From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Subject: Re: CALL FOR STRAW VOTE: NATIVE NEWSGROUP
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 11:22:40 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.212919.13771@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
        hades@Dartmouth.Edu writes:

> floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) writes:
>
> >A straw poll is one way to measure a consensus.  If it indicates
> >that there is none, then more discussion is called for...
>
>     The reason to have the Straw Poll is to find out what the most
> popular name for the group is. If you are going to continue to discuss
> that name after the results of the Straw Poll have been posted, then why
> are you having a Straw Poll in the first place?

But there's nothing at all binding about a straw poll.  I'd like to go back
to a recent answer to Mike Wilson's question about his attempts (since dis-
continued) to influence the outcome of the vote he recently initiated:

| From: ksdavis@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Karleen S. Davis)
| Subject: Re: CALL FOR STRAW VOTE: NATIVE NEWSGROUP
| Message-ID: <BzDKAD.BGz@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
| Organization: Indiana University
| References: <idoy.724520011@crux1.cit.cornell.edu>
| Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 23:08:37 GMT
|
| idoy@crux1.cit.cornell.edu (Mike Wilson) writes:
|
| > ETHICAL QUESTION REGARDING STRAW VOTES
| >
| > I have been chomping at the bit to campaign amongst all
| > my net friends to vote for the name of the newsgroup
| > that I like, but I am told that campaigning for these
| > votes is maybe unethical.
|
| Well, it depends on what you want.  The purpose of straw polls, in my
| impression, is to determine what the best name would be in order to
| give the newsgroup the best chance of passing.  If you want the
| newsgroup to eventually pass, it is in your best interest to LISTEN to
| the opinions of the net when you ask them, rather than choosing a name
| yourself and campaigning people to vote for it in the straw.  Your
| eventual official voters are sending you their opinions now.  Listen
| to them so that when you do bring this to an official vote, the voting
| population will be happy with what you eventually propose.  If you
| skew the results with your own opinion and excitement for it, then you
| run the risk of losing out when the greater net retaliates by voting
| against the name they don't like.
|
| -sz

I really agree with this statement, and feel that one can legitimately
look on the results of a straw poll as something of a "bellweather," or
a general indication of how people are feeling about an issue.  Perhaps
the last straw poll before an actual vote is special, though, since the
discussion period is declared officially over at that point, and it is
the last opportunity to assess how people feel about an issue.  But, let's
not "confuse the menu with the meal" here.  We're not talking about how
many people approve of the newsgroup, but rather what name appeals to
folks, which could, in turn, affect how well received the ensuing proposal
that does actually get voted on might be.  So I feel we should be able to
look on the outcome of the straw poll as some measure of who holds what
opinions.  Also, since some people do read discussions without themselves
participating in those discussions actively, it may be the only good way
to get a sense of what a larger readership currently feels about the issue
under discussion.

A preliminary straw poll, therefore, gives an indication to the parties
in a debate how successful they have been in influencing the opinions of
others, and how far they have to go to succeed in convincing others.  One
decision a person may make after seeing the results of a straw poll is to
give more careful consideration to an opinion which s/he had not really
been very convinced by in the past, and it could impel one of the active
debators to sharpen his/her arguments on the one hand, or to "throw in
the towel" on the other.

I think that a straw poll has lots of uses besides just serving as the
formal indicator of how people will vote when a question is put to them,
and that it is quite legitimate and reasonable to continue discussion on
the subject voted on following the straw poll.  Otherwise, the temptation
would be stronger to try to influence such a vote by getting one's other-
wise unconcerned friends to help, which was what Mike was asking about in
a note to which the article from Karleen quoted above responds, and the risk
proportionally greater that the value of the straw poll would be reduced.

> >>    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 with a similar topic as the group in
> >>question...

> >That is just not true.  You, for instance, invited the NN mailing
> >list readers to vote in a CFV that you posted.  You also called
> >for a CFV very quickly after the subject was posted to NN if I
> >remember right...

>     I never invited the readers of any mailing list to vote in any CFV
> that I was running. Btw, what is the NN mailing list? And just which
> vote are you talking about, I've run several...

I believe Floyd is talking about the vote with most direct applicability
to the present discussion, namely the "soc.culture.native.american" vote
which Brian held a while back.  The "NN mailing list" Floyd refers to is
the NativeNet "NATIVE-L" mailing list (one of a number of mailing lists
operated by NativeNet).  Floyd has not claimed that Brian invited members
of that list to vote, but I think the implication of his remarks is that
the members of NATIVE-L *did* in fact take part in the vote.  In fact,
they voted in significant numbers (I have a copy of the final results with
itemizations of who voted which way, and so it wouldn't be too difficult
to determine how influential the members of NATIVE-L were in the vote;
my sense is that the majority of them voted in favor of the proposal, and
that the vote (which as Brian recently said, lost by two votes) would not
have been as close had the NATIVE-L people not been involved in the ballot.

