Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!odi!indirect!benson
From: benson@odi.com (Benson Margulies)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: A Thought Experiment about News.Groups
Message-ID: <375@odi.ODI.COM>
Date: 1 Jun 89 13:18:31 GMT
References: <371@odi.ODI.COM> <3400@looking.on.ca> <372@odi.ODI.COM> <3315@ncar.ucar.edu>
Sender: news@odi.com
Reply-To: benson@odi.com (Benson Margulies)
Organization: Object Design Inc., Burlington, MA
Lines: 36

In article <3315@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes:

> Fortunately for us all,
>Mr. Margulies does not know everything there is to know about USENET, nor is
>he single-handedly qualified to determine what a proper name for a new group
>is (although he sure seems to think he is).

Well, aren't we feeling nasty?  Look, I used to be in the debate
business. You can't scare me by snapping a rhetorical towel at my
shorts. If you haven't noticed, I have nothing to gain by this.  I'm
not promoting myself or anyone else as a czar. I set out to making a
constructive contribution to the net. If so-called leaders of the net
post (and not mail) this sort of thing, its no wonder the net is
generally so wonderfully polite.

>  Without NO votes, how do you propose to decide whether a group is "properly"
>named?

Very simply. If 100 people (or 200, or whatever) agree on the name, it
is presumptively pretty good. As Mr. Templeton pointed out, there are
hardly any NO votes anyway. Since there are so few, they clearly don't
serve the purpose Mr. Woods claims for them. Perhaps they serve the
anti-purpose of egging on certain kinds of useless flaming.

> And are you really so naive as to think that getting rid of NO votes
>will stop the whining? We had whining long before we had votes.

I don't know how naive I am. (s/naive/idealistic/)







Benson I. Margulies