From: dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: PROPOSAL:  Yes votes >= 200+2*No Votes
Date: 23 Dec 92 12:43:11 GMT
Distribution: news
Organization: A.R.M. Ltd, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs, UK

In article <EMCGUIRE.92Dec22050730@fuller.intellection.com>
emcguire@intellection.com (Ed McGuire) writes:

>In article <id.UE0W._OK@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>
>   I see. You have decided (by psychic assistance, I assume) that the
>   interest level is too low therefor you vote "NO", artificially
>   lowering the interest level. Brilliant.
>
>I'll repeat it for you, Peter.  No mind reading is necessary.  I
>simply read the charter.  If the charter says the volume is there then
>I vote for the group.  If the group is of interest to us then I vote
>for the group anyway.  Otherwise, I vote against the group.

I've no argument with the "interest" criterion, but has it ever occurred to
you to consider what the *purpose* of a newsgroup charter is? It is to
describe what topics are suitable for the group - *not* to justify its
existence. Somebody who is trying to keep the charter succinct and to the
point probably won't say anything about whether there is existing volume for
the group.

Obviously, some people will nevertheless say something about existing volume
in the charter. If the charter says there is existing volume, you can
probably conclude that there is. But if it doesn't say anything about
existing volume, you have NO evidence whether there is existing volume or
not.

The question of whether the group is justified should be settled in the
discussion period, and usually is. If you followed every discussion, you
would have reasonable evidence to decide whether there is existing volume -
though you'd probably also get very bored with the process of making these
decisions :-). But trying to decide it from the charter alone is ridiculous.

Of course, as Peter observes below, the question of whether there is
*existing* volume is often irrelevant anyway. All you need is enough
potential volume - i.e. enough people who are interested in the topic.

>   Has it ever occurred to you that there are reason that traffic on a
>   topic might be low other than lack of interest. For example, there
>   being no existing group appropriate to the topic?
>
>What is the standard line we give to people who ask, "I don't see an
>XXX group, what do I do?"  We direct them to a related or .misc group,
>or suggest that they start a mailing list.  We add that if/when the
>topic establishes itself and outgrows its first home, then they should
>propose a new group.

I've seen quite a few newsgroups started in this way. The usual reason for
the change from a mailing list to a newsgroup is that the list has got too
big to be easily maintained, and it typically happens at the level of a
couple of hundred subscribers to the list. Given that some people won't vote
and there's always a few people who vote against even the best proposals, I
reckon this is about the right number of interested people to vote a
newsgroup into existence.

In other words, if the level of interest in the topic is high enough to get
it to pass a Usenet vote, a mailing list maintainer is liable to have
trouble from day 1. If we were to insist that every new topic goes through a
mailing list stage before being considered as a newsgroup, the result would
simply be a lot more hassle all round: somebody would have to maintain a
large mailing list for at least two months, all the users of the mailing
list would have to change over to the group when it was created, etc. In
short, I believe that *if* enough interest can be shown in the topic, it is
better to go for a newsgroup from the start.

This is what the current procedure does. If someone with a new group in mind
thinks there's insufficient interest, they either do nothing or start a
mailing list and see whether it grows. If they think there is sufficient
interest, they propose the group. Sometimes they get persuaded otherwise
during the discussion period and drop the proposal - possibly starting a
mailing list instead. If this doesn't happen, the proposal goes to a vote.
If the vote passes, they were right about the interest level and everybody
is saved the problems of an unworkably large mailing list. If the vote
fails, they were obviously wrong about there being sufficient interest - but
they are *still* free to start a mailing list instead.

Why not simply stop trying to decide whether there is enough volume for the
group? Vote for the group if you want it, vote against it if you believe
there is something wrong with the name (or illegal about the charter or
something similar), and abstain otherwise. Don't regard your *impression* as
to whether there will be adequate volume as important: a much more reliable
indicator of potential volume is simply whether enough people vote for the
group to make it pass.

Net result: you save time, because you avoid having to decide how to vote on
most groups, and the net gets a *genuine* interest survey, not a survey of
how people *think* an interest survey would turn out.

David Seal
dseal@armltd.co.uk

All opinions are mine only...