HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cory@enigami.mv.com (Cory Kempf)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Spaf & Dave Lawrence?  (was Re: 3-week discussion period? (was: RFM: rec.arts.erotica))
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 15:48:47 EST
Organization: EnigamI, Inc., Nashua, NH
Reply-To: cory@enigami.mv.com
X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.6v1


As some of you may have noticed, there is a debate raging about changing
the moderator of a newsgroup.  Without going into specifics of the
newsgroup in question, or the reasons for the change, in the course
of discussion, it came about that Gene Spafford & Dave Lawrence's
oppinions should be sought:

In article <1992Aug11.235044.26507@athena.mit.edu> (news.groups), jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:

>Because Gene Spafford and Dave Lawrence reject the vote?
>
>As I've already pointed out, Gene Spafford maintains the list of moderator
>mail aliases that the vast majority of sites use.  If Gene Spafford rejects a
>moderator change, then, plain and simple, articles that are posted in the
>newsgroup are going to continue to get mailed to the original moderator, no
>matter what your replacement vote says is supposed to happen.

Instead of bothering them with a herd of people questioning them,
I wanted to boil things down to a (small) list of questions for them
(I assume that they have better thing to do than get involved with
usenet flame wars!).

Here is what I thought of:


	There is a discussion going on in news.groups about removing the
	moderator of a group and replacing him with another.  (There is
	some dissatisfaction with the performance of the current moderator.)

	Is there a specified proceedure for changing moderators?
	Assuming that there is no specific proceedure in place,
		do you have any objections to the using the existing
		RFD/CFV mechanism?
	Assuming that the existing RFD/CFV mechanism were to be used and passed,

To Spaf:

		Would you make the change in the moderator's list?

To Dave:

		Would you post the RFD/CFV & results in news.announce.newgroups?

To both:

	If your answer to either of the above questions in *NO*, would
		you please explain why, and what would be necessary for your
		cooperation in implimenting a change in moderator?

Today is the 12th.  If anyone has objections to the way this is worded,
or other questions, please post them.  I would like to send this off
by the 19th or so.  

That way, instead of us trying to figure out what they might do, we
can get a direct answer.  Comments?

+C 

PS: Dave is tale@uunet, I believe.  Does anyone know spaf's offhand? 
(e-mail is prefered for this question)


-------------------------------------------------------------
Cory Kempf                    EnigamI, Inc.
cory@enigami.mv.com           ...!decvax!enigami!cory
Annon:	wi.5036@wizvax.methuen.ma.us

"F' cryin' out loud, it's *your* life; shouldn't you at least examine 
your lifestyle values to see if they are really what *you* want."
										--Keith Lim
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.motorcycles,rec.motorcycles.racing,rec.motorcycles.dirt,alt.motorcycles.harley
From: steve@bucolix.ncsu.edu (Steve Garnier)
Subject: Re: rec.motorcycles.harley vote acknowledgment
Reply-To: steve@bucolix.ece.ncsu.edu (Steve Garnier)
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 21:00:17 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.144418.12756@cbnewsm.cb.att.com>
shz@garage.att.com (Keeper of the 'Tude) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug10.232639.7416@nas.nasa.gov> 
>>ciotti@wk42.nas.nasa.gov (Robert B. Ciotti) writes:
>>+Here is the ack for the rec.motorcycles.harley vote received by
>>+Mon Aug 10 16:21:04 PDT 1992
>>+
>>+laszlo@columbine.cs.colorado.edu Laszlo Nemeth 
>>+laszlo@eclipse.cs.colorado.edu Laszlo Nemeth 
>Anyone caught stuffing the ballot box should have *all* of their votes
>disqualified.

While abuse of the ballot box also angers me, I can't agree that the
abuser should be arbitrarily disenfranchised of his/her right to vote.
Once somebody sets themself up as King of the Vote Count and begins
arbitrarily deciding which abuse is great enough to trigger such
disenfranchisement, then a whole new can of worms appears.  For instance,
what do you do with the people who vote *both* ways?  Do you contact them
and ask them what they really want (as Robert Ciotti did on the last CFV on
RMH), or do you not count either vote?  And how do you deal with the 
situation of a true scum-sucker who opens multiple accounts with different
user names belonging to fictitious users, and uses each account to vote his
opinion?  This makes enforcement of ethical voting a real nightmare; who has
the time to play vote-fraud detective?

