From: hartman@ulogic.UUCP (Richard M. Hartman)
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy
Subject: Re: Newsgroup creation guidelines
Date: 5 Jan 93 22:30:30 GMT
Organization: negligable

In article <1iajn6INNot4@gaia.ucs.orst.edu> stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley) writes:
>In article <1993Jan04.213001.63448@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
>>I don't think multiple ballots are any more difficult for the
>>vote taker.  Many vote takers count ballots by automated software,
>>and therefore in that case the vote taker's work is O(1).
>
>Examining the vote results for duplicates is not an easy job. Requiring
>two separate votes for two similar proposals will double the effort
>required to eliminate dupes. That makes it more difficult.
>
>Requiring two separate ballots for two similar votes will double the
>amount of mail that needs to be handled, in both quantity and volume. If
>the vote taker is archiving votes and not just tallying results, then
>that doubles the amount of material to be archived. While this is not
>physically harder for the vote taker, it is more of a hardship on the
>system being used to tally the votes. 

In addition it requires the setting up of yet-another-automated-vote-handler.

If the votes are reasonably associated as two aspects of one proposal,
put them on the same ballot.  If not, don't.

A fairly standard situation:

Proposal: unmoderate comp.lang.foo and rename it to comp.lang.foo386

typical reply:
	make it two votes:
		1) rmgroup comp.lang.foo (moderated)
		2) newgroup comp.lang.foo386

Ok, we had a single proposal that requires (under the standards
that have been established) two votes.  Depending upon the voting
we *may* end up with:

	a) no action:  comp.lang.foo remains, moderated
	b) desired action: comp.lang.foo gone; comp.lang.foo83 created, unmoderated
	c) bad news: comp.lang.foo remains; comp.lang.foo83 created, unmoderated
	d) worse news: comp.lang.foo gone; comp.lang.foo83 not enough votes

There have been discussions in news.groups that support the validity
of the c & d outcomes above as legitimate, meaning roughly (my interpretation
if you really want to get into the validity & meanings of 'em that's
another subject):

	c) foo is a dead language, we're all chatting about bar anyway
	d) there is interesting technical stuff in the moderated group
		that would be too hard to fish out of the unmoderated group,
		but we also want a place for free-form discussions...

Nonetheless, if the two votes are on the same ballot it shows clearly
that the two concepts are related, and outcomes a & b are much more
likely than if two ballots are required.

Otoh, if joe_user@anysite.ORG has bunches of ideas, and wants to
propose:

	1) new group: rec.hanggliding
	2) new group: comp.sys.wowee
	3) new group: talk.about.talking

These are clearly separate issues, and should be on separate
ballots.


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
But I am frightened for you, children,		|
that the life that we are living is in vain,	|	-Richard Hartman	
and the sunshine we've been waiting for		|	hartman@uLogic.COM
has turned to rain....				|
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.admin.misc