HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes)
Subject: Re: Short comments, plus long rec.music.makers.* pre-vote discussion
Keywords: music, makers, synth, flame war, vote, rfd, cfv
Reply-To: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab - Pasadena, CA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 23:51:18 GMT

huggins@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jim Huggins) writes:
>Frankly, I'm tired of hearing people yelling about how awful the current
>system is and providing few suggestions on how to make it different.
>In particular, you've provided very little on this subject in terms
>of changes to the Guidelines.
>And I've asked a couple of times (rather politely, I hope) for opponents 
>of the current set of Guidelines to propose a solution.  I've heard
>nothing in response from anyone.
>So I guess I'll join the flame war -- it seems like the only way 
>to be heard around here.

PRECISELY why I haven't brought anything out in the open yet. The 
proclivity towards flamewars and my apparent flamebaitedness makes any
such proposal coming from me just a request for more of the same.

I have to do it another way. Stay tuned.

>open where we can make reasonable progress in discussion a solution
>rather than engaging in a rather sophisticated form of sticking our
>tongues out at each other.

How am I to understand that this will be different if I offer a solution?
Prove it. (As people are so fond of saying)
-- 
Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA
dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov       dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov         ...usc!elroy!dxh

                If you want to get rid of somebody, 
            just tell them something for their own good.
From: dave@frackit.UUCP (Dave Ratcliffe)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Summary: That's it..... the thread is closed
Date: 16 Nov 92 23:51:34 GMT
Organization: Data Factory Services, Harrisburg, Pa.

[sarcasm alert]

 In article <BxJr5L.HL4@fulcrum.co.uk>, igb@fulcrum.co.uk (Ian G Batten) writes:
 >In article <1992Nov9.115408.28715@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
 >> This sounds just like any argument used to justify inconsideration and 
 >> disrespect to an ignorant or powerless minority. Sort of like "No ethnic
 >> minorities in the streets after 10pm". Shall I continue on this line
 >> of reasoning?
 > 
 >Rename compared to racial segregation!  Next move: killing of group
 >compared to genocide, Jay-as-Hitler, imminent death of net predicted,
 >film, even, at eleven.
 > 
 >I shall go and watch CNN RIGHT NOW.

That's it folks. Hitler has been mentioned and by the Usenet thread
rules that means the discussion is now over. 

Thank Ghod! 


-- 
 ...uunet!wa3wbu!frackit!dave -or-                       |  Dave Ratcliffe  |
 frackit!dave@uunet.UU.NET -or- dave@frackit.uucp -or-   |  Sys. <*> Admin. |
 vogon1!compnect!frackit!dave@psuvax1.psu.edu            | Harrisburg,  Pa. |
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce)
Subject: Re: Short comments, plus long rec.music.makers.* pre-vote discussion
Keywords: music, makers, synth, flame war, vote, rfd, cfv
Organization: Elitist Usenet Administrators, Stuff & Nonsense Division
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 06:27:32 GMT

I was almost -- *almost* -- prepared to say that there was a point to
the protests (why? reading rec.music.*.synth for a week and seeing
that, in fact, the subject lines are literally filled to bursting with
acronyms of all sizes, shapes, and flavors, making it easier for "RFD"
or "CFV" to get lost).  Then I read this:

From: david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth,news.groups
Subject: Re: rec.music.synth renaming discussion in news.groups
Date: 6 Sep 92 23:00:27 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.212946.8390@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> (rec.music.synth), nsw@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (Neil Weinstock) writes:
> 
> There is currently a discussion underway in news.groups to reorganize the
> rec.music.makers hierarchy.  Among the newsgroups under discussion is
> rec.music.synth.  The name "synth" is being questioned ("electronic" has
> been suggested as an alternative), as is the possibility of splitting into
> "synth" and "keyboard" groups (they seem to have been talked out of renaming
> "synth" to "keyboard" for now.)
> 
> Anyway, I suggest that those who have an interest in this should go check
> it out.

-- 
____ Tim Pierce                / 
\  / twpierce@unix.amherst.edu /               Rocks say goodbye.
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) / 
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Subject: Re: Voting process
Reply-To: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Organization: Metrosoft
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 23:05:02 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.170030.20781@daimi.aau.dk> rorschak@daimi.aau.dk  
(Jesper Lauridsen) writes:
> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
> 
> >In article <1992Nov14.200722.21557@daimi.aau.dk> rorschak@daimi.aau.dk  
> >(Jesper Lauridsen) writes:
> >> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
> >> 
> >> Anyway, you don't have to read the RFD to vote.
> 
> >You have to read the RFD if you are to paricipate in the discussion  
prior  
> >to the vote.
> 
> Absolutly correct. But we are discussing a lack of votes here.
> Try again.

Thanks once again for removing all context and decreeing yourself the  
winner. This isn't just about submitting a ballot. It's about the whole  
voting process. It's not just a statistical lack of votes - it's that  
people were unaware of the discussion and vote. If more attention were on  
this vote from the RFD stage through the voting itself, more people would  
have voted. Likewise if there were more discussion amongst the people that  
were unaware of the vote during ALL phases, the voting may have turned out  
differently.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Van Huizen           vox: 619.488.9411  fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft                   gvh@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]
----------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: news.groups,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.bangladesh
From: gagrawal@cs.tamu.edu (Gopal Agrawal)
Subject: Re: CFV: soc.religion.islam.ahmadiyya moderated
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 06:30:14 GMT

In article <1e4gm1INNhg4@CURIE.SYSTEMSY.CS.YALE.EDU> ahmed-shakil@cs.yale.edu (Shakil Waiz Ahmed) writes:
>
>So tell me, if I declared myself a prophet and claimed I was the
>*last* prophet and started my own sect, do you think the Ahmadiyas would
>accept that as a part of Islam?  And if I started my own mosque here
>in New Haven for this new faith, would you pray beside me?
>
>-- Shakil

Ethically speaking, there should be no problem in that at all. But of course,
it is up to the people to believe you or not. As a matter of fact, I consider
myself a prophet (in a certain way) of my own atheism-oriented religion. 
Who's to bar me from calling myself anything I want -- namely "Hindu" ? As 
long as I do not preach that  the rest of the Hindus follow the same beliefs 
that I do, I don't see why any Hindu should have any problem with that. 

The problem is that you refuse to accept that muslims could form a 
heterogeneous group. However, evolutionary forces (perhaps controlled
by Allah himself!) make sure that heterogenity  will arise within any
group. (Perhaps one day, in the grand scheme of God, everyone will be so 
heterogenized that overall humans will seem to be homogeneous beings i.e.,
each following his/her own religion without bothering about the other's). 
So i guess you just have to wake up and see how much heterogenity there 
already is even within the majority muslim population (Jamaati vs non-Jamaati
type muslims and so on). 

regards,
--   
   ______ ______ ______ ______ __  |\/\/\/|
    ____/  __  /  __  /  __  /  /  |  \  /|  LIFE's COMPLEX - IT HAS
   / __   /   /  /   /  /   /  /   | (o)(o)  REAL & IMAGINARY PARTS.
  /   /  /   /   ___/  __  /  /    C      _) 
_____/ _____/ __/   __/ __/ ______/ | \___|  
E-mail - gagrawal@cs.tamu.edu       |   /   All Std. Disclaimers apply.
From: khalid@bu-bio.bu.edu (Rasheed A. Khalid)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re:  CFV ahmadiyya
Summary: THE WORD IS KHATAM, NOT KHATIM!!
Date: 20 Nov 92 04:09:16 GMT
Organization: Biology Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

Rami Hijazi wrote in an earlier article in support of Shakil's and
against mine, that the correct word in the Quran is KHATIM (END),
rather than KHATAM (RING OR SEAL), when trying to prove that
Muhammad (on whom be peace and blessings of God) was the last
Prophet of God and that no Prophet would come after him.
I request you to take another look at the Quran -- the word IS
KHATAM, the way I wrote it and not KHATIM, they way he suggests.
I know of only one instance when in a recently published text,
some non-Ahmadi published the Quran with "Khatim" to prove their
point against Ahmadis, but since the safeguarding of the text of
the Holy Quran is a duty taken by God upon himself, the book was
removed from the shelves, and now the only Qurans available in
the market are the ones with KHATAM in them.  It is interesting
that now, even if the non-Ahmadis try to change the Arabic text
of the Holy Quran, they cannot do so, given God's decree.  The
present text of the Holy Quran goes in favor of the Ahmadiyya
viewpoint (or is it that they have been able to interpret it
with more effort and hardwork, to make their arguments sound
more convincing?)

