From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.native
Subject: Re: CALL FOR STRAW VOTE: NATIVE NEWSGROUP
Date: 17 Dec 92 22:07:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: gnosys.1992Dec17.220727.17705

Just a brief answer for now.  A longer one later, perhaps.

In article <1992Dec17.173313.11161@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
	hades@Dartmouth.Edu writes:

> gst@spdcc.com (Gary S. Trujillo) writes:
> 
> >OK.  Sounds good.  In order to do the kind of evaluation I'd most like to do,
> >I'd like to strongly encourage people to indicate first, second, and third
> >choices.
> 
>     That makes it a little tough for Mike to tally the votes. How about
> people assign weights to their choices: 3 for first choice, 2 for second
> choice, and 1 for third choice. That way we could have total weight
> given to a name, as well as total votes given to a name.

I feel there are two separate questions before us - whether to make the
newsgroup international or for American indigenous peoples' subjects only.
Placing weights on things may or may not give the appropriate results.  I
suggest we all think about it.  Please see my proposal posted recently for
another way to conduct the straw poll.  Comments on that one are welcome.

> >Also, I suggest that we consider whatever results are obtained from this
> >poll to be preliminary, since they will indicate only the opinions of
> >the current readers of news.groups, and maybe a few from alt.native, to
> >which many of these articles have been cross-posted.
> 
>     Then why are we having the straw poll in the first place? If all
> that is going to come out of it is more name discussion, then we won't
> have really accomplished anything...

Straw poll results are preliminary and tentative *by definition*, actually.
More discussion must ensue if we are to evaluate and profit from whatever
results are obtained from that ballot.

> >I would like to recommend that, whatever the results of Mike's straw
> >poll, the issue of the name of the newsgroup which appears in the CFV
> >be deferred until early in January, since it seems fair to wait until
> >people are back from their holidays...
> 
>     That sounds cool, but we will have to be a bit lax with the
> Guidelines, since the RFD is only supposed to last a max. of 30 days
> from the time it appears in news.announce.newgroups. If Dave Lawrence
> doesn't have a problem with it, then we will be ok.

The whole tenor of our discussion goes against even accepting the present
RFD as valid, since it indicates a name that we are now questioning by
even holding the straw ballot.  The RFD was issued prematurely, as should
be clear by the fact that we're even discussing names, unless I just don't
understand the rules (which is possible), and it is permitted to change
the name submitted in the RFD before the actual vote takes place - in which
case, you can just ignore this paragraph. :-)

>     The general consensus on UseNet is that the readers of UseNet
> determine what happens here, and not the participants of some other
> group of people like a mailing list...

The general consensus isn't what counts, it's what's written in the posted
rules governing creation of new newsgroups.  I don't recall anything in
those rules saying one had to have Usenet news installed on his/her system
in order to take part in the vote.  It's been a while since I read the
rules, but I can easily do so.  Can someone clarify this point?

> >Since it is my intent that the mailing list be integrated with the new
> >newsgroup(s)...

>     This is something that I have a big problem with. If there is going
> to be a gateway between this group and a mailing list, then I think that
> it is an issue that should be voted upon by the members of UseNet...

Again, I refer you to the rules.  I have included a question in my sample
straw poll to informally assess peoples' feelings on this subject, but I
don't think there's a rule that specifies that that issue must be voted
on.  We're talking about a benign anarchy here, folks - that's what Usenet
is, and what it wants to be.  Anyone with net access can pump whatever s/he
wants into a newsgroup.  Yes, such a person can be ostracized, or even
banished by having his/her net privileges revoked for some flagrant excess -
but there are no rules governing such things.  (I'm not suggesting I advocate
pumping garbage into a newsgroup, but I do think it is legitimate to gate
relevant material into a Usenet newsgroup, and it's done all the time.  Take
a look at sci.environment or soc.rights.human some time.  There are folks at
IGC (Institute for Global Communications: PeaceNet/EcoNet) who regularly copy
large volumes of articles from IGC newsgroups (like Amnesty International's
bulletins and the American Wind Energy Ass'n.  newsletters).  I have never
heard any criticism of such things.  What's wrong with providing access to
Usenet for people whose grungy systems don't provide it and for giving access
to the minds of these people to the Usenet community?  If there's no rule
against the practice, or requiring a vote to enable it, it might be for a
good reason.)

I gotta go.  More later...

Gary
--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts              {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst