HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 7 Nov 92 02:45:22 GMT
Organization: Oregon State University, College of Oceanography

In article <1992Nov6.185730.22775@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>...to affect change in an RFD...the only unmoderated place to post is 
>news.groups. That means, of course, that you have to READ it.

Only for as long as the group you are concerned about is being
discussed. AND you are quite free to use whatever kill mechanisms you
have available to remove any other clutter you don't want to see.

News.groups is hardly an elite clique. Joining it for a few weeks is
hardly going to kill anyone. And anyone who can't be bothered to join
news.groups for the short time required to talk about a group certainly
hasn't demonstrated much interest in it. 

>...most people stay away from the "news" hierarchy in general.

That is their choice. They are free to make that choice. But, when they
make that choice, they are then the ones responsible for not knowing
what is being said in the "news" hierarchy. If they choose not to
participate in the discussions related to newsgroup creation, then they
have absolutely no right to complain that they weren't participants in
the discussion related to newsgroup creation.

Every participant of r.m.s who saw the RFD and CFV's posted to r.m.s and
decided that they weren't interested in it made their decision.

>The intent
>of what I said was to imply that there is a cadre of people who decide
>things arbitrarily for the net. 

The "cadre" of people is hardly elite and has no membership requirements
other than the willingness to spend the time. The decisions that are
made are based on guidelines that are available for anyone to read,
posted regularly, and hardly arbitrarily. Those who wish to be involved
can be involved, those who don't wish to be involved don't need to be.

But, those who don't wish to be involved have made their own decision.
If they make the wrong decision, then they are the only ones who are
responsible for the results.

>>You lose this round.
>
>I don't think so. But keep trying. <grin>

Yes, Dave. The vote was held without any deviations from the
guidelines, and without deviations from precedent. The only deviation
from precedent would be holding the vote again because some people
chose to ignore the first one and now, when they are unhappy with the
results, want another vote.
From: jch+@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.games.netrek reorganization
Date: 13 Nov 92 18:20:09 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

adc@tardis.msu.edu writes
> The reason I would like to see those groups moderated is that r.g.n
> posters are notorious for their lack of self-control and going off on a
> tangent.

Uhhh, Alan, maybe if > 50% of those contributing to the newsgroup
*like* going off on a tangent, you should just live with it?
Democracy, ya know?

>> Anyhow, where did this come from? I don't remember seeing and real discussion
>>   of any sort of reorg in r.g.n recently. I'm mot sure if a reorg is really
>>   needed right now. In terms of traffic, I show 189 articles in my news spool
>>   directory and that is with a 4 day expire.
> 
> I tried to discuss it on r.g.n and got harrassed for not doing it the 
> proper way and posting an RFD.

Harassed?  You proposed it, lots of people said "no", one person said
"yes", and Tom Holub said "if you're serious, go do it on
news.groups".  I'd hardly call that harassment.  Or did you get hate
mail, send-sys's to your system, email to your postmaster, etc etc? 

> Your sample of the newsgroup load is skewed.  The light load you see at
> the time you checked isn't representative of the kind of load that's
> typically generated when a flame war begins.  No one can argues that
> flame wars on r.g.n, or any un moderated group for that matter, doesn't
> happen on a regular basis.

So learn to use threads and/or kill files.  Personally, I don't,
because there are regular gems in the flame wars, such as Suncreamer's
talk-bizzare-esq efforts. 

> Anyway 99% of those 189 articles is
> garbage; typically people with whinney remarks about other teams and
> players.

Show me which 187 out of the 189 articles are garbage.  Over the past
week we've had new clients released, discussion of organizing SB oggs,
discussion of spiral SB oggs, the ENPN poll, an increasing momentum
towards a netrek hockey league, etc etc. 

You know what generated the most "whinney" remarks?  Your proposal.

