From: hades@coos.dartmouth.edu (Hades)
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.native
Subject: Re: CALL FOR STRAW VOTE: NATIVE NEWSGROUP
Date: 18 Dec 92 21:29:19 GMT
Reply-To: hades@Dartmouth.Edu
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Disclaimer: Personally, I really don't care who you think I speak for.
Moderator: Rec.Arts.Comics.Info

floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) writes:

>In article <1992Dec17.173313.11161@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> hades@Dartmouth.Edu writes:
>>    Then why are we having the straw poll in the first place? If all
>>that is going to come out of it is more name discussion, then we won't
>>have really accomplished anything. 

>A straw poll is one way to measure a consensus.  If it indicates
>that there is none, then more discussion is called for.  Taking
>inapproriate issues to a vote leads to losing at the CFV level, as
>you well know Brian.

    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?

>>    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. If there are members of the mailing list with UseNet access,
>>then they are free to participate, otherwise they really have no voice
>>here.

>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...  perhaps their vote with little discussion has
>more weight than it does if they are included earlier?

    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...

>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.

>Brian are you against increasing the traffic volume for the forum
>being discussed?  I kinda thought the whole purpose of this
>discussion was to grow a larger forum which would be, by
>definition, better.

    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.

>And, once again, votes are NOT restricted to UseNet readers.  They
>are restricted to people who can email a vote to the vote taker.

    Again, this is the opinion that I used to hold, and the stand that I
took in a very long debate in this group. I have since changed my
opinion. 

>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.

>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.

>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.

>They are not and do not discuss indigenous cultures in the vast
>majority of those groups.  I think you are well aware of that too
>Brian, and I question why you would post statements like the one
>above.

    Because they need to be considered, and what I know about those
groups has nothing to do with what I have posted.

>I thought the single most important reason it failed last time was
>because you kept insisting on nonsense such as the above instead
>of searching for a consensus of what others thought might be the
>most useful direction to proceed.  So far it has appeared this
>time that perhaps an appropriate charter and group name might be
>put up for a vote.

    Right, Floyd, whatever. The options that I gave people, was that I
was running a vote to create s.c.native.american, and if after that,
other poeple wanted to create s.c.native they were free to. In fact the
only reason that I agreed to run the RFD/CFV was because Dave Lawrence
asked me to, because the discussion had gone on in this group for too
long.

>>read UseNet. Those without access to UseNet are not part of the UseNet
>>community, and are not included in official RFD/CFV discussions.

>Again, that is not the case.  As a practical matter, just how does
>one determine that a voter does or not read Usenet?

    This is the problem, and was one of the arguments that I used. But
it doesn't change anything. Actually, it could be done with a little
extra effort. The idea is that it never gets to this stage because
people aren't supposed to just take a CFV and post it to a mailing list
to solicit votes.

--
-Brian V. Hughes
	     "If you could care less, then why don't you?"
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.native