Newsgroups: news.admin
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: verification of Brad's vote
Message-ID: <1989Mar25.220248.8669@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Mar20.181533.22112@utzoo.uucp> <7994@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 89 22:02:48 GMT

In article <7994@chinet.chi.il.us> patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes:
>In the detailed explanation of the audit which took place of the votes for
>and against Brad Templeton's proposal, only one possibility was not covered:
>that he mistated what would actually be occurring.

My verification was of the vote that took place, not some hypothetical
different one with a different question.  Note that I barely mentioned
the subject of the vote, never mind the exact question that was asked.

>If the vote is taken again, and the question phrased more appropriatly, I
>am sure the results will be quite different.

It depends on what you mean by "appropriately".  Phrasing the question
without biasing the result is *not* easy.  Case in point...

>The question which should be asked (which Brad did not ask) is --
>
>     "Shall Usenet Moderators be permitted to export submissions
>     given to them by Usenet users off the net and use these
>     exported submissions on commercial networks?"

This does not mention the important fact that Brad's proposal is to do
bidirectional gatewaying, i.e. he would also export commercial-network
submissions to Usenet.  That's *not* a trivial issue; the wording above
makes it sound like Usenet is being victimized for the benefit of the
commercial network without any compensation.

>Let's make the question correct to begin with, and *then* vote.

That's easy to say, but not easy to do.  The correctness of your proposed
wording is questionable, at the very least.  Similarly, would you really
expect to get the same results from "should moderators be allowed to make
money from their Usenet activities?" and "should moderators be compensated
for the time and effort they invest in Usenet?"?  Picking the "correct"
question is itself a contentious issue.
-- 
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu