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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!rcj
From: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: Vote Fraud and Newsgroups
Message-ID: <838@burl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Aug-85 14:47:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.838
Posted: Fri Aug 30 14:47:26 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Aug-85 08:40:49 EDT
References: <2309@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> <765@vortex.UUCP>
Reply-To: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 37
Summary: 

As usual, Lauren continues to beat on those of us who are a little slow
until we see the light.  I have done so, I came out against his "Vote
Fraud" but must heartily agree with the following:

>care if it gets sent around.  Let's say you had some oddball topic
>that 20 people wanted to discuss.  They are prolific--they
>post lots of messages.  The group will LOOK "useful"--it will certainly
>have plenty in it... but does it serve the net at large?  Couldn't
>a mailing list have done a better job?  The amount of waste
>involved in the net is almost unimagineable.  Mailing lists could
>serve many interested people far better in many cases than newsgroups
>being sent everywhere.

This is very accurate.  How many times have we come up with a group (not to
offend anyone here, just trying to come up with a meaningful possible
example) like the proposed distributed operating systems newsgroup that
only a small handful of people will post to and read seriously, and
90% of the people who aren't actually working on a distributed OS but screamed
YES to the group's creation will unsubscribe it within a couple of months?
I've done it, I imagine most other people have as well.  This is not good.

I still don't agree with the vote fraud issue Lauren raised, but I do
think that we ought to take a very careful look at what we create.  I also
agree with the idea that a summary of votes on newsgroups including
net address of sender, vote, and possibly some indication of whether this
was a "yes, I'd be interested in reading that" or "yes, I have a lot to
say on that matter and would like to discuss it with other people".

More ideas?  I think that we ought to seriously consider mailing lists
for the more arcane groups; things like net.rec.disc (which I voted
for, by the way, then unsubscribed) should have started as mailing
lists and never become groups.  Thanks for shedding the light, Lauren,
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj
			...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj