Xref: utzoo news.admin:14794 news.groups:32516 comp.groupware:582
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups,comp.groupware
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Reform Trial.* (was: Trial flawed)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Date: Fri, 31 May 91 02:27:10 GMT
Message-ID: <1991May31.022710.11297@looking.on.ca>
References: <1991May30.144345.15890@gorm.ruc.dk>
Keywords: group creation votes preference

The answer to the question of the right criterion is uncertain.

What is truly decided if a group is to be created?  Really only one thing;
that the group will, by default, get created on all 20,000 or so USENET
machines.

It only sets the default, as of course anybody can elect not to have a
group.  And anybody can elect to have a group without a vote if the
admins at sites involved are convinced to create it.  This means very few
sites.

It is not efficient in human or machine resources for a discussion group
of 100 people to have a discussion distributed to 20,000 machines.  In the
future, I think that something along the lines of the dynamic feeding work
I have been doing will have to become the norm.

USENET is now at a size that almost any topic you can imagine has well over
100 people interested in it.   Indeed, my perception is that the votes have
now become measures of opposition to a group.  Fewer and fewer groups fail
to get 100 interested parties.   Any group with an energetic champion is
assured those 100 parties.

Instead, groups are defeated by opposition.  What an odd system.

If the question is indeed, "is there enough interest that the mailing list
would be too big" then 100 yes votes (with no votes simply not counted at
all) is possibly the right answer.   If the question is "should this group
be created by default on all machines" then we need to measure broadbased
support.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473