Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!inco!alembic!csu
From: csu@alembic.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Scrap the current NG creation procedure, invent a new one
Message-ID: <3130@alembic.UUCP>
Date: 1 Apr 89 20:31:28 GMT
References: <3010@looking.UUCP> <445@flatline.UUCP> <3199@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <4833@inco.UUCP> <3649@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: csu@alembic.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Organization: Alembic Systems
Lines: 48

In article <3649@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <4833@inco.UUCP>, mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack) writes:
>> In article <3199@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes:
>> >In article <445@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (J. Eric Townsend) writes:
>> >>Anyone wanting a new newsgroup would have to convince a site's usenet
>> >>admin (needn't be their *own* siteadmin, just any site admin) to bring
>> >>it up on the mailing list.
>
>> This scheme may avoid
>> disenfranchising the site admins, but it does so at the cost of disen-
>> franchising the other 90+% of the population.
>
>There is no "Franchise" on the net.

"disenfranchise[disfranchise], v.t., 1. to deprive of the rights of
citizenship, as of the right to vote or hold office. 2. to deprive of
a privilege, right, or power." -- Webster's New World Dictionary, Coll. Ed.

Now that you know what it means, may we proceed?

>All this does is formalise the de-facto situation.

Wrong. It deprives the vast majority of the net of their voice in
the issue of newsgroup creation. What is being proposed here is an
unenforced representative democracy, where the site admins are the
representatives of the users at their site. It ignores the fact
that many site admins, particularly at large sites with lots of
users, administer news in their spare time out of the kindness of
their black little hearts, and the last thing in the world they
want (or can afford in terms of time) is to become members of the
New Improved Distributed Backbone Cabal.

Many news administrators are too
busy to bother with the issues of whether or not a group is worthy.
They let it get hashed out through the voting process and abide by
that. I do not particularly want to waste my time arguing with one
of the users at my site about whether or not we should create
rec.arts.books.ayatollah. If they want it, let them propose it in
news.groups and rec.arts.books, and if there is sufficient interest
and consensus on the name, fine.

True, each site admin has the power to determine which groups are
available at hir site, but how many really care whether or not
rec.arts.books.ayatollah gets created or not? Let the people who
do care about the issue, one way or the other, make the decision.

-- 
Dave Mack