Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!ncar!woods
From: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Suggestions for a new backbone
Message-ID: <908@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: 27 Oct 88 21:56:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: ncar.908
References: <5178@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <8187@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> <895@ncar.ucar.edu> <8280@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>
Reply-To: woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods)
Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 53

In article <8280@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (The Beach Bum) writes:
[about comp.society.women]

>There was
>some discussion regarding the name of the group, however, that issue was
>resolved almost immediately.  There was no discussion regarding the
>legality or propriety of the group as there has been in the past with
>rec.sex or rec.drugs.
>

   This is simply not true. There was a HUGE debate about the name, which
raged on for weeks, and another even more heated debate about whether
socially-oriented groups belong under comp at all. The group's creation
was "held up" while this larger issue was resolved. And I certainly
didn't hold it up single handedly; it was Gene's decision (and a smart one,
supported by the majority of the backbone admins) to wait for the larger issue 
to be resolved before creating the group. And Gene himself favored creating
the group as proposed (remarkably impartial conduct on his part, I'd say).

>At that point, you, as a member of the backbone *DON'T* have an opinion.
>You have an obligation to perform your responsibility. 

  One thing people tend to forget: my only "responsibility" in the strictest
sense is to my employer. They are the ones who pay my salary. If my boss 
decided (for whatever reasons) that he didn't want a certain group carried
on our machine, I would have no choice but to honor his request despite the
outcome of any netwide votes or discussions. In this particular case, once
ALL the issues were resolved, the group was created.

>>                                  It was necessary to discover who was in
>>the majority first.
>
>Said task having been performed prior to your decision to raise a fuss,

  Wrong. Discussion had been going on on the backbone list ever since the
group was first proposed, long before the netwide vote was completed, about
whether this group and other like it (such as comp.society, comp.edu and
comp.risks) really belonged in the comp heirarchy. There was even some
discussion about moving some of the existing groups out of comp. Repeat:
this discussion started BEFORE the vote was completed. It did, due to
its controversial nature, take longer than the vote did. The discussion
didn't go netwide until the vote was over and people began calling for creation
of the group. It was then necessary to explain the reason for the delay.

>I think my claim that you and Rick held the group hostage over threats of
>unilaterally rmgroup'ing it after its creation, is correct.

  And I still say you're full of it. I never threatened to rmgroup anything.
Rick may have, but I didn't. What Rick did was HIS decision; I had no part
in it. All I did was vigorously oppose the placement of the group in the comp 
heirarchy by stating my opinions on the subject. And I still don't think it
belongs there, but nevertheless the group is being carried there on my site.

--Greg