> Actually, one sees an implicit request for this split when one begins
> to count the shear number of mailing lists that are available for
> netrek.  I'm in at least three.  These lists are not mentioned in FAQs
> hence new users aren't aware of their existence.  Splitting the
> newsgroup would accomplish the same goals that these mailing lists hope
> to accomplish and yet still be readily available to new users to
> browse.

You don't have time to use a kill file or hit the 'n' key in
rec.games.netrek, yet you subscribe to three netrek mailing lists?

Jonathan H., jch@cs.cmu.edu                        Spaceman Spiff, Flying Pig
I run a Netrek information archive.   Access: [1] WAIS (gourd.srv.cs.cmu.edu, 
port 6000, name netrek-ftp)  [2] AFS (try cd /afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/jch/netrek)  
[3] Anon FTP from gs69.sp.cs.cmu.edu   [4] e-mail from ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
Xref: sparky news.groups:20559 rec.arts.poems:10990
From: cecilw@access.isc-br.com (Cecil Williams)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: vote "no" on rec.arts.poems.urdu
Date: 7 Nov 92 13:56:03 GMT
Organization: ISC-Bunker Ramo, Spokane, WA

>>  (Cecil Williams) writes the epic, first ever posted Urdu poem:
>> 
>> >	There once was a man from Urdu,
>> >	who had something bad on his shoe,
>> >	  so he went to his yard,
>> >	  and he shuffled real hard,
>> >	And tried to wipe off all the...
>> >
>> >No, maybe not. 
>> ><-:<
 
 (Naved Ali Surve) tells us yet one more time:

>> I have said this before.... Urdu is not a place,
>> It is a LANGUAGE!!! 

 (Marie Coffin) writes:

>You know, Cecil, he *does* have a point.  "There once was a man who spoke Urdu"
>scans better.  :)
>


OK, you got me there, Marie. Try this on for size...

		
Urdu Poem #2

	There was an old man, who spoke in Urdu,
	with so many poems he kept in his shoe.

	So he called for discussion, he called for a vote,
	Now let's put this to bed: Mr. Pollster, the note!



Cecil
From: twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce)
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Organization: Homosexual Fascist Lobby, Rampant Paranoia Division
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 04:24:51 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.191643.23221@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:

>lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble) writes:
>
>>The fact that a CFV appears in a newsgroup in the first place means that
>>the CFV will affect that newsgroup. 
>
>    "A request for discussion on creation of a new newsgroup should be posted
>    to news.announce.newgroups, and also to any other groups or mailing lists
>    at all related to the proposed topic if desired.
>       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>"Related" does not imply "affect". 

But it includes "affect."

-- 
____ Tim Pierce                / 
\  / twpierce@unix.amherst.edu / I use antlers in all of my decorating.
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) /
From: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 10 Nov 92 12:18:05 GMT
Organization: GSP Whitewater Slalom Racing Team

In article <1992Nov9.184923.2007@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>In article <96764@netnews.upenn.edu> rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich  
>Kulawiec) writes:
>> I should probably point out, in
>> all fairness, that people who tend to support the change would probably
>> tend to send mail to me, and people who tend to oppose the change would
>> probably send mail to you. 
>
>Do you have evidence to support this claim? Sometimes it goes in exactly  
>the opposite direction. Ever heard of hate mail?

Yes, in fact, I do have evidence to support this claim.  I now have
received 16 letters on this subject, 13 of which agree with my point,
and 3 of which disagree with it.  Dave has not specified numbers, but
his posts certainly lead me to believe that the mail in his mailbox
runs in the opposite direction; if he'd like to do a quick count and
post the numbers, then we could quantify it.

Additionally, I have 12 years of experience with Usenet; in that time,
I've been on the supporting, opposing, and neutral sides of many
propositions.  My experience indicates that the general trend I outlined
above is almost always the case.

Oh -- yes, I have heard of hate mail.

---Rsk
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Music Group Reorg Disagreement (was Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 00:42:20 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.222406.402@cs.hut.fi> killer@robin.cs.hut.fi (Kalle Kivimaa) writes:
>The moral of the story:  A bad law in a democracy is a law made by
>representatives of the people.  It is thus more moral to follow it
>than not to.  What you need to do is to change it, but anything done
>under the bad law is still legal even AFTER THE CHANGE.

