Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!sol!lll-winken!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Complimentary but not overlapping
Message-ID: <37521@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 31 Dec 89 05:37:13 GMT
References: <10728@attctc.Dallas.TX.US>
Organization: Fictional Reality: We bring good things to life
Lines: 58

rissa@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Patricia O Tuama) writes:

>My question doesn't have anything to do with Peter's group per se.  
>I just want to know now that the newgroup creation guidelines have 
>been amended to include the da Silva Process, whether or not anyone 
>else who wishes to follow the same procedure is required to hold a 
>separate discussion period or whether he/she can simply skip that 
>step like Peter did.

Pat:

If you'd only ask the right person...

As one of the people who decided to make 'rec.aquaria' official (as official
as anything gets on this wonderful network), let me answer you explicitly:

	No.

The guidelines have not been amended or modified to include a new voting
system or to change the discussion period. There's no intention to. What
*really* happened was that we decided that the procedure used to create
rec.aquaria was reasonable when compared to the intent of the guidelines.
Remember, they're only guidelines, not hard and fast rules, and what we (we
being Spaf, myself and Greg, the triad that are doing newgroup stuff this
week) basically decided was that Peter's proposal was in the spirit of the
newgroup creation setup. I, personally, plan to look whether a proposal is
done within the intent of the rules rather than nitpick details, since
that's what the net has told us is more important (for example, if you want
to start arguing about violations of the guidelines, we can talk about the
breaches of sci.aquaria. But it was created, so there's precedent for this).

Rather than getting bogged down in administrivia, I think it's important to
worry more about what's good for the net. They're only guidelines, after
all. So if something isn't strictly conforming to the guidelines and seems
to have a positive basis in the net, I'll be lenient. I don't know how Spaf
and Greg will react, but it seems to me that it's more important to do the
right thing than it is to uphold silly rules nobody cares about.

Excuse me, guidelines. 

So no, we're not changing the guidelines. And, no, you can't just vote on a
group without a discussion -- the intent of the guidelines are clear. If
there's an active discussion, implicit or explicit -- about the group, that
seems good enough for me. A formal 'call for discussion' seems like a silly
formality when it's already being discussed.

Have fun intentionally misinterpreteing everything I just said. I"m looking
forward to seeing you do to this what you've been doing to peter. Should be
fun.

-- 

Chuq Von Rospach   <+>   chuq@apple.com   <+>   [This is myself speaking]

An argument requires two voices. Without the opposition, it's just a
whine.  To argue, you have to listen to and rebut the opposition. Most
USENET arguments aren't. They're simply two monologues happening at once.