From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.native
Subject: Re: STRAW VOTE ON NAME FOR NATIVE AMERICANS NEWSGROUP
Date: 15 Dec 92 18:26:42 GMT

In <1992Dec13.101035.13049@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
        jfurr@nyx.cs.du.edu (JKF) writes:

> ...I hope people wouldn't
> get their noses significantly out of joint if after 55 people voted in a
> straw poll and 23 supported one name and 10 another and 8 another and 7
> another and you said "well, the one that got 23 seems to be most
> popular"... the people who voted for the group that got 7 might say "hey,
> wait, let's see the votes..."

I think it would be reasonable for someone to feel the results were unfair
and not truly reflective of people's sentiment in that case, for the reasons
I've outlined in recent articles concerning the straw poll.

Considering that the choices are:

   soc.culture.native
   soc.culture.indigenous
   soc.culture.aboriginal

in one category (international focus), and:

   soc.culture.native.american
   soc.culture.amerind
   soc.culture.native-america

in the other (exclusively American focus), if I vote for soc.culture.native,
say, and the overall results are:

   soc.culture.native           14
   soc.culture.indigenous       12
   soc.culture.aboriginal       10

   soc.culture.native.american  15
   soc.culture.amerind           5
   soc.culture.native-america    2

I would feel something were very wrong if "soc.culture.native.american"
were declared to be the winner, since thirty-six people would have
indicated their preference for an internationally-focussed newgroup
(14 + 12 + 10), while only 19 had voted in favor of one devoted exclu-
sively to indigenous peoples of the Americas (15 + 5 + 2).  I've used
a deliberately exaggerated example just to make my point.  It would work
just as well if the vote were closer, though, since that's the way our
network democracy works - simple majority votes.  I just want to make
sure that the vote is set up so that the simple majority is deciding
meaningful issues.

> While I'm posting to this subject, let me ask the news.groups readership
> at large: is anyone actually opposed to a newsgroup for indigenous
> Americans?

Not I, but again I ask why the newsgroup should be exclusively by and
about indigenous Americans, when they share so much with the indigenous
peoples of other countries.  Recently, I have heard two prominent leaders
in the First Peoples community of Canada (Ted Moses, Cree ambassador to
the United Nations, and Ovid Mecredi, head of the Assembly of First
Nations of Canada) both express their strong feelings about the linkage
of issues facing their people and those of people from other parts of
the world.  (Ovid Mercredi, who I heard speak yesterday at Harvard
University, mentioned the First Peoples of Australia and New Zealand by
name during his talk.)

I feel that this issue of the name should best be decided by people in
a community larger than that of news.groups, and I feel that the straw
poll voting period should be long enough to permit participation by
others on the net who have a stake in this issue, namely those who have
been using mailing lists to talk about these subjects for the past three
years.  I will inform those people of this issue as soon as possible, so
that their voices can be added to the discussion and to the decision-
making process.

I will have more to say on the straw poll at a later date.

Gary
--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts              {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst