Xref: utzoo news.groups:18178 news.admin:8396
Path: utzoo!mnetor!geac!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin
Subject: Re: Domain Charters
Message-ID: <38951@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 25 Feb 90 20:05:49 GMT
References: <_.W1K12xds8@ficc.uu.net> <1990Feb23.202301.3363@everexn.uucp>
Organization: Fictional Reality: where your dreams can come true
Lines: 43

karen@everexn.uucp (Karen Valentino) writes:
>jeffd@ficc.uu.net (Jeff Daiell) writes:

>>Let me second the call for explicit domain charters.  A one-line
>>description hasn't been enough, it seems.

>>Would someone braver than me like to volunteer Chuq to write them?
>>{|8^)]

>I'll second a motion to ask Chuq to write them, but I want to have some
>say in the process, too.  I like having my fingers in the creation pie.

Ahem. Actually, at this point I think I'd like to withdraw my name, for a
couple of reasons. One is time -- I have one story outline overdue for an
anthology and a second one due as soon as I finish the first [so why am I
spending all this time on the c.s.m reorg? If anyone comes up with a good
answer to that one, please let me know]. There's also Marowan, my
novel-that-hasn't-been-touched-since-Christmas. 

Another is simply that, since there haven't been charters, many of the
domains are (to put it mildly) hodgepodges of things. Trying to come up with
a cogent definition of what they are will be almost impossible, and coming
up with a definition of what they should be will simply upset those who's
existing groups are excluded. I think it'd turn into a fairly fractious and
extended (but not necessarily successful) endeavor.

If you want formal charters, the best thing to do would be to seriously
consider a Great Renaming, where the entire namespace is rethought and stuff
Put In Its Place. That'll be a way to figure out what domains need to exist,
how to define them and what belongs in them, and would be the only want to
get a consensus opinion on things. Then all we'd need to do is implement it.

>Where will these charters live?

same place as the guidelines and stuff live: n.a.newusers and wherver else
that stuff gets posted these days.

-- 

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

I don't know what's scarier: President Reagan saying he had no inkling of 
his aides doing anything illegal, or an ex-president who uses the word inkling.