Regards,
Rasheed,
Boston,
Massachusetts,
U.S.A.

[The least expensive way to improve your looks is to wear a smile]
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: djb6@ellis.uchicago.edu (Dennis Brennan)
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.arts.fantasy
Reply-To: djb6@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 04:47:36 GMT


>Ken> == Ken Arromdee <arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> 
>
>[r.a.fantasy proposal deleted]
> Ken> Nooooooooooo!!!!!!
>
> Ken> The problem with this group is that it is not possible to define
> Ken> fantasy well enough to separate it from science fiction, in such a
> Ken> way as to do what you want.

I believe one of the charters in the sf.* hierarchy points out the
definition of Science Fiction as "whatever I point at when I say
'science fiction'".

Why strive for a hair-splitting definitive division between "science
fiction" and "fantasy"?  In general, a user looking at these groups
will have a fairly good idea what genre of fiction is expected in the
group.  Perhaps discussing the alleged "boundary" between fantasy
and science fiction in hazy cases might be a good thread in r.a.fantasy
(as such discussions have been discouraged from r.a.sf.*)

I am neither for nor against r.a.fantasy, but I disagree with the idea
of rejecting the group based on a particular definitioin (or lack 
thereof) of 'fantasy'.

-- 
Dennis Brennan
djb6@midway.uchicago.edu
From: karish@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Chuck Karish)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: CFV? What's a CFV??
Date: 21 Nov 1992 19:52:43 GMT
Organization: Mindcraft, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <1992Nov20.234614.18156@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>Existance of motivation does not infer its necessity.

[ Dave, please check on the meanings of subtle terms
like "infer" before you use them.  It'll make your postings
look much more polished and professional.  Thanks.]

If it's elitist to expect that people be sufficiently
motivated to learn what USENET is before they try
to change it, I'm an elitist.  It takes a few minutes
of reading the postings in news.announce.newusers and
a few hours of reading news.groups to join the elite.

If this burden is a chilling obstacle to participation
in the USENET pseudo-democracy, too bad.  If your
sysadmin is too overworked or too negligent to point
all the new users towards news.announce.newusers,
do it yourself for the benefit of other new users
or go find a professionally-run online service.

[referring to a practice of restricting posting access
until competence is demonstrated:]
>Your efforts are well meaning, perhaps even fascistly so. Now if every
>admin were like that, I'd agree that there'd be no excuse for ignorance.

Nobody but you, Dave, cares about excusing ignorance.
We just don't choose to accommodate people who can't
be bothered to remedy their ignorance.

>>Well, coercion doesn't seem to be an issue here.  
>
>"Take your discussions to rec.music.makers.synth, and not rec.music.synth"

That's an indication of lack of good will on the part of
an individual participant in a newsgroup.  The place
to redress the problem is on the newsgroup, and the
only available instrument is peer pressure from the
other participants.  When I see an unnecessarily
rude message of that sort on a group I care about, I
urge its author to be more tolerant.
--

    Chuck Karish          karish@mindcraft.com
    (415) 323-9000 x117   karish@pangea.stanford.edu
Xref: sparky news.groups:22407 soc.culture.indian:37527 soc.culture.pakistan:16900
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RF(Informal)D: Standard RFD/CFV Format
From: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Date: 18 Nov 92 20:48:18 GMT
Reply-To: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Organization: Metrosoft

In article <1ec6spINNn0q@talon.UCS.ORST.EDU> stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John  
Stanley) writes:
> Folks, there will always be people who don't understand what they read
> or what they are told. You can write flawless prose to describe the
> voting process, and force people to read it, but there will still be
> those who don't understand.

So this is a good reason to not attempt to write better or more appropriate  
prose?

