From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Voting Results
Organization: WP Group
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 05:37:21 GMT


In article <lstytc=@rpi.edu>, John S. Van Etten writes to Paul Roberts:
jve> Paul, why are you arguing my side?  :-) The answer to your 
jve> question is what I want to know.  People seemed to get pretty 
jve> torqued about my suggestion, for no apparent reason.  It wasn't a 
jve> "secret ballot with the special decoder rings" so I didn't see 
jve> anything wrong with my suggestion to tally the votes as well.  

Secrecy has nothing to do with it, John.  I didn't send you a copy
of my note to Ferrell for two reasons:

1) My opinion, and Linda's opinion, of Ferrell's participation wasn't 
   any of your business.  In my message, however, I gave Ferrell permission 
   to post our views if he wished to do so.
2) Your comment that you wanted to "keep Ferrell honest" struck me as
   a childish, backhanded insult.  I apologize for my bluntness, but
   I'm tired at the moment and can't think of any other way of expressing
   it.

jve> In all honesty, I thought the number of votes would be up in the 
jve> hundreds, and I didn't expect the tabulated results to be posted 
jve> in the form that they were (i.e., I thought Ferrell would have 
jve> gotten enough votes that he would only be able to post the 
jve> totals, not a breakdown).  And the fact that the two sides of 
jve> this issue are skeptical of each other is nothing new.  

Are you a newcomer to usenet?  Perhaps the character of the net 
has changed over the past two years or so with steady 
commercialization but the idea of this "vote" would have been 
anathema several years ago...  regardless of a person's political 
orientation.  

jve> When is the last time that you folks told me that you think that 
jve> the wildlife biologists of the game departments should be trusted 
jve> to set the total game take in an unbiased fashion?  I can't 
jve> remember it.  :-) 

You don't seem to understand.   Let's assume just for the sake
of argument, that Ferrell had received 10,000 notes asking him
not to post, and no votes whatsoever in favor of his continuing
involvement.  It would still be his decision to continue posting
or to bow out.  Not yours. 

jve> My suggestion to keep a tally on behalf of our side was not meant 
jve> to be construed as a lack of trust, just a check on the system.  
jve> My opinion is still that any result of the vote was non-binding 
jve> anyway, although I was hoping we could give Ferrell a hint to put 
jve> his stuff on a mailing list and distribute it.  Hey, did you know 
jve> it's already on a mailing list?  

I don't think this is entirely true.  The vast majority of Ferrell's
postings have _not_ appeared on the mail lists that I'm aware of.

jve> It still would help me if everyone would get it from
jve> there directly, instead of the unnecessary cross-post. 

Possibly.  Some of your opponents might argue that it would help 
their side if you'd set up a pro-hunting mail list and abandon 
t.p.a.  altogether.  Unfortunately this would stifle dialog.  

At this point, you might be thinking that Ferrell isn't around
to argue the points raised in his postings, but the fact
remains that you're not suffering from a lack of opposition.
Whether Ferrell himself follows up on the debate, as opposed
to Ted Altar or Robert Black or Paul Roberts or Ted Robinson 
or whomever, doesn't make much difference.

>...
jve> Also, I would consider someone's willingness to send a cc to me 
jve> as an indication that they *do* trust Ferrell to be above board 
jve> and correctly tally the votes and are willing to openly place his 
jve> count under comparison with another's count, not that they 
jve> *don't* trust him.  

This is really twisted.  

-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000
russ@wpg.com   uunet!wpg!russ
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals