Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Scrap the current NG creation procedure, invent a new one
Message-ID: <3010@looking.UUCP>
Date: 28 Mar 89 05:56:15 GMT
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo Ont.
Lines: 59

I feel all this talk about refinement of the current procedure misses
the point.

The current procedure isn't working at all, in my opinion.  What good
does it do to refine it and add more bureaucracy?

Let's review the purpose of the current procedure.  Newsgroup carrying
is, of course, done by net admins.  Net admins need a convenient system
to help them decide, usually as a group, what newsgroups are worth carrying
on their machines.

The procedure should make good suggestions, be quick and efficient, and not
itself generate excessive net traffic.  But remember that the procedure only
gives advice to sysadmins, nothing more.

The procedure should avoid wasteful groups, and at the same time convince
champions of impractical groups that it is not worth their effort to fill the
net with flamage to push their opinion.

Surveys (incorrectly called votes in this group) were instituted to find
out something about net opinion on newsgroups, and most importantly to shut
up newsgroup champions when a survey goes against them.

Why is the current system not working?  It has become a messy bureacracy.
The whole beauty of anarchy has been spoiled:

	A) Things aren't being quieted, they are noisier.  A 6-8 week period
	   of discussion and voting.  Endless calls for votes and repeated
	   calls.

	B) We get endless involvement in technicalities, as though these
	   were binding votes instead of just advisories for admins.
	   People yell if a vote is 29 days 23 hours instead of 30 days.
	   They yell if their all important 'vote' doesn't make it for
	   bounced mail.

	C) The process takes too long.  2 months, usually.  This is supposed
	   to be efficient?

	D) It makes people think this is a democracy, when it isn't.  One
	   person even thought you could hold a vote to dictate 
	   "official usenet policy."

	E) The surveys aren't that meaningful.  They are posed and collected
	   by heavily biased poll-takers.  They come from a self-selected
	   set of respondants whose only qualification is that they have
	   enough free time to read news.groups.  :-)   They are further
	   biased by repeated 'calls for votes' when the pollster is not
	   satisfied with the results.
	   

I say, down with bureacracy on usenet.  Down with endless finely tuned
rules and poking at technicalities.   Sorry to those folks who designed
it, but I say scrap it.

Replace it with what?  The next posting says.  If you have a real
replacement, let's hear yours, too.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473