[ It should be mentioned that "NativeNet" is not an organizational entity;
  it is merely the name applied to a collection of mailing lists about the
  Native peoples of the world.  For more details, please send a message
  containing the text:

        get nn-intro purpose

  ("Subject:" line optional) to the address listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu. ]

> >We should all be clear that votes are NOT restricted to Usenet
> >readers.
>
>     If you did not read the CFV in one of the group that is was posted
> to, then you shouldn't be voting. I'm not trying to make things
> difficult here, but I have had this very same discussion with a number
> of the people who wrote the current Guidelines, and in fact I used to
> hold the same opinion that you do. I have learned that I was incorrect
> in my support, and only those readers who actually read UseNet groups
> are considered to be valid voters.

The question of who is correct can be answered fairly simply by refer-
ring to the voting guidelines themselves.  It had been a while since I
read those guidelines, so I've just gone back and done so.  They make for
interesting reading, actually.  :-)

I see nothing whatsoever in the guidelines that talk about someone's
qualifications to vote.  The guidelines *are* the official rules by which
votes are conducted and evaluated; any informal understandings of the
intent of the authors of the guidelines are just that.  If it is felt
that something else, like the qualifications of voters should be in the
guidelines, the guidelines should be changed.  Until that time, they are
what governs votes.  Does anyone disagree with this statement, and, if
so, on what grounds?

For those who are not aware of the facts, the guidelines are periodically
cross-posted to news.announce.newusers, news.groups, news.admin,
news.announce.newgroups, and news.answers under the subject heading
"How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup."  The most recent edition I could
locate is dated 18 October 1992, and was posted by Greg Woods.

I do admit that the guidelines spell out how the vote and the preceding
discussion period should be announced on Usenet, but it does not forbid
broadcasting the vote to other interested parties by any means, nor does
it say anything about whether the computer systems holding the accounts
of potential voters have a Usenet news feed or news reading/posting soft-
ware.

But I don't want to base my claim that members of the NativeNet mailing
lists should have a voice in this vote on a mere "legal" technicality.
I think there are far more important and compelling reasons to feel that
members of these mailing lists have a legitimate and important role to
play in the vote, which I shall try to explain here...

It is my own view, particularly in light of recent world events, that
nationalistic sentiments are usually more hurtful than helpful, and that
distinctions people make between themselves and others "like" them and
those who are considered "different" are at the heart of many, if not
most, of the global problems we face today.  Usenet offers us a micro-
cosm of that situation, and we constantly see bickering in a variety of
newsgroups based on what, in my view, amounts to one form or another of
petty chauvinism or parochialism, whether it is based on race or nation-
ality or one's religion considering computer hardware or software.  One
of my primary motivations, in fact, in supporting the move toward creating
a public forum for the exchange of ideas and information about indigenous
peoples is to try to break down barriers, and to promote greater under-
standing among the peoples of the world.  I recognize that other goals,
*including* building greater solidarity with others who share one's own
ethnicity and culture are valid uses of whatever newsgroup(s) are created
in this process on which we are embarked here.

To me, the distinctions bred between "have Usenet news" and "don't have
Usenet news" are really accidental and unimportant for our present pur-
poses.  The fact is that we have many thousands of people - human beings -
all over the world who have discovered that computer communications are an
excellent means of learning about subjects which are difficult to explore
in other ways.  People use a variety of computer hardware and software, but
to many of these people, these devices are just the means of accomplishing
certain functions, one of which is reaching out to others with similar in-
terests to their own.  It matters not to people whose main interest is in
a certain subject area what the other people look like, or whether they are
young or old, or disabled in some way or not - it's the ideas and the infor-
mation and the chance to enrich the lives of ourselves and others that are
most important to most of us who use computer communications on a regular
basis to cultivate our interests.  I can understand objections to such link-
ages when they are between two very different cultures where the difference
concerns the way that people approach considerations of issues, based on
education or experience.  (Interestingly, I would have reservations about
linking with Fidonet conferences, which Brian seems to accept without
reservation, primarily based on their involving a very different "culture"
from the primarily academic one of both Usenet and the NativeNet mailing
lists.  But, lest I be accused of my own brand of elitism, let me hasten
to add that reservations are not the same as objections, and this is a
subject on which I have not reached any firm hypotheses, let alone solid
conclusions.)

I suggest that all of these concerns like what kind of computer hardware
or software people use in their communications with one another is some-
thing like what brand of telephone someone uses, or what services are pro-
vided by the local switching office, such as whether they have three-way
calling or some special low-cost pathway to a remote location that others
do not.  To be concerned about such things seems to miss the point of the
whole exercise, which is communicating.

