Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!samsung!uunet!sco!gorn!filbo From: filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Call for discussion: Amiga Newsgroup Reorganization Message-ID: <116.filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us> Date: 24 Dec 89 22:11:11 GMT References: <27751.2591a982@drunivac.uucp> <878.25936d89@dayton.saic.com> <22710@ut-emx.UUCP> <726@godot.psc.edu> <689@alias.UUCP> Lines: 82 X-Claimer: I >am< R Pentomino! Priorities, folks. From the discussion so far, it looks like the comp.sys.amiga hierarchy should eventually contain: comp.sys.amiga comp.sys.amiga.programming comp.sys.amiga.hardware comp.sys.amiga.arts and perhaps comp.sys.amiga.games Unfortunately, the Usenet guidelines do not provide a mechanism for voting on multiple groups in a single vote. Even worse, the Usenet *software* (and when I say that, realize that I'm referring to about a dozen different software systems, each with multiple versions in the field) does NOT have a reliable mechanism for renaming a group. I believe the guidelines could be stretched to allow a single poll to ratify multiple actions, e.g. the creation of two (or three) new groups and the renaming of another. It's probably not a good idea to try it. The guidelines say, in effect, that a "YES" vote means that the voter agrees with the proposed group's name, charter, etc. *exactly as proposed*. This gets exponentially more difficult as more groups are to be handled in one vote. Suppose that 80% of the voters agree to each of the subproposals (create c.s.a.hardware, create c.s.a.arts, rename c.s.a.tech as c.s.a.programming), but further suppose that there is no correlation between which ones the voter agrees with. Then the number of voters that agree with all 3 subproposals is 80% to the third power -- 51.2%, not enough to meet the 2/3 "YES" requirement. That argument is bogus in a couple of ways (most importantly, that many voters who agree with 2 of the 3 parts would vote "unambiguous YES" to get at least 2/3 of their desires implemented; and that there *IS* correlation), but it is valid *enough* to be important. Another choice would be to run a vote to select a single action out of the multiple choices, using STV, MAUVE, or some other similar scheme. It's not clear that the guidelines allow this (ignoring recent fishy business). More to the point, *I* have called this particular discussion and *I* want to run a vote on comp.sys.amiga.hardware. I have no wish to run a multi-way vote (with accompanying flamefest). In defense of that position: I think, of all the proposals, .hardware will do the most to decrease traffic in the current groups. Therefore it should be done first. Other people may later call discussions and then votes on c.s.a.arts, c.s.a.games, and c.s.a.tech->c.s.a.programming. The latter could probably be implemented as follows: create c.s.a.programming and ask well-connected sites to alias c.s.a.tech to c.s.a.programming. Let this situation develop for several months. Then rmgroup c.s.a.tech. Some confusion would result at leaf sites, but it would be relatively easy to clear up. Note that this would *NOT* work if there is *ANY* news software which will propagate an rmgroup of an aliased group as if it were an rmgroup of the group to which it is aliased; or would act on it as such. Any comments from news wizards? Regarding the suggestions for c.s.a.questions or c.s.a.discussion: discussion is what all but special-purpose moderated groups are made of. Questions lead to discussion. The distinction between these groups and the base group would be far fuzzier than between the base and .tech groups of today. Please, let us create specific and unambiguous sub-groups. We can always add more, or more finely divide existing ones later (e.g. .hardware to .hardware.reviews and .hardware.design) as the need becomes apparent. c.s.a.multi-media: sure, but what about people doing only video, only music, etc.? It's ambiguous and they end up posting to c.s.a, or cross-posting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is still not a call for votes; that will not happen until 1/1/90 at the earliest. Also please note that I will be receiving votes at a different account, yet to be determined. This site's connect bandwidth is not wide enough to split between newsfeeds, mail, dial-up users and a large flow of votes. Bela Lubkin * * // filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us CI$: 73047,1112 (slow) @ * * // belal@sco.com ..ucbvax!ucscc!{gorn!filbo,sco!belal} R Pentomino * \X/ Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl +408-476-4633 and XBBS +408-476-4945