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From: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups
Subject: Re: Fixing the unbroken
Message-ID: <3031@cpoint.UUCP>
Date: 4 Dec 89 21:58:59 GMT
References: <55499@looking.on.ca> <11941@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass.
Lines: 62

In article <11941@cbnews.ATT.COM> wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker,00440,cb,1D211,6148604019) writes:
>In article <55499@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
>>
>>But I would like to see the "it isn't broken" advocates come out with
>>some evidence to support the claim that this system *is* working.
>
>Usenet continues to grow.  People aren't giving it up in droves.
>*Somebody* sure seems to think it's doing well.

Just because Usenet is a valuable and respected service does not mean that 
it doesn't have problems or that some facets of it aren't working.  

An earlier posting claimed the problem in the sci.aquaria debate wasn't the
choice of the 'wrong' name (I disagree ...) but the flaming disagreement
that the debate brought out (I have to agree with the sentiment, though).
However, I stongly disagree that 'fixing' things wouldn't have tempered
the flames.  Consider the following:
	- A lot of the flaming was brought out by people sincerely 
		disagreeing about what the 'right' name ought to be, and
		Usenet voting gives them no other method of objection but
		to flame.  If name A wins by a 2x margin, it really doesn't
		matter whether name B would have won by a 10x margin.  If
		you can't get enough votes to kill a bad name, you have to
		either live with it or start pulling 'my site isn't going
		to honor your vote' tantrums.  A multiple voting scheme,
		MAUVE, STV, or WEIP, would give people a way to say which
		name they want.
	- A lot of the 'dishonorable campaigning' was caused by people (in
		both camps) going out and saying 'Hey, send this vote to
		Sexton (and/or else) this will happen'.  If a multiple vote
		was being held, it would be harder to keep the whole story
		away from potential voters.  For instance, someone who just
		wants an aquarium group would see that he is voting NO to
		a number of names and wonder why.

The sci.aquaria mess shows clearly that the process IS broken.  We have a
case where a name passed even though it is clear (to almost everyone) that
rec.aquaria would have had a lot more support and less opposition.  There 
were vastly more flames than I would have liked to have waded through.  And 
now we have a case where the result of the vote is being ignored by a lot
of system admins and the group is a joke.

Multiple voting would have prevented the group champion from forcing an
unpopular name on the net.  Multiple voting would have negated the perception
of a power play.  Multiple voting would have given people a 'non-violent' 
way to express their disapproval.  Multiple voting would have 'fixed' this
problem.

And before you suggest this is an isolated incident, look at the .pagan
and sci.groupware debates.  I hope they get resolved better than sci.aquaria,
but there isn't any support from net guidelines that would stop them from
turning into another fiasco.  Look at sci.skeptic and comp.women.  Similar
things happened.  And consider what would happen if another 'great renaming' 
were to be contemplated.  Without multiple voting, it would be a mess where
the net would be (to a large extent) at the mercy of the renaming champions.

The system IS broken.  Take a look at some of the rather violent reactions
I got when I tried to fix the .aquaria problem ...
-- 
--------|	Rest assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Alien   |   		would scarcely get your feet wet.	- Deteriorata
--------|     decvax!frog!cpoint!alien      bu-cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien


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