Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sco!davidbe From: davidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Give it up, folks Message-ID: <395@scorn.sco.COM> Date: 16 Nov 89 23:03:48 GMT Article-I.D.: scorn.395 References: <127839@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <36442@apple.Apple.COM> <3016@com50.C2S.MN.ORG> Sender: news@sco.COM Reply-To: davidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) Organization: The Swell, Clean Opossums Lines: 60 news.groups's own craig@com2serv.c2s.mn.org (Craig S. Wilson) said: - -Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with what happened with all of this -fish crap. But, if we are gonna change the voting system for -newsgroup creation, let's do it right. Let's give each site one vote -and let the sys admin or designate cast that vote. Simple majority -rules. It is the systems administrators, acting on behalf of the -machine owners, who have the responsibility for keeping the Usenet -running and bear the cost of doing so. They should have the responsibility -and authority to determine how it runs. Ok...some of these points have been brought up before, but they bear repeating: 1) What is a site? We've got people reading news on over 100 machines here at SCO. Does the admin for each machine get to vote? Or just the "admin" for the uucp hub? 2) What is a sys admin or designate? Is it the person listed in the UUCP map entry? Is the person who's making news work on the system? Is it anyone with a root password? 3) What about my machine at home? I get news there...I'm the only one who reads it, but, as you say, it's the sysadmins who should "determine how it runs". And frankly, I've got so little disk space, I don't think anymore newsgroups should be created. Ever. And let's start removing newsgroups too...who really needs comp.sys.. 3.5) What about a machine at home. Should a site that only gets a small feed have the same rights as, say, uunet? Yes? Weird. 4) What about (dare I ask) forgeries? With one vote representing (perhaps falsely) the will of 1-1000 people, this could start to make a large difference. 5) And what about all the non-admins who make a difference. Voting may just be an illusion of democracy, but I (for one) want that illusion maintained. And so do a number of other people. 6) Suppose there's no worry about 1, 2, 4 or 5. Some company has 1 machine, no NNTP, and only 1 person with root access. No suppose that person just has no time to read anything other than a few newsgroups (as in reads news.announce.newgroups, but not news.groups). Can they make an informed vote about sci.sushi.farming? Or about comp.oops? But they may wind up voting anyway. Uninformed voting is bad for the net. There is no fair way to run anything that consists of differently sized and priced units. This system is far from the best, but it's important to note that the siteadmin has ultimate veto power at their site, simply by not carrying (and fascisticly) not passing the group. -- David Bedno, Systems Administrator, The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Email: davidbe@sco.COM / ..!{uunet,sun,ucbvax!ucscc,gorn}!sco!davidbe Phone: 408-425-7222 x5123 Disclaimer: Speaking from SCO but not for SCO. " -- they're normal. terrifyingly, appallingly normal -- like they've gone through normal and come out the other side." - neil gaiman in _Sandman_ #11