From: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.music.synth,news.admin.policy
Subject: Re: rec.music.makers.*: chronology and comments from the vote-taker.
Date: 8 Nov 92 14:22:33 GMT
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: GSP Whitewater Slalom Racing Team

Followups have been directed to news.groups.

In article <1992Nov7.204414.1862@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>Without saying it's grounds for a re-vote, without saying that readers  
>should have known that r.m.s was affected because of the presense of the  
>article in r.m.s, my question is:
>
>Should the subject line of articles posted to r.m.s. been more clear about  
>what groups were affected?
>
>Possibly "rec.music.* renamed to rec.music.makers.*" or even so bold as  
>"rec.music.synth renamed to rec.music.makers.synth"?

I addressed this an article posted yesterday, but perhaps it hasn't
made it out yet; let me see if can explain to you why this is a problem.

The proposals outlined involved four newsgroup creations and one
newsgroup renaming.  Three of the four new newsgroups already have analogous
groups in the alt.* hierarchy (alt.guitar, alt.bass, alt.guitar.tab);
the fourth has an analogous mailing list (for drummers and percussionists).
It was my intention (as stated in the CFD's and the CFV's) that the 
three alt.* groups would be eliminated if the corresponding groups
in the rec.music.makers hierarchy passed; but removing alt.* groups
have been very problematical in the past -- which is why I phrased
these proposals as newsgroup creations rather than newsgroup renamings.

A second aspect of this is the magnitude of the change: I think it's
arguable that the most significant change expressed in any of the
proposals is the creation of rec.music.makers.percussion, because it
does not correspond to *any* existing group.  Probably the next most
significant changes are the three proposals involving the creation
of rec.music.makers.{guitar,guitar.tablature,bass}, since those
involve creating new newsgroups in the main Usenet hierarchy and
(hopefully) phasing out newsgroups in the alt.* hierarchy.  Finally,
the least significant proposition is renaming rec.music.synth
to rec.music.makers.synth: the group already exists, and is already
in the main Usenet hierarchy, and there was no plan to change
its charter.

The problem is that there's no way to cram all this on the "Subject"
line without running into trouble.  If you wish to argue that
something like "rec.music.synth->rec.music.makers.synth" should be
on the "Subject" line, then I hope you will also argue that
"alt.guitar->rec.music.makers.guitar", "alt.bass->rec.music.makers.bass",
and "alt.guitar.tab->rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature" should also
be on the "Subject" line, since those proposals are of greater impact
(see argument in above paragraph) than the rec.music.synth renaming.
At this point, the "Subject" line is sitting at around 158 characters,
and that's without mentioning the rec.music.makers.percussion proposal,
which, as I said above, is probably the most significant proposal of all.

I picked the "Subject" line that I did because I felt that it best
characterized the entire thrust of the five proposals; at no time
did I intend to "mislead" anyone, as has been alleged.  (Sheesh, if
I was trying to hide this under a basket, there would have been 1 CFD
and 1 CFV, because that would have minimized the chances of someone
seeing it and objecting.)

Let me make a point before that has not been addressed yet: a number
of people who are now vociferously objecting to the outcome of the
vote were aware of the CFD's, or the CFV's, or both.  (I know this
because I have copies of their followup articles and letters to the
CFD's, and/or copies of their submitted votes.)  If these people
felt that the "Subject" line on the CFV was misleading, why did they
not post an article to rec.music.synth *while the vote was in progress*
that looked like this:

	From: A concerned person
	Subject: IMPORTANT vote affecting rec.music.synth in progress

	There is an important vote affecting the name of rec.music.synth
	currently in progress.  The article calling for votes is
	<BvAK0q.CA6@uunet.uu.net> its "Subject" line is
	"CFV: rec.music.makers.* groups" and it was posted to 
	news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, rec.music.makers,
	rec.music.synth, alt.guitar, alt.guitar.bass, and alt.guitar.tab.

	There are five proposals on the ballot, the fifth of which
	(proposal E), concerns renmaing rec.music.synth to
	rec.music.makers.synth.  If you have an opinion on this issue,
	please take the time to find this article and submit a vote.

	I think you should vote <this way> because <reasons>.

	Sincerely,
	A concerned person

These people were free to choose any eye-catching "Subject" line they
liked, and to post this article as often as they liked.  Perhaps someone
actually did this, but I have been unable to find any evidence of it
during an extensive search of the archives.

I should also point out that I received no correspondence from anyone
objecting to the "Subject" line while the vote was taking place.

---Rsk
Newsgroups: news.groups