If Robert Ciotti performs this vote count in a fashion similar to the last
CFV on RMH, I won't have any complaints regardless of the outcome.  I thought
he did a good job last time.

Even though the outcome is the same, whether the vote abuser stuffs the 
ballot box maliciously or mistakenly makes little difference as long as
the vote is carefully screened while being counted.  I consider malicious
ballot-box stuffing to be a despicable act, but I can forgive the Bozo that
does so by mistake.  The embarrassment the Bozo suffers is adequate
"punishment".  As I previously stated, malicious abusers "should be 
electronically lynched", unless electronic neutering would suffice.  In 
this specific instance, the latter would likely make no difference.

Steve Garnier - DoD #00000005 - '79 XS1100SF w/ 157K+ miles and *climbing*
KotF (Flame),  KotAM (Anecdotal Motorcycle),  The Daemon's Byte
steve@bucolix.ece.ncsu.edu       "Ineluctably Prolix" - John Norman Sims, Jr.
Come an' get it!  Served up nice an' *hot*!!  Get yer FREEEEE *logorhea*!!!
From: cory@enigami.mv.com (Cory Kempf)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: changing a newsgroup's moderator (was: 3-week discussion period?)
Date: 14 Aug 92 19:29:04 GMT
Reply-To: cory@enigami.mv.com
Distribution: news
Organization: EnigamI, Inc., Nashua, NH
X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.6v1


In article <5273@armltd.uucp> (news.groups), dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal) writes:
>So some procedure is potentially needed for replacing a moderator when
>necessary.[...] So let me suggest a possible procedure:
>
>(1) The proposer asks for a "no confidence vote" in the existing moderator.
>    This should use a fixed form of words, along the lines of "IMHO, the
>    moderator of <groupname> is not doing his job properly. Should we start
>    the process of looking for an alternative moderator?". [...]

>    A vote is held on this immediately, without discussion.[...] If the vote
>    passes by the usual Usenet rules, the process moves on to stage (2).

The problem is the decision is being made before discussion.  In another
post, I gave a couple of examples of situations in which a moderator
might seem to be doing a good job, but in reality was selectivly rejecting
/ black-holing articles, independant of their suitability for posting,
but based on a private agenda.  If done properly, it would not be
noticed, except by some people who's articles were "lost" or rejected.

If the vote came before thee discussion, the readership would not
know about the problem.  Given the slanting of the usual usenet rules,
the vote would probably not pass.

If the readership of the group new that the moderator was not acting
fairly, the vote would most likely go the other way.

Additionally, the normal voting bethod is HEAVILY biased in favour
of the status quo.  I would think that the discussion period would
be necessary to the passing of any such vote.

Since at that point, people have already voted to oust the existing
moderator, there is no point in any further votes.

Without a new moderator, it is kind of pointless to vote to replace 
the existing one, isn't it?  So as part of the discussion process, 
someone would really have to step forward and volunteer to be the
new moderator before any vote makes sense.  And the new moderator
is most likely going to come out of the discussion process.

+C



-------------------------------------------------------------
Cory Kempf                    EnigamI, Inc.
cory@enigami.mv.com           ...!decvax!enigami!cory
Annon:	wi.5036@wizvax.methuen.ma.us

"F' cryin' out loud, it's *your* life; shouldn't you at least examine 
your lifestyle values to see if they are really what *you* want."
										--Keith Lim
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Boring! (was the great soc.culture.tamil.debate
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 00:30:15 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.220235.15268@cbnewsi.cb.att.com> alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com
(alok.vijayvargia) still hasn't figured out the difference between a
nearly-empty but properly-named group and a (beat) screaming... no, I won't
say it...
-- 
                                                                `-_-'
                         Have you hugged your wolf today?        'U`

Peter da Silva, Taronga Park BBS, Houston, TX  +1 713 568 0480/1032
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.bicycles
From: parksd@source.asset.com (Don Parks)
Subject: MTB newsgroup, any interest?
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 12:48:26 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Asset Source for Software Engineering Technology

In article <tr.714150227@samadams> tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) writes:
>There were many calls for discussion and much discussion, all over the
>course of MONTHS.  The entire procedure was done by the book.  You guys
>picked a poor time to complain.  Now you have no one to whom you can
>direct your flames except yourselves.
>--

Shut up Tom...  Many of the people that would still like to see a
rec.mtb group are the same people who pushed for it during the
discussion period.  Many of these same people voted NO for the split,
but were out number (obviously).