The import of what I'm saying here is that I don't see this business of
creating one or more new Usenet newsgroups to be primarily about adding
one or two more nodules to an ever-growing tree that we call "Usenet," so
much as I see it being about putting in place a mechanism which can help
people interested in a certain subject - native/indigenous/aboriginal
(take your pick) peoples and the people who comprise those societies, and
those who are members of other societies to link up and share information
and ideas with one another.  Usenet folks (computer folks in general,
actually) sometimes develop a certain elitist sense about themselves and
the little and not so little societies they create with one another that
is not unlike what happens in other dimensions of human experience and
activity wherein the "haves" look with a certain disdain and ironic pity
upon the "have-nots."  The process is most often very unconscious and
without malicious intent, but its results can, IMHO, be very hurtful none-
theless.

To get down to the actual case we have before us, then, we're talking about
whether there is any justification for excluding participation from a process
of selecting a name for one or more new Usenet newsgroups, and whether there
should be one or two new groups of a group of people who are primarily those
without access to the specific software and networking arrangements which
enables "Usenet" to operate.  I submit the important question to ask our-
selves here is whether what differences there are between these people and
those who do have Usenet access should really make a difference in how we
see these people and their voting eligibility.

In submitting a case for permitting participation of these people not based
solely on the fact that there are no prohibitions from doing so in the "How
to Create..." guidelines, I offer the following evidence:

  1. The sense of strictly Usenet users cannot be accurately or adequately
     determined, since there is no natural pre-existing constituency which
     has an interest in the subject matter.  The fact that it is often nec-
     cessary to first create a generic newsgroup and to then permit it to
     be differentiated is, I submit, an outgrowth of this fact:  it takes a
     while to build up sufficient numbers in a newsgroup to reach the point
     where differentiation makes sense and can gain the necessary support.

  2. Polling those who are interested in the subject matter whose primary
     means of access to a forum happens not to be Usenet news software is,
     I feel, a good means of assessing methods for dividing up the subject
     matter, which is the prime issue before us, looked at in one way (I'll
     come back to this subject in addressing Brian's contentions about the
     adequacy of the soc.culture.* newsgroups for certain purposes).  I see
     the subject of what to call something to be primarily a matter of what
     function the thing is expected to perform.  Thus, if someone were to
     raise the argument, "what business does someone who doesn't even have
     access to Usenet have in deciding a name that *we* use to refer to it,
     I suggest that the name is really reflective of what we include and
     what we exclude in talking about it.  One part of the name ("native,"
     "indigenous," "aboriginal") is really unimportant for purposes of this
     division, but comes more from a sense of how it is best to designate
     the overall subject matter.  On a matter like this, the collective
     wisdom of people in mailing-list land could be helpful in deciding
     what name to submit in the CFV, and soon those people will be adding
     their voices to this discussion, so we will have an opportunity to see
     how well it all works.

  3. The other part of the naming consideration is more crucial, I think,
     for immediately practical purposes, and here there is an even stronger
     case to be made for getting not just the counsel, but the active parti-
     cipation in the vote itself from the non-Usenet people.  In this case,
     we want to determine whether there are important reasons for starting
     out with two newsgroups, rather than one.  This matter is primarily one
     of looking at the amount of traffic which could be expected in each
     category.  It seems to be general Usenet practice to think seriously
     about splitting information and discussion when traffic gets high enough
     that it becomes a nuisance for readers to sort things out themselves, or
     when the express intent of a given newsgroup (like the "comp.sources.*"
     newsgroups) is to provide a certain type of material that has a given
     character which is non-conversational in nature.  I think we really have
     such a situation here, as I will elaborate in future articles which say
     more about the nature of the NativeNet mailing lists.

  4. Brian has attempted to make a case for making the decision of whether
     to construct a gateway between Usenet newsgroups and NativeNet mailing
     lists to be solely the province of Usenet users.  I submit that this
     decision is one which equally well concerns the people on the mailing
     list side, and in which they should have an equal voice.  And having
     those discussions separately amounts, in my mind, to pre-judging the
     very issue we are trying to decide, by admitting some important dif-
     ference between the two groups which I maintain is accidental to begin
     with.  Therefore, I feel that even the question of whether the gateway
     should be constructed is one in which mailing list people should have
     an equal voice, and the Usenet vote offers an implicit means of deter-
     mining the answer to that question, and the best way of doing so at that.
     (It will be made clear to people from the NativeNet community that to
     vote in favor of the Usenet proposal(s) is to vote in favor of estab-
     lishing a gateway.  Those mailing-listers who withold their vote or who
     vote against the proposal indicate their disapproval of the idea.

