From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: RF(Informal)D: Standard RFD/CFV Format
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 05:05:33 GMT
Organization: IBM Research
Keywords: RFD CFV formats guidelines votes

In article <83647@ut-emx.uucp>, andy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Andrew Hackard) writes:
|> I've been following the rec.music.synth discussion with moderate interest,
|> and it has occurred to me that perhaps using a standard format for RFDs and
|> CFVs would solve most of the problems with people not being informed (or
|> not choosing to inform themselves; I refuse to argue this point).  Whether
|> this becomes custom or is actually incorporated into the Guidelines really
|> makes no difference, but I think this might alleviate some of the flamage.
|> 
|> The subject line, within reason, should tell what the proposal is. (I see
|> no real problem with the rec.music.* subject line, but single group
|> changes are different than reorgs.)
|> 
|> Within the first screen of text (i.e. the first 20 or so lines), there
|> should appear:
|> 
|> ----
|> This is a {Request For Discussion|Call For Votes} for the newsgroup[s]
|> [insert list here]
|> 
|> These are {new|renamed} groups.
|> 
|> Groups proposed: rec.arts.startrek.wes.is.a.weenie,
|> rec.arts.startrek.data.and.tasha.sittin.in.a.tree.k.i.s.s.i.n.g
|> 
|> Groups affected: rec.arts.startrek.*, rec.arts.sf.relationships.alien
|> ----
|> 
|> The only real change I see is the addition of the "groups affected" line in
|> the first screen -- thus, renames could put the old groups in that line,
|> while wholly new proposals (comp.sys.etch.a.sketch) could simply put "none"
|> there.
|> 
|> Am I totally off-base with this idea, or does this have some merit?
|> 
|> Comments (polite ones, anyway) are welcomed.
|> 

Many users of the news system use newsreaders which only
list the Subject lines of the articles in the groups
they subscribe to.  To save scanning through lots
of posts, people scan these subject lines and select
which posts they wish to read.

Important information which is in the post but
not in the subject line will be lost if the
subject line does not directly alert the need
to read the post.

I disagree that the word CFV is enough.  It
wasn't enough for me, and I'm a relatively
experienced user who has read the guidelines.
I had implicitly assumed that the guidelines
also required Subject lines to be more specific
than the guidelines actually require of votes.

My proposal is to require the name of the group
affected by a name change to appear in the subject
line of the RFD or CFV.  If that means that
some RFD's or CFV's have to be split into
multiple RFD's or CFV's because the Subject
line would otherwise be too long, so be it.
I don't like the idea of bundling multiple
votes into one ballot anyway.  The guidelines appear
to discourage this, but historically a single
ballot with many votes has been considered
a valid implementation of "multiple parallel votes".
(IMHO, the true meaning of "multiple parallel votes"
allows one to ignore any of the votes, and is
inconsistent with a form requiring an explicit
absention.)

-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598