> If we allow the mere existance of those who don't understand the process
> to keep us from having a process, we are fools. If we continually change
> the process to make those who can't understand the current one happy, we
> will wind up with NOBODY knowing what is going on.

Who said anything about not having a process? How is clarifation and further  
delineation of an existing path going to confuse anybody? The best way to  
promote confusion is to have a process that is open to a lot of interpretation.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Van Huizen           vox: 619.488.9411  fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft                   gvh@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]
----------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: huggins@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jim Huggins)
Subject: Re: Short comments, plus long rec.music.makers.* pre-vote discussion
Keywords: music, makers, synth, flame war, vote, rfd, cfv
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 21:15:13 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.202454.16555@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
|arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
|>Another point to note: if nobody even _realized_ that an article was posted
|>with the word "rename" in the header until _now_, that means the article was
|>fairly inconspicuous....
|
|Yes. Just because you post one article (heard of KILL files? Bad news spools?)
|doesn't mean everyone heard it.

Fine, Dave.  What do you propose to make it different?

The only suggestion that I've heard so far amidst all these threads
is to have painfully explicit subject lines (which would probably be
impractical for re-organizations, but let's ignore that for now).
I.e:
	Call For Votes: rename rec.music.synth to rec.music.makers.synth.

If, as you state above:

|Just because you post one article (heard of KILL files? Bad news spools?)
|doesn't mean everyone heard it.

... what difference would a more descriptive subject line such as the
one above make?  People will still not see the CFV and not vote, 
since their KILL file or bad news spool will drop the CFV.

Frankly, I'm tired of hearing people yelling about how awful the current
system is and providing few suggestions on how to make it different.
In particular, you've provided very little on this subject in terms
of changes to the Guidelines.

And I've asked a couple of times (rather politely, I hope) for opponents 
of the current set of Guidelines to propose a solution.  I've heard
nothing in response from anyone.

So I guess I'll join the flame war -- it seems like the only way 
to be heard around here.

If you're reading this and don't like the way the last vote was handled,
put forward a specific alternative to the current set of Guidelines.
It doesn't have to be polished.  But it does have to be out in the
open where we can make reasonable progress in discussion a solution
rather than engaging in a rather sophisticated form of sticking our
tongues out at each other.
-- 
Jim Huggins, Univ. of Michigan                          huggins@eecs.umich.edu
"You cannot pray to a personal computer no matter how user-friendly it is."
                                                          -- W. Bingham Hunter
From: jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Distribution: world
Organization:  One of these days for sure
X-News: HERMES MMAIL 1.04 Rev. Sep  5 1992
Subject: Re: About the elitism in news.groups
	<1992Nov15.121947.11127@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 12:59:30 -0800

In <1992Nov15.121947.11127@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov
				(Dave Hayes) writes:

>gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>>All very well stated and I happen to agree with it. But many supporters of  
>>the current process have been from day one making assesments of the  
>>motivations and personalities of the people that were unaware of the vote.

>You mean like "childish", "obnoxious", "obstructionist", "destructionist",
>and "loud" (to name but a common few)?

	No Dave, you voted, so you obviously were aware of the vote.


-- 
                    John Henders              " Read the guideline, Luke"
           Just another elitist Usenet user        Obi Wan Spaf
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce)
Subject: Re: rec.music.makers.*: chronology and comments from the vote-taker.
Organization: Elitist Usenet Administrators, Stuff & Nonsense Division
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 04:08:20 GMT

In article <1992Nov15.215611.47609@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:

>In article <BxoIMw.IJ@unix.amherst.edu>, twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
>
>|> In article <1992Nov13.164753.35047@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
>|> 
>|> >I think that multiple unrelated votes should
>|> >not be on a single call-for-votes and ballot.
>|> 
>|> Part of the stickiness of this issue arises from the fact that the
>|> votes *were* related: they were part of a concerted effort to draw
>|> together several related groups spread throughout Usenet and altnet
>|> into a single, more logical hierarchy.
>
>Part of the stickiness of this issue arises from the fact that
>your above argument is circular:  your judgement that the
>votes/groups were related presupposes that people would have
>voted "yes" had they known about the vote.

