From: barrett@daisy.ee.und.ac.za (Alan P Barrett)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 18 Nov 92 11:23:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: daisy.1ecr0sINNfvn
Organization: Dept. Elec. Eng., Univ. Natal, Durban, S. Africa
NNTP-Posting-Host: daisy.ee.und.ac.za

In article <1992Nov16.233246.23002@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>,
dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
> >Your claim that they care about keeping
> >the old name contradicts your claim that they don't care about the name.
> Mish mash my points all you want. I've said it already. "They care
> about the name but they don't care about the politics of news.groups. 
> NOW some care about the politics of news.groups, but it's not because
> they want to."

Oh.  OK.  That's not how I understood it before.  I was not deliberately
trying to mish-mash your points.

[some old context reinstated.  --apb]
> >> >You have said that many readers have left the group as a direct
> >> >result of the name change, but I cannot understand why this
> >> >should be.  Could you try to explain their reasons in more detail?
> >> I am not them. No I cannot. 
> >Hmm.  I thought that your were claiming to be working on their behalf.  If
> >so, how can you do so without knowledge of their arguments?  
> I know their arguments. I was suggesting that perhaps you go to the source
> of them, rather than to take my word for it (which most people don't do 
> anyway). 

You know their arguments?  Then why can you not explain them?

You want me to go to the source?  But (elsewhere) you have refused to
identify the people who have allegedly left the group as a direct result
of the name change.

> >Perhaps you could explain exactly what part of the spirit of the
> >guidelines has allegedly been broken, and in what way it has been
> >broken?  Is it the part about giving notice to the affected groups?
> Yes. The affected group was not given explicit and clear notice that
> their group name would be changed. 

I have read the announcements that were posted to r.m.synth, and I
agree that they could have been better, and that it would be useful to
modify the guidelines to force such announcements to be better in future,
but I do not agree that the announcements were insufficient.  There is
no point in our discussing this further:  you will not change my mind,
and I do not think it likely that I will change yours.

> >>> You have been saying that folk in rec.music.synth are harmed [...]
> >>> It seems to me that you have not provided a good explanation of
> >>> exactly *how* they would be harmed.
> We've been over this before. Go back over the old posts. 

I went over the old posts.  I could not find a decent explanation of how
the r.m.symnth readers would be harmed by the name change.  Could you
cite the message-ids of the articles where you explain it?

> >>> I claim that the entire net is affected by every vote, because every
> >>> vote affects the namespace that we all share.
> I don't buy this on philosophical grounds. That's all I'll say on the
> matter, otherwise we are both going to disagree. 

OK.

--apb
Alan Barrett, Dept. of Electronic Eng., Univ. of Natal, Durban, South Africa
RFC822: barrett@ee.und.ac.za                    Bang: m2xenix!undeed!barrett
Newsgroups: news.groups