From: ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Waiz Ahmed)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: My objections to the survey... (just an opinion)
Date: 6 Nov 1992 00:02:38 -0500
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: curie.systemsy.cs.yale.edu



When the survey was first posted, I read through it, asked myself what
the point was, and decided not to participate.  I had several reasons
for it, and hence decided to abstain.  Khaled (one of the authors of
the survey questionaire), noted the fact that I had not sent in my
answers, and asked me why I was not responding to the survey.  We had
a little discussion by email, and we disagreed about the validity of
my reasons for abstaining.  He has asked me to voice my objections
publicly, and thus I will do so.  Personally, I would have been happy
keeping my reservations to myself and simply not participating, but
since I have been asked to post them, I shall do so.

SCB is a free forum for anyone to post what they like.   It isn't
meant as a news service, nor as an entertainment center.  It's simply
a bulletin board.  How often does one conduct surveys of bulletin
boards?  What would such a survey accomplish?  To me it seems it is
just an ideal excuse for groups of people to fingerpoint at others as
people they dislike and hence promote some kind of "ranking" on SCB,
i.e. a possible introduction of polarization on a semi-official scale.
What would it accomplish?  So it would turn out that certain things
are liked by a number of people, and other things are not.  Will the
survey change anything?  It can't.  Does the survey say anything?  I
don't see how.

More importantly, conducting a survey where one can specify ones
gripes and likes gives off the illusion that there is an authority to
whom one can direct such comments.  There isn't, and that wouldn't be
in the spirit of an unmoderated newsgroup.  I basically object to any
kind of bureaucratization of SCB.  An organized survey, in my opinion,
cannot contribute anything good to the general status of SCB, if
anything, it could promote some negative feedback.  Surveys are useful
if they can be employed to improve upon something.  Any attempt to do
that would violate the very spirit of scb.  I've never seen any such
survey on any other newsgroup, and I think there is a good reason for
it...

Over email, Khaled told me that the survey will help answer the
question as to what SCB is.  The question of what SCB is, should not
be something up for debate.  It *is* a newsgroup just like every other
for the simple reason that *anyone* can post to it.  It was created in
the same manner as every other unmoderated newsgroup and there is
nothing that distinguishes it from that.  If you want an estimate of
the readership, you can read news.lists and get a very good estimate
with more statistics than any survey is going to give you.  As for who
reads it, again in a forum like SCB, people have the right to be
silent readers, and they will be unlikely to reply.  Those who want to
communicate, post anyway, and so you see who they are.  For me, SCB is
a WYSIWYG system! (What You See Is What You Get)

In short, my main objection is that an organized survey gives off the
illusion of a controlling authority behind SCB.  Yet the people who
are conducting the survey cannot implement any changes based on the
result.  They may conduct the poll for their own curiosity, but I
question what useful results that could yield.  But it is precisely
because SCB is a free-for-all forum that they have every right to
conduct such a survey!  That doesn't mean that I have to participate.
:)  Again, I was simply going to refrain from participating and keep
my mouth shut, but since I was asked to voice my objections...

-- Shakil Ahmed
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh