From: jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu (Joel Furr)
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.groups
Subject: Re: Folklore, synth, and guidelines
Date: 12 Dec 92 07:36:37 GMT
Organization: Jay Maynard Nuke-Level Flaming Association (HQ Chapter)

In article <Bz4G3p.6v7@rice.edu> cathyf@is.rice.edu (Catherine Anne Foulston) wr
ites:
>I've been wondering, if the current guidelines are so inadequate, how
>come almost 800 people, a large turnout for Usenet, have already voted
>on a proposal whose Subject line only mentions the unmoderation of a
>group that hardly anyone reads because it has hardly any traffic?
>Could it be that people in another, more popular group actually read
>the proposal when it went by?  Could it be that the proposal actually
>amounts to a rename of that more popular group?  Could it be that if
>people really care about the name of "their" group they'll post lots
>of warning messages to the affected group, in case the group readers
>didn't notice the original message?  Could it be that when lots of
>people feel strongly about a group name, lots of them will figure out
>how to vote?  Nah, it was probably just a conspiracy.  But the vote
>must be invalid in spirit if not technically, since the Subject: line
>of the CFV doesn't contain the name of the group that will get
>renamed, so I now call for a revote... NOT.
>
>I am sure people will now pick this apart point by point and start
>telling me oh, computer folklore readers are more likely to know how
>the net works, and oh, those people only posted warnings because
>they'd read all the discussions & flames about synth, and oh, the
>folklore group is just a bunch of elitist long-time netter news
>admins, and a lot of other stuff.  I think it's just that lots of
>people care about the name of the folklore group, and not enough
>people cared enough about the name of the synth group (until flamage
>and stubbornness, that were unnecessary, had ill effects on it).
>
>When the folklore vote's over we'll see if the elitist news admins
>and experienced netters managed to rename a group against the wishes
>of its powerless disenfranchised readers.  I have no more knowledge
>than anyone else of how the vote is going, but the large turnout and
>the volume of postings on the subject leads me to guess that the
>proposal will fail.  With the large turnout, I'm more convinced than
>I was before that the guidelines are just fine and that the right way
>to handle group renames is a concise formal posting by the proposer,
>and let opponents post more detailed messages to warn the group
>readers if they think it's a bad idea.  This has been done before the
>synth group and worked.  It's being done now, and it looks like it
>will work.  I'm sure it will be done again when things come up that
>people actually care about, and it will work.
>
>Flame, flame, flame flame.  Where did I leave my holiday spirit of
>peace and goodwill?  Probably lost it the same place as my marbles.
>Seriously, I don't have any ill will against anybody -- I just think
>the system we have works ok and that claims that it's broken are
>(unintentionally) exaggerated.
>

Cathy, that was an extremely intelligent post.  Damn, you said that well.

If the readers of alt.folklore.computers are knowledgeable enough about the
meaning of subject lines 'n' stuff to be able to rise up and defend their
group, why should the synth people be treated as clueless idiots incapable of
any comprehension of USENET hijinks whatsoever?  Frankly, I think Hayes would
have gotten mighty upset if someone else had advanced the position,
pre-renaming, that the readers of rec.music.synth were too damn stupid to know
what a vote was all about.  For some reason, he seems to have totally swapped
sides from the point of view you'd expect him, based on his passionate love of
synth and synth people, to be on.

Wow.  Good points.