Xref: utzoo news.groups:8683 news.admin:5389 Path: utzoo!attcan!lsuc!sq!msb From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin Subject: Re: No Deletion Rules Message-ID: <1989Apr2.181157.7389@sq.com> Date: 2 Apr 89 22:11:57 GMT References: <3580@ficc.uu.net> <16610@mimsy.UUCP> Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto Lines: 41 Checksum: 01269 > There are basically two kinds of deletions: those of active groups, and > those of dead groups. ... I also think that deletions of dead groups > are properly an administrative function. ... Good point! I still think it is reasonable to pass all deletion proposals by the net, but if the group is truly dead there shouldn't be any need for 100 deletion votes, or the like. > As far as active groups are concerned, there is > clearly every reason in the world to forbid these kinds of votes; as the > current heat shows, they largely serve as rhetorical tools in content or > personality fights. ... However, this is not so clear-cut. There have been a number of cases of the form of the following fictitious example: " I have monitored the last month's traffic in sci.beans. I find that there " were 256 articles. However, 153 of these were cross-posted to sci.legumes, " 42 to sci.vegetables, 39 others to both sci.legumes and sci.vegetables, and " 66 of the rest to sci.physics.gases. Since this group attracts so little " traffic that is not also posted elsewhere, I propose that it be deleted. This is a legitimate topic for voting on; the question is how many of the group's readers also read enough of the other groups to see the articles of interest to them. For such cases, I think the usual rules should apply. This type of deletion tends to affect subgroups: I think that there was at least an element of this sort of situation when the groups net.women.only and net.astro.expert were deleted, for instance. It would also be the sort of reason that might be used if the soc.* groups were to be rearranged. As for personality wars, I think the "2/3 majority to delete" proposed rule is perfectly reasonable there in any case. -- Mark Brader "You can do this in a number of ways. SoftQuad Inc., Toronto IBM chose to do all of them... utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com why do you find that funny?" -- D. Taylor This article is in the public domain.