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From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin
Subject: Re: Proposed OFFICIAL Newsgroup Creation/Deletion Guidelines
Message-ID: <27937@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 27 Mar 89 21:09:02 GMT
References: <27870@apple.Apple.COM> <5153@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 46

>The vote for talk.politics.guns, posted last week, came in 122 to 20, as 
>I recall; it would have failed your criteria, but passed if 8 more "No's" 
>had been received.  I'd rather opt for BC's that are truly at the boundaries.

Trust the net to toss in a test case when I'm not looking...

>Fore example, how about "At least 100 more Yes than No votes, and Yes must
>comprise at least 67% of the vote."  Then 122 to 20 passes; 99 to 0 fails;
>200 to 50 passes, but 201 to 101 fails.  Thus, for a "hot" group (one 
>receiving lots of votes), it reduces to "67% of the vote must be "Yes"",
>while for a small group, it can never result in a situation where more
>No votes could have caused the vote to pass.

I could live with this, happily. It does what I want: show a general
interest for the creation of the group and show that this interest isn't
limited to a rather small but vocal special interest contigent. Hmm. I
rather like this -- better than my proposal, in fact.

>Of course, the 100-vote margin and the 67% figure can be changed to taste;
>this will simply move the boundary.

100 votes is traditional on USENET as a minimal acceptance level. 67% is
fairly standard in American Government. Seem like reasonable numbers to me.
(50%+1 is simply too easy, especially with lots of voting going on. I prefer
a bias towards the standard quo. Imagine how things would change in Congress
if everything requires 67%?)

>There may be
>examples in the more obscure comp* groups, which I don't read.

yeah. The one I can think of offhand is comp.edu. I've seen a few postings
get reposted to wider audiences from there. I haven't tracked USENET that
closely over the last year, so I don't have what I'd be willing to call
suggestions to fit the rule. Maybe there are none currently -- I just feel
that based on my time on USENET it's a good thing to do, when it's
necessary. That doesn't imply it currrently is.



Chuq Von Rospach       -*-      Editor,OtherRealms      -*-      Member SFWA
chuq@apple.com  -*-  CI$: 73317,635  -*-  Delphi: CHUQ  -*-  Applelink: CHUQ
      [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.]

USENET: N. A self-replicating phage engineered by the phone company to cause
computers to spend large amounts of their owners budget on modem charges.