with a single corporate or
university owner, or what?  The machine I am using is the "property" of
the Statistics Department at Purdue University, and is administered
by the Computing Center.  Is it a separate site, or is it included in
the Computing Center site, or is it just part of the Purdue University
site?

And even if we can clearly define a site, some sites are single personal
computers.  If I had three of these, should I have three votes?  

My colleagues and I may or may not agree, but I believe that all of us
who read the netnews should vote individually, as now.  What is wrong 
with us discussing in person the proposed groups, instead of just on the
net?
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)