No, it doesn't.  That's a completely unrelated issue.

>|> While posting additional notices to each affected group individually
>|> is an excellent idea, and I think one that should be employed more
>|> often, how would that part of the process be controlled?
>
>It's not clear that you'd have to monitor it.  It's self-monitoring.
>If the guidelines aren't followed, somebody's going to complain.

When?  After the vote?  Seems to me we've been on *that* bus before.

-- 
____ Tim Pierce                / 
\  / twpierce@unix.amherst.edu / I use antlers in all of my decorating.
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) / 
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: mckinzie@schaefer.math.wisc.edu (Mark McKinzie)
Subject: Re: Short comments, plus long rec.music.makers.* pre-vote discussion
Keywords: music, makers, synth, flame war, vote, rfd, cfv
Organization: Univ. of Wisconsin Dept. of Mathematics
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 23:20:10 GMT

arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:

>In article <1992Nov20.014227.9059@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>>>Well, Dave: what now? Are you going to come up wiht yet another lame argument,
>>Any argument I come up with would be named that by you. So as not to
>>disappoint you:
>>He didn't post that often enough. 

>Another point to note: if nobody even _realized_ that an article was posted
>with the word "rename" in the header until _now_, that means the article was
>fairly inconspicuous....

 . . . or it means that the article was not noteworthy i.e. the vocal
 news.groups qabal didn't notice or care at the time, a'cause we all
 knew what was up in the first place.  That article only became noteworthy
 two months later, when the net.unwashed.masses started howling that 
 someone had pulled something over on them. Even people without a clue
 as to the meaning/relevance of "RFD" and "CFV" ought to be able to
 decifer the meaning of an english sentence in a sub: line.  Or are
 we to bend over for people who cannot read english?  Multilingual RFDs
 and CFVs?


-- 
Mark McKinzie          |    Listen, if they're going to buy lunch boxes,
mckinzie@math.wisc.edu | they might as well buy David Cassidy lunch boxes.
UW Dept. of Mathematics|
Madison, WI 53706      |                  -David Cassidy-
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes)
Subject: Re: David Hayes ... who else? :-) (mild flame)
Reply-To: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab - Pasadena, CA
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 23:59:48 GMT

Nelson Broat <NMBCU@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:
>>    He who has self-conceit in his head -
>>         Do not imagine that he will ever hear the truth.
>Writing about yourself again I see. :-)

If the shoe fits...and it works both ways. 8)

>My my you're in a wee bit of a snit. :-) 

You have a remarkable capacity for understatement. At least I made
the Usenet Olympics...

>"I always have THOUGHTS about anything,
> SOLUTIONS, however, are another matter."

Typical. 
-- 
Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA
dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov       dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov         ...usc!elroy!dxh

            Think enough and you won't know anything!
From: tdunn@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tim Dunn)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: CFSV: Call for "Straw" Votes - Rec.games.frp.campaign
Date: 16 Nov 92 16:36:15 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: hairball.ecst.csuchico.edu

cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca writes:
>           <you can vote YES or NO for this "Straw" Call for votes>
>    If you 
>      or 2) Do not care, and will not be voting if a CFV is posted...
>    Then respond to this note, in e-mail, with the text "I do not support
>the further discussion of .campaign"

Hmm, I don't know if you should count this variety of NO vote.  I mean,
most straw votes are to see if the proposal will float, not if the 
proposal to continue on the proposal will float.

>Implication of Vote:
>    If less than 100 people respond to this "straw" vote, the discussion
>of the creaton of rec.games.frp.campaign will be dropped.  Otherwise, 
>discussion will be continued, and a formal CFV will eventually be made. 

So if less than 100 people respond in total (negative or positive) then
you will cease discussion of the group?  I definitely don't think this
is how straw votes are normally run, but whatever floats your boat.

Alright: all you cbnorman flamers out there: make sure not to put that
line in your e-mail to him.  Me, I consider this not a vote as it is 
not in e-mail (as directed in the quoted material) and does not have
the required line (save as a offset quote.)

Remember you all out in net.land: read the fine print.

-- 
Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a
larger object.