HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Intentional ignorance of newsgroup creation
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 18:46:37 GMT

In article <2B091165.5732@tct.com> chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>>There is an amount of extraneous information in "How to create a new  
>>Usenet newsgroup" for the user wishing to vote (not to mention an  
>>innapropriate title from a voter's point of view).
>Title, sure.  But I am not prepared to believe that it is even
>possible to achieve, much less desireable to strive for, documents
>with no "extraneous information".

Arguing that you can't get rid of something completely is not a sensible
response to someone who merely wishes to reduce it.
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Getting information
Date: 20 Nov 92 05:11:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: talon.1ehs17INNfqk
Organization: Oregon State University, College of Oceanography
NNTP-Posting-Host: skyking.oce.orst.edu

In article <1992Nov14.175052.966@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>I don't consider PSI responsible for the news system running on my  
>machine, but for the feed itself. Since I don't *know* what all is  
>involved (on each end) I thought it would be expedient (and useful) to ask  
>this group.

Unfortunately, THIS GROUP is news.groups, the place to discuss the
formation of new groups. There is another set of groups, called
news.admin.*, which deals with administration. 

>I asked. I received 10 or so messages in my mailbox. Two were very clear  
>about how this works. 

I.e., you asked, and got answers.

>Most were preceeded by comments that I should have  
>asked someone else. 

SomeONE, or someWHERE? Those who read news.groups don't necessarily know
anything about administration, other than that news.admin.* is the
correct place to ask about ADMIN. The BEST and ONLY answer they could
give is telling you where you should ask. You seem to think that they
were wrong for answering your question the best way they knew how.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't. No wonder so few people would
bother to answer you.

>Does this support the notion that to understand Usenet, just ask?

You asked, and you got answers. Yes, that seems to support that notion.

>One person found it amazing that while I was obviously so inexperienced in  
>news administration I felt I could "tell the world" my opinions about the  
>voting process in the r.m.s thread. One of the reasons I'm expressing my  
>viewpoint is BECAUSE I'm not experienced in news administration. 

I.e., "I haven't the foggiest idea about how things work, or why they
work that way, but I have an opinion about how they should work."

An opinion that includes the inability to override a followup-to line.
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: wolff@kjemi.unit.no (Erik Wolff . Kjemiteknikk)
Subject: comp.soft-sys.matlab 
Organization: Dept. of Chem.Eng, Norwegian Inst. of Tech.
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 08:27:36 GMT

I just read a cross-posted article proposing the above mentioned group.
Matlab is by far the software I use most, and an unmoderated group would be a great way to extend my grapevine outside this block. The matlab_digest fulfills
my periodic curiosity, not my running needs.

I support the creation of comp.soft-sys.matlab, 

Sincerely,

Erik A. Wolff

(On behalf of all those diligent matlab'ers who know there *must* be a better
way to do this or that, but don't know who to ask)
From: kbos@carina.unm.edu (Kurt "Some Guy" Bose)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.arts.fantasy
Keywords: fantasy RFD arts
Date: 17 Nov 92 03:44:52 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <Bxty6p.40F@uunet.uu.net> pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za (P A van Heusden) writes:
>Proposed Newsgroup's Name
> rec.arts.fantasy
>Type
> Unmoderated
>Charter
> A newsgroups for academics and other interested people to discuss aspects
> of Fantasy literature in.
>Purpose of this group
> Fill the wide gap in netwise discussion of Fantasy. By this, I mean fantasy
> as literate, not the kind of "I love this author rave rave rave" stuff you
> find in alt.fan.<whatever>.

What's wrong with the "sf" hierarchy?  As has been repeated er... repeatedly,
the "sf" represents "speculative fiction", at least unofficially.  The two
genres have enough overlap that both hard science and fantastic literature are
welcome in the hierarchy, and I haven't seen any kind of schism between readers
of the newsgroup.  It just seems to me to be a solution for a nonexistent
problem.  

Hey, it's still a better proposal than most that come down the pipe...


-- 
Kurt Bose (as in Daisy, not Rose) * kbos@carina.unm.edu * Make outs, not walks!
TONIGHT-In "Ryecatcher", Holden Caulfield foils a plot to turn his old prep
school into a right-wing military acadamy run by Neo-Nazis. 8PM(7PM C/M) Ch. 7
                                                        -The Book of Sequels...
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: huggins@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jim Huggins)
Subject: Getting on with a new proposal for Guidelines
Keywords: music, makers, synth, flame war, vote, rfd, cfv
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 02:05:16 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.235118.18260@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
|huggins@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jim Huggins) writes:

|I have to do it another way. Stay tuned.

Any idea when this will actually be happening?  Next week?  January?
Just wondering what time frame we're discussing here.

|>[missing context ... basically, "Let's get a proposal 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.
|
|How am I to understand that this will be different if I offer a solution?

