Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Scrap the current NG creation procedure, invent a new one
Message-ID: <3023@looking.UUCP>
Date: 30 Mar 89 05:18:38 GMT
References: <3010@looking.UUCP> <14200002@tippy>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 52

I would say that if the 5 board members no "nothing" of amateur radio,
that would indicate that a specialized subgroup needs extra evidence to
be created.  As it is, I can't imagine the members knowing nothing about
it, although they could all know very little.

The point is, however, that sometimes group proposals come that just
don't make sense on the net.  If a group can't manage one reader for
every long distance link it goes over, then USENET is clearly not
an efficient way to run that group.

There are very valid discussion topics that simply don't make sense
in the context of THIS net.  That doesn't mean they don't make sense
in the context of other nets and other technologies.  For example,
one can set up a mailing list even on this net.  Or one can set up
a BBS.  If you can't set up a BBS, there are thousands of BBSs around
the world that would be glad to set up a topic area for you, and
most of these are free.

"But I have pay phone bills to access them?" -- of course.  But if you
don't have one reader per long distance link, then other people are
paying phone bills not just for you to access the data, but for
*nobody* to access the data.

At any rate, UNLAB might very well decide, at first, that a group just
isn't right for usenet.  (To use a current example, if I were on
UNLAB, I would suggest a group for organizing animal rights activists
might not be right for usenet, and more appropriate for a mailing list
or BBS.)   If UNLAB votes that way, what that means is that you give
up or you go out and get evidence that there is a strong demand for
the group, that's all.  You could even hold (gasp) a survey.  But this
would be a rare case.

Really most of these decisions are pretty easy for any usenet veteran,
and the tough cases can be handled in ways similar to what we use now,
such as polls.

But right now we're being crazy.  We're using participatory democracy
to make decisions which are really not worthy of such a technique.

If usenet were run by some commercial service, I find it hard to believe
that they would use participatory democracy to decide how to create
newsgroups, even if they believed in letter the users decide what they
want on the net.   The only reason I could see them pushing for it
would be if they got extra money for each message posted to news.groups!

Participatory democracy is a fine idea folks--if USENET were any sort
of democracy--but even if it were, we would leave participatory
democracy for the really important issues.
important issues if 

-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473