Xref: utzoo news.groups:15034 news.admin:7793 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!sunic!dkuug!freja!stodol From: stodol@freja.diku.dk (David Stodolsky) Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin Subject: Re: Recent Voting Stats Summary: No votes meaningless Keywords: no votes stv names conflict group creation newsgroups Message-ID: <4980@freja.diku.dk> Date: 16 Nov 89 22:04:31 GMT References: <854@pmafire.UUCP> <855@pmafire.UUCP> <856@pmafire.UUCP> Organization: DIKU, U of Copenhagen, DK Lines: 31 In <856@pmafire.UUCP> gil@banyan.UUCP (Gil Pilz@Eng@Banyan) said: >Summary: 2/3 looks like a good idea >[...] >The first thing that I find interesting about these results is that >almost all of the groups got 20-30 no votes. It didn't seem to matter >if the yesses were 884 (comp.object) or 160 (rec.org.sca). This would >seem to support Peter's contention that yes and no votes on the net are >unrelated. In fact, no votes are unrelated to the proposed group name and charter. This indicates that no votes are meaningless in selecting groups that are interesting to people and have an appropriate name. Even the aquaria vote, the exception, supports this point. This is evidence of a defect in the guidelines. Most importantly they treat the creation of groups as a zero sum game where there must be winners and losers. A good argument could be made that creation of new groups is of benefit to all users, since it increases support for the net as a whole. If the guidelines are not changed to reflect the nature of payoffs on the net, then we will continue to see disruptive controversies. Reading of comments received with groupware "no" votes, certainly supports the the Summary line of this post. No votes often reflect misunderstanding, ignorance, or just not being serious. I will post a selection after the groupware vote is completed (with names removed to protect the "innocent"). -- David S. Stodolsky, PhD Routing: <@uunet.uu.net:stodol@diku.dk> Department of Psychology Internet: Copenhagen Univ., Njalsg. 88 Voice + 45 31 58 48 86 DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark Fax. + 45 31 54 32 11