One of the problems with the current situation is that the only
real fact that is not in dispute (and can thus be discussed clearly)
is that you are not accepting the newgroup message for r.m.m.synth.
To debate with this being the sole fact is to in essence debate
the rightness or wrongness of your actions, which inevitably leads
to personality wars and flames.

The other issues aren't as widely agreed upon.  Consider:
	"The Guidelines are lousy."  
	"The vote doesn't reflect the wishes of real r.m.synth readers."
	"rec.music.synth readers had their chance to complain before."
	"Users should have known about CFVs."
	"Picard is better than Kirk."
		(oops, wrong newsgroup.   :-))
All of these statements are unprovable and have essentially formed
the basis of the biggest "Is not."-"Is too." argument I've seen.

Having a concrete proposal on the floor gives people a chance to 
discuss an alternative to the current system in meaningful terms.
One can argue about whether a proposed change would be good or bad,
but at least the proposed alternative would be clear.

My guess is that is would also cut down on some of the flameage
(call me an optimist), since both sides could deflect flames by
returning to the question "But what do you think about the TEXT?".

Of course, I can't prove anything.  But IMHO anything would be
better than our current situation.

Who knows?  Perhaps someone else will take up your cause if they
judge your alternative proposal to be sound.
-- 
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
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: paigen@tfs.com (David Paigen)
Subject: Re: RFD: misc.home.automation
Organization: TRW Financial Systems
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 00:51:07 GMT

I have not seen much traffic on this topic, and I look in a number
of places for it.

However, there is a mailing list that serves this need.  I doubt that
a newsgroup is warrented.

----------------------->"Lay on, McDuff,    14th c. ideals in a 21st c. world
David Paigen            and damn'd be he        N: PLO Bush IRA CIA KKK
TRW Financial Systems   who first cries,        S: terrorism pipe bomb kill
paigen@tfs.com          'hold, enough!'"        A: assasination maim
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.policy
From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes)
Subject: Re: User's Guide to the Changing USENET
Reply-To: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab - Pasadena, CA
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 01:28:34 GMT

stanley@skyking.oce.orst.edu (John Stanley) writes:
>People have been talking about a document like this. I haven't seen 
>anything yet, so here is something to start with. A companion to the
>real guidelines.

I hope you don't mind some criticism.

>  1. RFD's are important. Read them before deciding to ignore them.
>  2. CFV's are REALLY important. Read them before deciding to ignore them.

The wording here implies that they are ignorable. "Do X before deciding Y"
gets the person reading to consider Y as an alternative. How about:

1. You should read anything with a "RFD" or a "CFV" in the title.

But now the question comes up...why not do:
 
    Discussion: <newsgroup> renaming to <newsgroup>
    VOTE: <newsgroup> renaming to <newsgroup>

>  6. To learn even more, ask questions.

Yeah, right. I can see it now:

Newbie: "What's a CFV?"
Admin: <flame>
Newbie: "But you *said* ask questions!"

How about a guide for netnews adminstrators?

>For example: rec.aviation
>recently split into many subgroups that are more specific as to topic.

Current examples won't be in a few years.

>	Reread the preceeding paragraph.

You keep saying this, but it doesn't insure that someone will read it.
Better chances of reading something are obtained by brevity, without 
sacrificing too much clarity. 
-- 
Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA
dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov       dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov         ...usc!elroy!dxh

     He who has made a door and a lock, has also made a key.
From: jaapjl@tab00.larc.nasa.gov (J Lee Jaap)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Intentional ignorance of newsgroup creation
Date: 19 Nov 1992 22:31:22 GMT
Organization: AS&M Inc
Reply-To: J Lee Jaap <J.L.Jaap@larc.nasa.gov>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cmb00.larc.nasa.gov
In-reply-to: gvh@metrosoft.com's message of Wed, 18 Nov 1992 00:58:05 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.005805.649@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
   Once again you pick one point to argue and drop the rest. I feel that a  
   document along the lines of "A user's guide to Usenet voting" that doesn't  
   contain things that are only appropriate to vote takers, but DOES provide  
   some context that the guidlelines don't (and perhaps shouldn't) would be a  
   worthwhile document. It would certainly grab more attention than "How to  
   create a new Usenet newsgroup" and with content more oriented toward a  
   user not a vote taker, it just might be better understood. Anybody agree?

Go ahead and do it.  That's how things are done on the net.
By volunteers.  You don't need anybody's permission (except
for moderated groups, and I think Jonathan would approve
almost anything factually correct and contributing positively
to the net).

However, by doing something like this, you implicitly assume
the role of maintainer (modifications as they become necessary,
reposting at appropriate intervals), unless someone else agrees
to be responsible.

