From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes)
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Reply-To: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab - Pasadena, CA
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 21:37:30 GMT

jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:

>>That's an interesting assumption. Are you sure?
>OK...explain why that's not the case in the absence of obstinate gateway
>maintainers who refuse to make the trivial changes required.

I can't...but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. I do know that
the group is echoed to at least one international MIDI BBS network. 
I don't know how. 

>>WHY is it that only those in news.groups concerned enough to vote can
>>be able to affect those who try to stay away from news.groups? That fact
>>is actually the main reason that I pay attention to it. No telling WHAT
>>you guys are going to do to a group given whim and vigor. 
>Until you show that Dave Lawrence failed to do his job properly, and didn't
>post the messages to rec.music.synth - not that folks failed to see those
>messages, but that they weren't posted in the first place - this argument
>falls flat on its face. It's _NOT_ "those in news.groups concerned enough to
>vote", it's "those concerned enough to vote".

Well gee. Let's look at that logic. Given the amount of flame traffic in
news.groups...MOST people probably kill based upon any "news.groups" in
the header. But aside from that...what seems to happen over and over is
that concern about a vote doesn't appear until after something bad happens
to a group. 

The logic still stands that people in a newsgroup (readers AND posters)
should have some say so over the name of their group. If (after the fact)
there is a lot of complaining about a name change...then something is 
wrong! I don't care how much legalese you use to back it up. The desired
goal is a consensus, right? 

>>I assert that it is unfair to change the name of a newsgroup without the
>>consent of a plurality of the participants. 
>This statement of motherhood and apple pie, like so many others, is fine on
>its face - there's only one problem: it's completely unworkable. 

How about posting CFV's for renames ONLY to the group that is being
renamed? That works. It also forces people who want to vote to read
the group and get a sense of it. 

>Au contraire - that's precisely the point: the group inhabitants you're so
>keen to defend were notified, and had 21 days to register their opinion. They
>didn't do so, at least not in the manner you're describing.

I don't think they knew to do so. Some of those people have (and desire to
have) little clue as to USENET and it's politics. They shouldn't have to
have a clue when it comes to affecting their group.

>Right. Actually, it's because someone decided to be obstinate and ignore the
>expressed wishes of the net as a whole.

Please be precise. "...the expressed wished of a fractionally small subset 
of the net as a whole". Or are you going to now claim that 271 people speak
for an estimated 6 million? 
-- 
Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA
dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov       dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov         ...usc!elroy!dxh

       "When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut."  
Newsgroups: news.groups