I would still like to see an mtb group even if it is only in the 'alt'
hierarchy.  If anyone else is interested (or even if not) could you
please pass on to me info on how to start newsgroup RFD's, CFV's, etc.
and/or how to create an 'alt' group.

I'm not looking for independence form the rec.bikers, just another
option for those of us with strong interests in mountain bikes...

Don (parksd@source.ASSET.com) Juan
--
From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: changing a newsgroup's moderator
Date: 12 Aug 92 10:44:20 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <0105011F.ar4hna@dragon.enigami.mv.com>,
 cory@enigami.mv.com (Cory Kempf) writes:
> In article <1992Aug10.150557.42248@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> (news.groups), sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane) writes:
>>Just as a point of tactics, I would recommend you try creating a new
>>group, with or without a new moderator, rather than trying to replace
>>the old moderator.
> 
> The problem is that the name space tends to get cluttered.  Look at
> the alt hierarchy for some examples.  
> 
> Also, there already *IS* a group with that charter.  Creating a new
> group with the same charter as the old one seems kind of silly.  I
> don't think it would pass for *ANY* group.

The last time this came up, for comp.unix.sources, comp.unix.reviewed
was created, so it is possible.  And I never said that the charters
had to be identical.  I was just suggesting a way to get the percieved
problem solved with the minimum flame wars. Apparently many on the net
prefer the flame wars to solving the problem.
-- 
USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045
E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, sloane@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444 
Xref: sparky news.groups:16990 rec.motorcycles:28056 rec.motorcycles.racing:989 rec.motorcycles.dirt:1361 alt.motorcycles.harley:696
From: news@wolves.uucp (The Wolfe of the Den)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.motorcycles,rec.motorcycles.racing,rec.motorcycles.dirt,alt.motorcycles.harley
Subject: Re: rec.motorcycles.harley vote acknowledgment
Date: 20 Aug 92 00:32:49 GMT
Organization: Wolves Den UNIX
X-Md4-Signature: 3051e39a949b3947d4d0617eaeb202fd

In article <1992Aug17.202649.19552@ncsu.edu> steve@bucolix.ece.ncsu.edu (Steve Garnier) writes:

>If you want to know who they are, just peruse the list below, where I've
>delineated *SUSPECTED* cheats.  You might be surprised.  Some people don't
>even cheat *well*.  At least it's *FINALLY* over.  :-)
>
>   ---A List Of Suspected Ballot-Box Stuffers---

> FURRJK@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU Joel Furr 
> Furr@cup.portal.com 

Totally different folk.  Joel is a regular poster and proponent of
soc.culture.appalachian (among other things).  Furr@cup.portal.com is
the pen name of an author of erotic fiction who posts to certain
newsgroups on a regular basis.  (This is personal observation.)

Some of the others are simple duplicated votes where the vote taker has
simply not scanned the list too well, or depended on the sort commands
-u option to eliminate dups without eyeballing the result.