  5. At least at the outset, the bulk of the submissions to the new Usenet
     newsgroups can be expected to come from the mailing list community.
     Therefore, it's really Usenet that stands to benefit most from the
     arrangement, and to sacrifice nothing important in the process.

I feel that anyone who disagrees with permitting the votes of people who do
not have direct Usenet access should attempt to answer these points.

Brian continues:

>     No, I am not against increased traffic. All I want is for things to
> be done right. And just gatewaying a mailing list to a newsgroup with a
> similar topic, without holding some kind of vote is just wrong.

Who would the voters be, in the absence of a real constituency on Usenet
for the idea of the newsgroup?  And on what basis is the gateway idea
wrong?  As I've stated before, there are no regulations governing the
source of material posted to a given newsgroup, as long as it's on-topic
with regard to the subject matter of the discussion.  Similarly, there
are no regulations for what is done with material obtained from Usenet
newsgroups, except possibly as relates to copyright laws.  People do in
fact copy from mailing lists to Usenet and vice-versa continually.  All
a gateway does in this situation is to automate the process and make it
more efficient.  It also cuts down on the duplications which come from
two or more people copying the same material from one forum to the other.

> >Repeating that won't make it true.  What about people who read
> >articles taken from usenet and gatewayed to FidoNet?  Can they
> >vote in Usenet votes?  Of course they can.
>
>     Then they are reading the posts in UseNet groups, but they are not
> just on a mailing list and having the someone telling them where to send
> their votes.

We're getting into some tricky definitional areas here, methinks.  When is
Usenet not Usenet?  :-)  The primary mechanism for Fido conferencing is
essentially mail.  People do not have private mailboxes, they have shared
areas for exchanging mail.  If you want to check for personal mail, the
system scans a given public mailbox for mail addressed to you.  Confer-
ences are handled via an identical mechanism, using different mailboxes.
In my mind, Fidonet gateways are very similar to mailing lists.  The only
difference is one of implementation, in that mailboxes are shared rather
than being private.  Why should that "difference" make a real difference
in how you decide voting eligibility?

> >Sour grapes don't really taste too good.  You won't get it
> >invalidated for that reason.
>
>     Believe me, I'm not trying to stop the creation of this group, but
> you would be surprised how easy it is to get a vote ivalidated.

Well, we have the collective wisdom of the net to help us sort out these
issues.  If someone besides Brian wants to challenge our reasoning in
permitting and encouraging people on the NativeNet mailing list to vote,
now is the time to announce that intent, I think, in fairness to those of
us who intend to encourage participation in the discussion and vote by
those without direct Usenet access.  I would like us to be able to evalu-
ate and comment on whatever points are made in explaining those objections.
I am not saying that Brian's voice doesn't count, only that I'd like to
hear if others feel the same way that he does, and on what basis.

> >It is not redundant.  Someone also suggested that alt.culture.alaskan
> >was a proper forum for discussing Alaska Native cultures, and I pointed
> >out that the group is for discussing everything BUT Native cultures.
> >And so too is the case of the massive list of soc.culture.* groups.
>
>     Oh... so you have read the charters, and follow the discussion in
> all of these groups? Well, neither do I, but I think that some
> consideration should be given to the fact that these groups already
> exist. You can't tell me that s.c.africa, s.c.asia, and s.c.indian (just
> to name a few) are not for the discussion of native people of those
> areas, because that is exactly what they are for.

Here we go again...

Please be advised, everyone, that the nature of the relationship of the
people native to a given region with those who presently comprise those
in power and whose notions of culture reign is often very unequal and
unfair.  This situation is not limited to North America.  What we find
around the world is that colonial powers have extended their own cultures
and systems of government and notions of what is important and what is
"primitive," so that members of indigenous groups become disenfranchised
(as in South Africa) and/or made a minority (as in the U.S. and Canada).
Sometimes the means of control are through more subtle forms of repres-
sion (as in much of Latin America).  In some cases, there are not recog-
nizable cultures of "indigenous" peoples, or the situation is made very
murky by repeated waves of colonization and warfare that has produced a
homogenizing effect.  In those cases, I would submit that the question
is moot.  My vision of "soc.culture.{native,indigenous,aboriginal}.*" is
that it support a set of newsgroups which seek to unify the discussion
of, by, and about the indigenous populations of many parts of the world,
which is the growing tendency among the leadership of those populations,
as they find themselves increasingly beset by similar pressures, regard-
less of locale or the details of local political conditions.

I think we need to clarify our notions of what the newsgroup creation
guidelines actually say, and what their real intent is, as well as to
get a little larger perspective on the questions before us.

Gary
--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts              {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.native