Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!drillsys!gatech!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!gds
From: gds@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Greg Skinner)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: New newsgroup proceedures, voting..
Message-ID: <1195@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 6-Mar-86 03:13:36 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.1195
Posted: Thu Mar  6 03:13:36 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Mar-86 00:49:43 EST
References: <5075@alice.uUCp> <3326@sun.uucp>
Organization: MIT Lusers and Hosers Inc., Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 50

I have always been a firm believer in democratic procedure.  This
principle, I velieve, should be used in USENET as well.  Otherwise, we
have the current situation where a few control the masses (can you say
dictatorship, I knew you could!)  I do not mean the previous statement
as a slur against those who keep the network running, however there
have been isolated incidents which resulted in lots of confusion,
anger and (worst of all) postings which wouldn't have been posted if
more democratic means had been taken to solve the problems.

My model of how the USENET voting procedure would run is similar to
that of the electoral college.  Each site gets to vote based upon how
many feeds they have, whether news developers are at that site, or
news moderators, or uucp map keepers, or what have you.  These factors
will have to be weighted of course.  The site vote is cast in the
person of the news administrator.

There are those who seem to have a problem with this scheme.  I wonder
why this is so.  Do these same people complain about political
elections?  I do not see them writing letters to their Congressmen or
Senators claiming that the elections are unfair, because their states
may not have enough free space to accomodate new technology,
out-of-state/country individuals, etc.  Perhaps I am reaching a bit,
but bear with me.

I guess what I am tryng to say is that fair is fair.  What goes on in
USENET should not be decided by a select few, it should be decided in
a democratic manner.  There should be some agreement among those who
participate in USENET that yes, you will have to play by the rules, or
else you have to get out of the game.  (I know no such agreement
exists now, but in the future, failure to comply with the by-laws of
the net should be met with the possible suspension and/or removal of a
site from the net.)

One other thing:  I do not believe there should be a ceiling on the #
of groups that are allowed.  Since some sites don't carry all the
groups anyway, there's no reason why they should have direct influence
over those sites who are willing to carry them.

In closing, I have heard comments in the vein of "people do not
realize the responsibility inherent in anarchy".  I wonder, for those
who favor a backbone-run network, do you realize the danger inherent
in dictatorship?


-- 
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under.

Greg Skinner (gregbo)
{decvax!genrad, allegra, gatech, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds
gds@eddie.mit.edu