Don't be such a sore loser.
-- 
Usenet Net News Administrator @ The Wolves Den  (G. Wolfe Woodbury)
news%wolves@cs.duke.edu     ...duke!wolves!news     "We don't need no
There is a real person who watches this account.   stinking disclaimers"
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: geoff@world.std.com (Geoff Collyer)
Subject: Re: Joel the Lowly (was Re: Garnier, the nitwit)
Organization: Software Tool & Die Netnews Research Center
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 02:08:19 GMT

I don't know why so many of these slanging matches have been taking place
in the news hierarchy lately.  Neither news.groups nor news.admin is a
Usenet court or police station (ah, where is Stupid People's Court now
that we really need it?).  If you guys must sling brilliant invective of
the "Jane, you ignorant slut" genre about, how about taking it to
alt.flame or alt.fan.your-name-here?
-- 
Geoff Collyer		world.std.com!geoff, uunet.uu.net!geoff

``Leave the evil grasping to us.'' - A. L. Arms, UNIX licensing, WECo.
From: dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Procedure for changing to unmoderated?
Date: 18 Aug 92 15:43:14 GMT
Distribution: news
Organization: A.R.M. Ltd, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs, UK

In article <1992Aug16.183230.27485@leland.Stanford.EDU>
jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:

>	I've been following this discussion for a while and have noticed that
>the arguments of those who want moderator replacement/removal to be as 
>difficult as possible really seem to be barking up the wrong tree.  Their 
>desire to prevent a good moderator from being "harassed" and "constantly
>forced to defend himself" is understandable, but that really isn't the
>problem in either rec.arts.erotica or rec.food.recipes.  ...

I don't think anyone is disputing that this is the situation in these
particular groups, nor indeed that it needs to be rectified. But what is
being discussed is the *procedure* for bringing about such changes. This
procedure will be applicable to *all* newsgroups. Sure, the procedure needs
to deal with cases where the moderator cannot or won't do the job, but we
also need to make as certain as possible that we're not introducing more
problems than we're solving.

>	The arguments about "what if this" and "what if that" in hypothetical
>situations are all fine and good in terms of providing debate material, but
>please look at the very real problems in rec.arts.erotica and rec.food.recipes.
>Here are situations where the moderator has simply not been doing his or her
>job for months.  ...  The fears of Jonathon Kamens and others that 
>good moderators would continually be "under siege" are hypothetically possible
>but are extremely unlikely in practice.  By worrying about an unlikely
>possibility, rather than dealing with a very real problem that is going on 
>in two newsgroups even as we speak, they're only talking around the problem.

Sorry, but I must disagree. You say that such harassment is an "unlikely
possibility". I believe that in practice, if you formulate rules that allow
such harassment, somebody will be immature enough to take advantage of them
- and it won't take long if previous experience is anything to go by.
(Consider the fact that people regularly suggest harassment techniques like
email bombing someone they don't like - and these are techniques that are
well established to be against the rules. Then think what they would do with
a "legitimate" technique...)

>	Please, folks.  Look at the situations that brought up this call for
>moderator replacement/unmoderation and gear the debate around them--  around
>real problems that are going on right now--  rather than around hypothetical 
>and improbable "but what if"'s.  

If you could somehow resolve these particular cases without setting a
precedent, I would agree with you. But Usenet being what it is, if they are
resolved by any sort of formal procedure involving votes, etc., that
procedure *will* be the precedent for moderator changes. IMHO, it's worth
putting in a little time to make that procedure *right*.

David Seal
dseal@armltd.co.uk

All opinions are mine only...
From: jamesmc@ut-emx.uucp (James McCartney)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: rec.music.compose
Date: 12 Aug 92 15:30:20 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas

In article <1992Aug06.183607.29573@gecko.uucp> josh@Tekelec.gecko.uucp (Josh Barinstein) writes:
>Anyone else have access to rec.music.compose out there?  I do but
>I haven't seen any activity in it since it was created a couple of
>days ago...  What's going on people?
>
>-----
>Josh Barinstein - josh@Tekelec.com

      It still does not exist here (Univ. of Texas) yet as of today 8/12/92.
Wonder what the holdup is?

  --- james mccartney
From: elle@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.misc
Subject: Re: Bogus moderated groups (was Re: changing the moderator...)
Date: 12 Aug 92 18:21:56 GMT
Reply-To: elle@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

lvirden@cas.org (Larry W. Virden) presents a long list of moderated groups
 on his system with no traffic:
>comp.graphics.digest ... comp.society.women ... soc.human-nets

All rmgrouped over a year ago.

Others:  comp.ai.digest was rmgrouped some time ago; there's no such
group as "comp.dcom.telecom.digest"; comp.sys.sun was rmgrouped after
the comp.sys.sun.* reorg; rec.arts.sf-reviews was rmgrouped when it
was replaced by .sf.reviews.