Unfortunately for this argument, Usenet is not a democracy.
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.music.synth
From: igb@fulcrum.co.uk (Ian G Batten)
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Organization: Fulcrum Communications
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 08:59:13 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.000935.2031@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
> Well then, I guess you'll appreciate it when I say that there are probably
> hundreds more who cannot email who's opinions are just as important. What
> makes you able to vote in spite of them?

If they cannot e-mail, how do they read the news?  And even if they do,
what permits you to represent this alleged silent majority?  Do they
phone you up personally?  I've got ten thousand people whose names I
can't quite recall who agree with the vote.  Prove me wrong.

Why the hell are people so obsessive about names?  If gateways are so
un-fixable, how do other groups manage re-names?  People, let's do it
and move along.

ian

Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.music.synth
From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 92 23:16:42 GMT
Organization: IBM Research
Keywords: where was the CFV posted

In article <JAAPJL.92Nov5133209@cmb00.larc.nasa.gov>, jaapjl@tab00.larc.nasa.gov (J Lee Jaap) writes:
|> In article <Bx96HD.5rF@unix.amherst.edu> twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
|> 
|>    Discussion of new groups and group reorganizations goes on in
|>    news.groups.  RFDs and CFVs proposing the change are crossposted to
|>    the groups that they affect.
|> 
|> Has anybody yet dug up a copy of the CFV(s) to show whether they were
|> indeed xposted to r.m.s?  If they weren't, I'd agree that there's
|> some cause for alarm.  If they were, everything else I've seen seems
|> above reproach.  But I think it's still up to Dave to show that the
|> crossposts weren't correct, since he's challenging the vote.
|> --

I've stayed out of this discussion because I don't have a
strong view one way or the other --- either of the two
proposed names seems less good than rec.music.midi.

However, I was surprised when I saw the announcement
that the vote had passed, since I didn't remember
having seen the CFVs.  I just assumed that I had been
careless and didn't notice them, since I would have
voted had I seen them.

But now I've read all this discussion and I haven't seen
anyone who has posted that they actually saw the CFV on rec.music.synth.

If in fact the CFVs were posted only in news.groups and
not on rec.music.synth then I would agree that the
vote was flawed.  The CFVs should be posted to
all groups which will be affected by a vote.

But if the 3 CFVs were all posted to rec.music.synth,
then I'd have to agree that it's our own fault 
for not voting, and/or it's our own bad luck
that the vote didn't go the way we liked.  We should
accept the result.  

Please:  does anyone have an archive which can
conclusively show that the 3 CFVs were posted on
rms?  
-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca ()
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.games.frp.campaign
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 22:33:14 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.045113.2314@beaver.cs.washington.edu> tsang@cs.washington.edu (Donald Tsang) writes:
>In article <> cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca () writes:
>>In article <> tsang@cs.washington.edu (Donald Tsang) writes:

>(which would be the only things really forced to conform to the "good
>prose style" of which you seem to be enamored) would be of even

There is no "good prose style" policy.  Check the revised proposal.

I'll post it again in a message or two.  Any attempt to regulate GMs on the
quality of their writing style has been dropped due to massive disaproval.
I'd also like to note that in my original proposal, there was no "quality"
policy, it was added after someone claimed that most GM posts in pbem 
games were of too low quality to be of interest to the general reader.
I made the mistake of trying to make one person happy and instead angered
twenty....
From: millerl@wharton.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: rec.games.frp.campaign
Date: 9 Nov 92 22:39:58 GMT
Organization: Newt World Order

In article <1992Nov9.175147.22259@news2.cis.umn.edu|, thornley@micro.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes:
| In article <BxBLtM.H60@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu| cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca () writes:
||                      Revised Proposal (November 6, 1992)
||    1. FAQ.
||    2. Campaign moves.
||    3. GM Statistical Posts
||
| These can easily go in r.g.f.archive, a group that was specifically set
| up for some of this stuff, and one that has absolutely no traffic
| problems.  Drop these.

Agreed

||    4. Discussion of Campaigns
||
||    Controlled discussion of existing campaigns (live or net), ideas for new 
||campaigns, and campaigning in general.
||
| This is, IMHO, the good part of the proposal.  It won't work as stated.
| 
| Moderated discussion groups are a bad idea.  Moderation slows down the
| flow of conversation, and really is only of value when the topic needs
| to be enforced.  I haven't noticed much problems with off-topic posts
| in the r.g.f hierarchy so far.
| 
| I will therefore vote against this proposal if it is not amended to
| remove the duplication with r.g.f.archives and to remove the moderation.

And the name also blows chunks. Absolutely every single part of a
roleplaying game is related to the campaign. That's because every single
extended roleplaying game is called ... a "Roleplaying Campaign". Naming
a newsgroup .campaign will merely take some of what goes in .misc and
put it in .campaign, without any clear line of demarcation, forcing
everyone who reads .campaign to also read .misc in order to cover what
the net has to say about roleplaying campaigns.

-- 
whoah,
+++++++++++++++++++++++23
Loren Miller                           internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu
Mediocrity is a hand rail.                         -- Baron de Montesquieu
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.music.synth
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 10 Nov 92 00:13:05 GMT
Organization: None for me, thanks . . . I'm driving.

dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:

>> A CFV is *never* "junk mail".  Anyone who thinks otherwise should wise
>> up or learn to live with the consequences.  
>
> Since you think that way, would you please tell the entire usenet
> community that?  Make sure you reach 95% of the USENET population. 

I'm sure that Dave Lawrence is considering adding something similar to the
n.a.n documenation even as we speak.  If people choose not to read the
documentation, the results of their ignorance are *their* fault, and no one
else's.

I think it's sad that something as simple and obvious as this needs to be
added to the docs before people like you accept it as fact, though.

--
Lazlo (lazlo@triton.unm.edu)
From: jaapjl@tab00.larc.nasa.gov (J Lee Jaap)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Music Group Reorg Disagreement (was Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored)
Date: 13 Nov 1992 00:12:02 GMT
Organization: AS&M Inc
Reply-To: J Lee Jaap <J.L.Jaap@larc.nasa.gov>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cmb00.larc.nasa.gov
In-reply-to: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov's message of Thu, 12 Nov 1992 05:33:50 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.053350.4155@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes) writes:

   >Funny how, were your assumption to be true, that of all those people
   >who POST to rec.music.synth that Dave Hayes counted, NOBODY started
   >such a "large noise" about it in that group. 

   Straw Man. The noise is starting now. Deal with the present.

PAST: the vote passed according to objective evidence

PRESENT: discuss changing the Guidelines, to avoid this type of
	problem in the future

Dave, deal with the present yourself.  Please.
--
J Lee Jaap <J.L.Jaap@LaRC.NASA.Gov> +1 804/864-2148
    employed by, not speaking for, AS&M Inc, at
         NASA LaRC, Hampton VA 23681-0001
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Subject: Re: Music Group Reorg Disagreement (was Re: *BAD*...)
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 14:21:04 GMT
Organization: TC Telemanagement, Clearwater, FL

According to dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov:
>According to guidelines, if it was misconducted it would have to be
>dropped for 6 months. 

No, actually, if it were misconducted, then it _would_ go to an
immediate revote.  It's happened before.  The six-month wait applies
only to well-conducted votes that fail.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT  <chip@tct.com>, <73717.366@compuserve.com>
                 just another elitist Usenet administrator
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: nadeau@bcarh1ab.bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau)
Subject: Re: More fuel for the music reorg debate
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 21:50:15 GMT

In article <9211110830.AA12739@elxr.jpl.Nasa.Gov> dave@elxr.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Dave Hayes) writes:
>
>Any of you people who claim that inflexibility is a must (Mr. Maynard),
>please explain this quote.

