From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: Newsgroup creation guidelines
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 21:18:45 GMT
Organization: IBM Research

In article <93Jan07.181922.29561@acs.ucalgary.ca>, kozlowsk@acs.ucalgary.ca (Don M. Kozlowski) writes:
|> In article <1993Jan06.200341.52038@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
|> [...]
|> >My proposal is designed to address only the problem
|> >about labelling.  
|> 
|> Well then change to Subject line on all calls for votes to be:
|> CFV: Ignore this at your peril!
|> 
|> >
|> >As to your first sentence, nothing in my proposal would
|> >have prevented the ballots from having a rationale explaining
|> >that if the alt.guitar renaming and the rec.music.synth
|> >renaming took effect, there would be one consolidated
|> >rec.music.makers group.  In fact, most ballots include
|> >a preamble containing such a rationale.
|> 
|> But if there are two or more ballots, I then have to find both of
|> them, vote on each of them, wait for both replies from the
|> autopreply daemon or check both interim vote announcements to be
|> sure they both arrived. The vote taker has to check two sets of
|> votes for duplicates, forgeries, invalid or ambigous votes. Reply
|> or set up autoreply daemons for two separate votes. Post twice
|> the number of vote acks. Naturally we'd have twice as many chains
|> discussing the votes in progress...
|> 

You only have to find both of the ballots if you are going
to vote on both.  You will automatically find both if you
subscribe to the groups affected by each.

And remember, most votes are not reorganizations, and
only one in eleven reorganizations would be required to
be split.


|> All this because someone ignores a CFV because he didn't think it
|> would affect him. Since there were two transactions posted to
|> rec.musc.synth with explicit subject lines warning that the name
|> of the group rec.musc.synth may be changed, I don't agree that
|> the misleading subject line is the problem.
|> 

Several people ignored the CFV.  The warnings were posted
long before the CFV.  The CFV was simply misleading.


|> >But if "the way things work" is confusing and requires
|> >extra work on the part of the user, then "the way things
|> >work" ought to be changed.  This is true whether we
|> >are talking about an automobile, a piece of software,
|> >or the Usenet voting procedures.
|> >
|> >Just for the record, the documentation which says one should read any CFV
|> >regardless of its subject line was written AFTER the vote.
|> 
|> If the documentation now mentions CFV's the problem has already
|> been solved. There is no longer any need to complicate voting
|> procedures. 
|> 

If the documentation is ever posted to news.announce.newusers,
then in theory the problem has been solved.  But I still prefer
my approach.


|> 
|> >
|> >And the requirement that one should read any CFV regardless
|> >of its subject line, while it may be today "the way things work",
|> >is not from Sinai, and if it's a potential stumbling block,
|> >should be changed.  Why keep even a documented misfeature
|> >around using the excuse "well they should know how to
|> >use the system or else they shouldn't be here"?  And you
|> >haven't really made a good case that it's not a misfeature
|> >to allow CFVs for renaming one group to be labelled with
|> >the name of a completely different group.
|> 
|> So use meaningful subjects. Don't complicate voting. I'm still
|> not convinced that a meaningful subject will help no matter how
|> many ballots the vote is split into. Lets be sure we know what
|> the problem is before applying solutions.
|> 

OK.  Then would you at least accept a change to the procedures
requiring labelling CFVs for renames with the names of the groups
being renamed?

Under this amendment, the rms reorg vote would be labelled:
CFV: alt.guitar* and rec.music.synth renaming

The main reason I suggested splitting the ballots as well
was that some people complained that in some hypothetical
reorganization, the CFV subject line would be excessively long.

However, I have not seen an instance of an actual reorg
vote in which this has happened.

|> >
|> >Usenet isn't meant to be an obstacle course.
|> 
|> Right, so lets not make it more complicated than it already is.
|> 

OK.  Perhaps you would support the CFV labelling suggestion
without the additional changes relating to splitting ballots.

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