From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.policy,rec.music.synth
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 10 Nov 92 03:01:30 GMT
Followup-To: news.admin.policy
Organization: RAND

Dave,

Let's lay responibility where it belongs.  If net readers don't know
about the guidelines, or what "CFD" and "CFV" mean, it is because
their news administrator has failed to see that they are informed.
There have been many attempts in the past to educate new users
despite the laxness of some sysadmins, from putting automatic
first-time-use messages in newsreading software to creating special
newsgroups for new users.  But the ultimate responsibility still
falls on the site administrator's shoulders.

Given the estimated readership for netnews, voter participation as a
percentage has always been small--and has long been declining.  My own
suspicion is that this may be partly the result of poorly informed users,
but mostly is the result of the fact that to /most/ readers of netnews,
creating or renaming newsgroups just isn't that big of an issue.

At least in past controversies, like the sci/rec.aquaria debacle,
there was a real issue of accessibility (since sci.* has a wider
propagation than rec.*).  Other than the artifical issue of a gateway
whose maintainer can't take the few minutes to change to the new
name, there has been nothing even close to this magnitude of an
issue involved here.  Yet it is being argued like a death penalty
case.

There has been no /clear/ violation of the guidelines brought up, nor
has much of a case been made as to why this vote, among hundreds, should
be an exception to the guidelines.  This creates the following problem:
if we decide to ignore the guidelines without a clear and generally
agreed upon rationale for setting them aside in this /specific/ case as
opposed to others, we'll have weakened the the guildelines to a major
extent.

Now, weakening the guidelines might sound like a Good Idea in the short
run, especially to those who feel they have wound up hurt by them this
time around.  But in the long run the results could be much worse than
leaving them in force.  You see, the guidelines serve to equalize
control over the net by giving everyone who cares to (and knows how to)
a voice in controlling the news hierarchy.  The alternatives to
following the guidelines are: (1) greater centralized control, or (2)
anarchy, followed by greater centralized control (since history teaches
us that, the dynamics of power being what they are, authoritarianism is
the eventual outcome of anarchy).  Or (and I feel this is the most
likely outcome) (3) fragmentation into different nets, each with
different rules and different rulers, with greater centralized control,
on average, for each.

In my opinion the best course of action is to amend the guidelines, if
that is necessary, but keep on following them in any case.  I suspect
that the majority of news admins would agree with me on this.  Thus,
Dave and others who are unhappy with the results of the guidelines
should propose ammendments to them.  I've seen threats, and rants and
raves, but no constructive proposals.

The net awaits your input...

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand.org
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