Somehow Dave, you haven't struck me as a model of flexibility yourself.
Of course, you are being firm and principled, while your opponents are
just being damn inflexible .  .  .

(I can't believe I'm letting myself be drawn into a flamewar, but this
nonsense has gone on way too long!  Yeah, I know - my intervention won't
make it any shorter .  .  .)

The Rhealist - Rheal Nadeau - nadeau@bnr.ca - Speaking only for myself
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.policy
From: ksdavis@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Karleenus Schwartz Davis)
Subject: Music Group Reorg Disagreement
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 19:55:38 GMT

>rorschak@daimi.aau.dk (Jesper Lauridsen) writes:
>>Yes what about them, what do they lose? Exactly what is so redicaly different
>>about rec.music.synth that no other names can be used?

dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes) writes:
>If that's true, then why change it at all?

It's already changed at my site, and the renamed group is being used.
Why change it back?  Why waste valuable resources to change it to a
less specific place in the naming tree?  What's wrong with the name?

-sz
From: jhildeb1@cc.swarthmore.edu (Jeff Hildebrand)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 7 Nov 92 00:18:30 GMT
Reply-To: hildebra@math.wisc.edu (Jeff Hildebrand)
Organization: Don's Merry Horde of Topologists


	Disclaimer time: I don't read any of the groups involved in this
particular deal and I'm mainly pointing some things out in a (probably
futile) attempt to help prevent similiar problems in the future.

twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
> It was posted to rec.music.synth.  Hence, it was a CFV that somehow
> affected the readership of rec.music.synth.  Worth at least the two
> seconds it would take to briefly check over.

	I don't know how the CFV was organized. However there was clearly
a lot going on in this vote so I suspect it was long. If there was no
summary at the top of what items were included in the CFV, then it would
be a lot easier to miss. Having seen a couple other reorg votes, those
suckers tend to be _long_ and would take a lot more than 2 seconds to check
over. And if the renaming was listed after the new groups, then I don't
think it would be an unreasonable for someone to take a look at the new
group info and decided that it was cross-posted merely to attract the
attention of some more potentially interested readers.

	As I said before, I'm an outsider to this mess, so I don't know
whether this was actually the case. I'm throwing out an objection to the "It
was in the group so it affected that group" argument which I think is a
little too glib.

	Another thought that comes to mind. Suppose someone reads
news.announce.newgroups as well as rec.music.synth and has a newsreader that
deals with cross-posts sensibly. (i.e. you read it only once) This
(admittedly hypothetical) person reads the first RFD for the
rec.music.makers reorg, doesn't see anything there to interest her.
(Remember that rec.music.synth was not included in the first RFD.) Then, not
wanting to wade through the whole long thing again when it showed up later,
just marks it as read and never notices that it now includes rec.music.synth.

	It often seems like the biggest problem with these reorgs has to do
with renamings which pull groups into the hierarchy. Anyone want to work on
a change to the guidelines which says that renamings and new group creations
should be handled in seperate votes?

-Jeff
-- 
Jeff Hildebrand, The Shaggy TA			hildebra@math.wisc.edu
"Join that political superman, secret agent double 0 zero, George Bosh
in his new film, 'Never Just Say No Again.'"      Off The Cuff, R.I.P.
"Did everyone buy that? Good, 'cause I didn't"   The Proof By Snow Job
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban
From: shephard@fraser.sfu.ca (Gordon Shephard)
Subject: Re: leave alt.folklore.computers alone, rmgroup comp.society.folklore
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 08:44:24 GMT

david@datamark.co.nz (David Rowland) writes:

>In article <1992Nov7.030304.9126@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai) writes:

><Deleted Dribble>

>>	SFU just doesn't have the same ring as AFU.  Hell,
>To tell you the truth, SFU looks close to SNAFU (Situation Normal, All
But at least my University would have a Newsgroup named after it 
(Simon Fraser University)