--
J Lee Jaap <J.L.Jaap@LaRC.NASA.Gov> +1 804/864-2148
    employed by, not speaking for, AS&M Inc, at
         NASA LaRC, Hampton VA 23681-0001
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: rorschak@daimi.aau.dk (Jesper Lauridsen)
Subject: Re: Getting information
Organization: Xanth Watch
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 16:56:10 GMT

gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:

>I asked. I received 10 or so messages in my mailbox. Two were very clear  
>about how this works. Most were preceeded by comments that I should have  
>asked someone else. Some asked for additional information (reasonable  
>request of course) and some gave one-line responses that really didn't  
>tell me anything.

>Does this support the notion that to understand Usenet, just ask?

Yes. You recieved the desired information and your problem was solved.
What more do you want?

>As long as there is an attitude that experienced news admins are the only  
>ones qualified to express opinions about the voting process, and said news  
>admins are the "authority" in this context, voting will be skewed towards  
>news admins and away from everyone else.

Voting is not 'skewed towards news admins'. Voting is skewed towards people
with an interest in the involved group or in the work of the net as a whole.
If you look around the net you'll find many badly named groups that have
passed despite major resistance from the 'news.groups crowd'.

Just for the record: I'm not a news admin, nor have I ever been one, but
I have taken part in more votes than anyone else on my site (I guess).
-- 
Jesper Lauridsen        |  I survived the rec.arts.sf-lovers split
rorschak@daimi.aau.dk   | 
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Subject: Re: Intentional ignorance of newsgroup creation (was Re: *BAD* ...)
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 14:11:56 GMT
Organization: TC Telemanagement, Clearwater, FL

According to dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov:
>And *again* I assert that it wasn't the fault of the unwillingly ignorant 
>that they didn't vote.

I don't think we can allow assertions of ignorance to invalidate
votes.  It would be too easy to bring about revotes with lies.

>People have gotten what they have given to me.

"Do unto others as they have done unto you."  (NOT!)

>I don't need to have anyone on my "Side"...if it's that kind of
>politics I'm sure that can be dealt with at the grass roots level.

Usenet is one place where grass roots politics don't work.
Administrators are not elected by popular vote, after all.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT  <chip@tct.com>, <73717.366@compuserve.com>
                 just another elitist Usenet administrator
From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Short comments, plus long rec.music.makers.* pre-vote discussion
Keywords: music, makers, synth, flame war, vote, rfd, cfv
Date: 20 Nov 92 20:23:35 GMT
Reply-To: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab - Pasadena, CA

rsk@aspen.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec) writes:
>Those who choose not to educate themelves will suffer the consequences,
>unless they are very lucky.
>Evolve or perish.

(If you only knew...)

I won't buy this one, but feel free to continue with it and see where it 
gets you. I'm sorry that we disagree on this. 


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

The King decided to force his subjects to tell the truth. Nasrudin was 
first in line.  They asked him, "Where are you going?  Tell the truth
or be hanged"  "I am going," said Nasrudin, "to be hanged on that gallows."  
"I don't believe you."  "Very well, if I have told a lie, then hang me!" 
"But that would make it the truth!" "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: To keep the r.m.s rename is _not_ elitist (was Re: *BAD*...)
Date: 15 Nov 92 15:23:30 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1992Nov13.210646.19912@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>>I'll consider revoting rec.music.makers.synth right after we revote
>>sci.aquaria, misc.activism.progressive, and rec.arts.manga.
>*I'm* not against doing such things. Would you like to put forth
>the RFD's?

You may not be, but, according to net.history, such a thing would be regarded
as an incredible case of sour grapes - kinda like your current crusade.

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
     We survived Jimmy Carter; we'll (probably) survive Bill Clinton.
From: dobson@nocusuhs.nnmc.navy.mil (LCDR Michael Dobson)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: About the elitism in news.groups
Date: 17 Nov 92 14:25:34 GMT
Organization: National Naval Medical Center

In article <id.6I0V.407@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>In article <1992Nov13.072700.324@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>> What about stand-alone users who don't have a system manager to fall back  
>> on.
>
>How could such an entity possibly exist? They either set up a feed for
>themselves, which implies they have more of a clue than you're making out,
>or they're using someone else's system, and that's their system manager.
>
Unfortunately Peter you've missed an increasingly larger number of sites, the
stand-alone site that was set up by someone else as a one time deal, runs on
auto-pilot, and for which there is no support.  In an idea world the consultant
who set it up would have provided documentation and instruction to the site
owner but I am seeing increasing evidence that this is not the case.  This is
especially true in the case of leaf nodes with only a few newsgroups.  They 
don't get control, so they don't get the newgroup messages that enforce the
renaming, and they don't know how to do it manually and they don't even have
the FM to read!!  They likely also don't even get the moderated informational
groups.  It used to be that USENET was defined as the set of sites that got
news.announce.newusers (or was that news.announce.newgroups?) but not any more.

