From: alsaggaf@athena.mit.edu (M. Saggaf)
Subject: Re: Voting on the Ahmadiyya Newgroup
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	<1992Nov14.060522.12992@muddcs.claremont.edu>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 17:39:03 GMT

[This is a somewhat long article, but is very important]

>>>>> On 14 Nov 92 06:05:22 GMT, irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu (Josh Smith) said:
JS> In a prior article, Rached (rached@blanc.eng.ohio-state.edu) writes:

> I am completely confused. This morning I read about the CFV for SRIA and
> sent my vote to the specified address. Then now I read that the votes
> should be sent to somwhere else. I think this is a very bad way to
> conduct a voting and therefore I move to call for an annulation of both
> votes and a postponment to the voting period to a time where it is
> clear where the votes must go and how the voting should be done.

JS> I'd tend to agree with this. The chronology as I understand it:

JS> Nabeel Rana posted a CFV to news.groups, without sending it to
JS> Dave Lawrence
JS> to post to news.announce.newgroups. This is against the Guidlines, and that
JS> CFV should have been considered unofficial and ignored.

JS> Someone else sent a CFV to Dave Lawrence, who duly posted it to
JS> news.announce.newgroups. It listed someone else as the vote taker (whose
JS> name eludes me for the moment), someone who was later identified by someone
JS> else (damn, I should have kept better track of who said what) as not being
JS> the official vote-taker.

JS> Nabeel sent a third CFV to Dave Lawrence, who duly posted it to
JS> news.announce.newgroups. This looks like an official call for votes, and
JS> lists Nabeel as the vote-taker, as did the first CFV.

This situation is getting out of hand. My _ininitial_ impression was
classify Mr. Jafri as the villain, so I posted in several groups
warning people not to sent their votes to him and told them that his
CFV is forged, I also sent him a letter asking him to explain what he
did, here is an excerpt from the letter and his reply to it:

MS> To: majafri@sandman.caltech.edu
MS> Cc: gwydion@gnu.ai.mit.edu, tale@uunet.uu.net
MS> Subject: (IMPORTANT) Your Ahmadiyya CFV
MS> Return-Receipt-To: alsaggaf@mit.edu
MS> Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 14:53:46 EST
MS> From: M. Saggaf <alsaggaf@athena.mit.edu>
MS> 
MS> 
MS> Mr. Jafri, what have you got to say for yourself about what you did?
MS> Why did you forge a CFV after an official one has been issued? I've

JFR> I did not forge any thing. I was trying to fix things. The first
JFR> CFV was posted by Nabeel Rana but not officially, it was not 
JFR> submitted to news.announce.newsgroups. Also, people were complaing
JFR> regarding Nabeel Rana as a proposed moderator & as well as the
JFR> vote taker. I volunteered to tally vote on behalf of SRI.Ahmadiyya

MS> seen you described as an 'opponent' of the *.ahmadiyya group, though I
MS> doubt it, since no one stands to gain from confusing the voting
MS> process more than the Ahmadis.

JFR> I am neither opponent or proponent. There was nothing wrong, I 
JFR> sent my CFV to David Lawrence on news.announce.newgroups. He
JFR> posted it officially. I did not post CFV on any public groups.
JFR> David Lawrence made the official posting. I am surprised to see
JFR> any confusion. The votes are rolling in, over 170 votes have been
JFR> casted, what am I supposed to do ?

MS> 
MS> What you did is absolutely inexcusable. I cannot emphasize enough what
MS> the harmful ramifications of your act are as many people will voting
MS> at the wrong place and their vote would not count. There is no perfect


JFR> Excuse me sire, if posting an official CFV thru moderator of 
JFR> news.announce.newgroups then please tell me what is not 
JFR> inexcusable? The harm may have been done by unilaterally cancelling
JFR> the official CFV posted on news.announce.newgroups +other related
JFR> groups. I have nothing to do with it, David Lawrenece cancelled it
JFR> and didn't even inform me. I came to know about it from news.groups.
JFR> I have sent him a note why he is labelling me as 'opponent' and 
JFR> cancelling the CFV when I have not said a single word on the issue
JFR> or talking to anyone about it. Thats where the confusion lies NOT
JFR> with me.

And in a later response he cites the following as the chronology of
what happens:

JFR> No wrong! No CFV of Rana was posted by David Lawrence at the time
JFR> I submitted my CFV! Is it so difficult to understand ?
	
JFR> Look at the sequence of events!

JFR> 1. Rana posts a RFD in news.announce.newgroups & news.groups
JFR> 2. Rana posts a CFV in                           news.groups
JFR> 3. Rana apologies and makes clear that his CFV is NOT Valid. 
JFR> 4. I submit a CFV to   news.announce.newgroups. It is posted to
JFR>    news.announce.newgroups & news.groups  
JFR>    by DAVID LAWRENCE.  (Voting begins)

JFR> 5. Almost one day later, DAVID LAWRENCE announces my CFV is 
JFR>    cancelled and reposts Rana's CFV.

JFR> What is it  hard for you to understand ? Why am I the villan. Why didn't
JFR> Rana has to explain his position as a vote-taker despite people
JFR> on the net not wanting him to be so (news.groups)?  Why did David
JFR> Lawrence ignore all the comments on Rana's position as a vote-taker.

JFR> I am not going to go around explaining my position. If you want to 
JFR> forward my email to anyone or post it, thats fine. I have volunteered
JFR> to be a vote-taker. If it is officially decided that I shouldn't be
JFR> I would step down. I don't know who is playing games and making a
JFR> mockery of the voting procedures. We have over 190 votes now. I am
JFR> not going to reveal any results till the voting period is over. It 

Since the sequence of events Mr. Jafri has cited seems to be
corroborated by the accounts of Mr. Smith and others, I'm not sure Mr.
Jafri is the villain anymore. I think the blame lies on David Lawrence
for authorizing an official CFV that maybe should not have been
authorized and then canceling it and replacing it with another
official CFV, creating two CFVs and leading to the problem that people
no longer know where to send their votes. I myself have sent my vote
to Mr. Rana.  However, I'm not sure now that was the correct thing to
do.

I've sent Mr. Lawrence a letter asking him for an explanation for what
happens, since the whole problem seems to have originated from him
authorizing the CFV by Jafri, but I've still to get a response from him.


--
/M. Saggaf
 alsaggaf@athena.mit.edu