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From: mangoe@mimsy.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin
Subject: Why Vote No
Message-ID: <11672@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 25 May 88 17:54:21 GMT
References: <477@white.gcm>
Reply-To: mangoe@mimsy.umd.edu.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 25

Dave Caswell writes:

>I asked this question a while ago and no one answered.  Why do we allow
>NO votes?  Who cares how many people are uninterested in a topic and will
>never read about it?   I'm going to vote YES just to counteract the people
>who are voting NO.

Because voting no is the only way to effectively express disapproval of any
aspect of a group proposal.  Considerations like "does it have an
appropriate name?" or "where should it be in the hierarchy?"  are relevant.

Let me suggest a modification to the current voting rules.  Have two phases;
in the first phase, the "interest" phase, only "Yes" votes are collected as
to whether a group *under some name* will be created for the subject matter
at hand.  In the second phase, the name of the group is voted on; here I
think it would appropriate to have a majority rule, so that, if no proposed
name gets a majority, the group is not created.  I think perhaps that votes
for "none of the above" might be permitted (implying an effective vote
against creation under any name), but it might be better to require voting
FOR some name in this phase, implying that one must suggest a new name if
one is to vote against all the previously suggested names.

Comments?

C. Wingate