Now none of the above are reasons to invalidate properly conducted votes, but
we as a group need to be aware of the increasing number of sites in the above
situation and do our best to help them out.


-- 
Mike Dobson, NetNews Admin        |  dobson@nocusuhs.nnmc.navy.mil
"If I didn't know better, I'd say |  rdc30@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil
a member of the US military was attempting to subvert the telecommunications
policies of a foreign nation."  Ed Vielmetti about me.
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Subject: Re: About the elitism in news.groups
Reply-To: gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen)
Organization: Metrosoft
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 21:18:19 GMT

In article <QW8SBKWK@cc.swarthmore.edu> jhildeb1@cc.swarthmore.edu (Jeff  
Hildebrand) writes:
> randall-joshua@yale.edu (Joshua Randall) writes:
> > I've said this before, I'll say it again.  Who decides which groups
> > are affected?  This will lead to the same problem we have now:  people
> > claiming they never saw the vote because nothing was said about it in
> > their group.
> 
> 	Two options here. Lesser option is that it gets posted to any  
group
> that will wind up being rmgrouped because of a split or renaming.  
Stronger
> option is that a message goes to all groups that the RFD/CFV goes to.

This raises an interesting point. The guidelines don't seem to state what  
groups should be cross-posted to begin with. A lot is currently left to  
the discretion of the person creating an RFD/CFV. Perhaps this should be  
more clearly spelled out, particularly in the case of a reorg?

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Van Huizen           vox: 619.488.9411  fax: 619.488.3045
Metrosoft                   gvh@metrosoft.com [NeXTmail welcome]
----------------------------------------------------------------
From: tim@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Tim Pointing)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: sci.solid-state.electronics
Date: 17 Nov 92 12:39:21 GMT
Organization: Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine

In article <BxnGI5.FD5@uunet.uu.net> sehari@iastate.edu (Babak Sehari) writes:
>The name of this group is still open for discussion.
>
>Please, post your support for creation of this newsgroup and any comments
>you might have about this newsgroup to sci.electronics and/or sci.physics.

I would suggest that the name of the newsgroup should be adjusted to
"sci.electronics.solid-state". I think this is more appropriate than
the original, both from a subject-matter point of view and from a
news-administration point of view.
-- 
	  Tim Pointing, DCIEM
Internet: tim@dciem.dnd.ca or tim@ben.dciem.dnd.ca
UUCP:	  ...!utzoo!dciem!tim
From: plutchak@pilsner.geo.brown.edu (Joel Plutchak)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: About the elitism in news.groups
Date: 20 Nov 1992 22:15:15 GMT
Organization: Brown University Planetary Geology
NNTP-Posting-Host: pilsner.geo.brown.edu

In article <1992Nov20.195607.16024@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>...time to waste on stuff they aren't concerned with...that doesn't mean
>that they are ignoring it willfully as much as not finding anything about
>the article(s) that would interest them.

   Like an explicitly described newsgroup renaming.
>
>Now if they KNEW that an article was going to have a direct effect on
>the group...that might change.

  I just *knew* you'd see the problem eventually.   What was that
saying about leading a horse to water?
--
Joel Plutchak, Research Programmer/Analyst
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: nadeau@bcarh1ab.bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau)
Subject: Re: To keep the r.m.s rename is _not_ elitist (was Re: *BAD*...)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 05:18:41 GMT

In article <1824@frackit.UUCP> dave@frackit.UUCP (Dave Ratcliffe) writes:
>
>   news.information.postings.can.be.found.here.please.read.me

Actually, that does suggest a better name for news.announce.newusers:
   news.read-me

Of course, suggesting a change is one thing - anyone can suggest
anything.  The hard part is actually DOING something - Dave and Gordon
can talk all they want about "should"s and "must"s, but if they don't
actually do the work, then they are expecting to get a free ride (to
their most exacting specifications).

What Dave has been saying is that people who do get a free ride, who get
news at little or no cost and effort to themselves, really are in a
position to complain loudly when they feel they're not getting all
they're entitled to.  Sorry, the only people entitled to anything are
the people who work at making this system work.  (And to all those, I
say:  Thank you!)

I just need to think of how hard it would be to rename n.a.nu to
news.read-me, and how little impact it would really have (since so many
people would still ignore it), to decide that the current system is good
enough for me!

The Rhealist - Rheal Nadeau - nadeau@bnr.ca - Speaking only for myself
Xref: sparky news.groups:22239 soc.culture.indian:37361 soc.culture.pakistan:16825 soc.culture.bangladesh:6030