I don't mean to be especially rude, Larry, but if you can't keep up
with rmgroup messages (or read news.announce.newgroups, which also
announces reorgs and removals), you might consider running a
checkgroups script from time to time.

--
Ellen Keyne Seebacher            news@uchinews.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: arnej@Lise.Unit.NO (Arne Henrik Juul)
Subject: Re: 2nd RFD: comp.org.aix
Reply-To: arnej@lise.unit.no
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 01:28:09 GMT

In article <Bt7ps0.3I2@uunet.uu.net>, mike@pencom.com (Mike Heath) writes:
 > Proposed Charter:  comp.org.aix
 > 
 > The purpose of this group is to discuss issues relating to the International
 > AIX-RISC System/6000 User Group.

Such a group should probably have a better name, like comp.org.aix-users
to minimize confusion. What would be the difference between this group
and the existing comp.unix.aix newsgroup anyway?

  -arnej
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Subject: Re: Impropriety in soc.culture.tamil vote
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 13:28:24 GMT
Organization: TC Telemanagement, Clearwater, FL

According to alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia):
>What's wrong in taking a moral high ground ?

Nothing.  Just please stay there long enough to get used to it.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT  <chip@tct.com>, <73717.366@compuserve.com>
   "Do Rush place weird subliminal backmasked messages in their songs to
 compel unwilling geeks to commit evil .sig atrocities?"  -- Dean Engelhardt
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey)
Subject: Un-moderating a newsgroup? (NOT rec.arts.erotica) 
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: news
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 17:18:44 GMT

	
	There's been some (not a lot, but some) talk on rec.food.cooking 
about the possibility of changing rec.food.recipes from a moderated to an
unmoderated newsgroup.  The main reason for this is that the current 
moderator (for legitimate reasons--  she has been hospitalized) has not posted
anything in the past few months.  Rather than "replacing" the moderator,
some people have proposed changing the group to an unmoderated format.

	What would need to be done officially in order to effect this change
or to see whether or not a large number of people thought it was a good idea?
Is there a document somewhere that describes this process in detail?  If not,
could someone please tell me just would need to be done.  

	Your responses appreciated,

	--  Jim C. <jchokey@leland.stanford.edu>
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: jrblack@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (James R Black)
Subject: Re: RESULT: soc.culture.usa.appalachian fails 104: 44
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 18:17:55 GMT

In article <Bt7pt6.3K7@uunet.uu.net> FURRJK@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU writes:
>
>Fall semester at the colleges and universities in the Appalachian region this
>newsgroup will be a lively, active place for discussion of Appalachian
>regional issues.

	Yeah, just what this newsgroup needs.  18 year old CIS majors posting.
I can see it now....  'Subject: Is it true West Virginians don't have teeth?'




-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Jim Black     |    jrblack@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu                       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: 2nd RFD: comp.unix.* reorganization
Keywords: worthless
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 02:01:55 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.010250.7374@devon.lns.pa.us> paul@devon.lns.pa.us (Paul Sutcliffe Jr.) writes:
>peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>"Which is better, Computone whizzbang or Digiboard Geewhiz?"

>That's not a UNIX issue, it's a HARDWARE issue.  Note that Computone
>and Digiboard products work with {PC,MS}-DOS and PICK, as well as UNIX.

I am honestly puzzled. What on earth would you do with a multiport serial
card in a single-user operating system? Pick I can understand, but MS-DOS
needs Digiboard like a fish needs an umbrella.

>Put it in comp.sys.ibm.{pc,ps2}.hardware.

No, because even if DOS drivers are available the criteria which a DOS
user would use would most likely be meaningless to a UNIX user (especially
since, I would guess, the DOS user is using RS232 for a cheap control
system or MIDI event munger or something else quite alien to the UNIX
world.
-- 
                                                                `-_-'
                         Have you hugged your wolf today?        'U`

Peter da Silva, Taronga Park BBS, Houston, TX  +1 713 568 0480/1032
Newsgroups: news.groups