HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Voting process
Date: 20 Nov 92 04:50:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: talon.1ehqqnINNfjd
Organization: Oregon State University, College of Oceanography
NNTP-Posting-Host: skyking.oce.orst.edu

In article <1992Nov14.182026.1314@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>Sridhar.Venkataraman@launchpad.unc.edu (Sridhar Venkataraman) writes:
>> by Dave Lawrence for any RFD and if the user bothers to override it it  
>is
>> not the net's fault. 
>> 
>But a system where this could occur (and does occur) needs help. 

The "system" allows users to select their own Newsgroups: line (for most
news systems), and to avoid the Followup-To: recommendation in the
parent article. There are very good reasons for this: refer to the
Followup-To: line of this article to learn but one.

The system does not need your help on this matter. The system is working
quite well. The users need education. There are some systems where
ignorance is not a proper mode for user operation. 

>> "Ignore RFDs and CFVs at your own peril".
 
>This point has been made time and time again. Too bad that advice isn't  
>actually written anywhere that a new user is guaranteed to see it.

There is no place that a user is guaranteed to see. Thus, by definition,
it doesn't matter whether it is written down or not, there can be no
guarantee that a new user will see it.
From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Dave Hayes may be right (was Re: To keep the r.m.s rename...)
Date: 18 Nov 92 02:01:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: talon.1ec859INNn3b
Organization: Oregon State University, College of Oceanography
NNTP-Posting-Host: skyking.oce.orst.edu

In article <1992Nov15.125844.12393@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>>	Everyone is a citizen on Usenet. There are no passerbys.
>
>Not according to the people who say "IF you are ignorant, you lose out". 
>You are by definition not a citizen for the issue you don't vote upon. 

You are a citizen whether you vote or not. Nobody but you has said
otherwise. You are a citizen of the <Insert name of country you are a
citizen of> whether or not you vote.

You just don't have a leg to stand on when you complain about a vote you
didn't participate in.

>>	ANYONE could have voted. ANYONE. 
>
>But EVERYONE didn't. Just because ANYONE could have doesn't mean ANYONE
>did...especially those in the news group. 

There has never been a vote where everyone who reads USENET voted. Are
you trying to argue that all votes ever held are invalid for that reason?

>
>>not arbitrary, since everyone had the opportunity to vote.
>
>How can you say that? Only a certain amount of the population was informed!
>-- 

Do we really need to repost the message ID of the posting to
rec.music.synth that notified readers of that group that there was a
vote?
From: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RF(Informal)D: Standard RFD/CFV Format
Keywords: RFD CFV formats guidelines votes
Date: 16 Nov 92 09:04:34 GMT
Organization: GSP Whitewater Slalom Racing Team

In article <83647@ut-emx.uucp> andy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Andrew Hackard) writes:
>Within the first screen of text (i.e. the first 20 or so lines), there
>should appear:

While I applaud the idea of standardizing the format of the RFD's/CFV's,
I'd like to point out thils particular point is a tough one.  There's
no telling what will come up on "the first screen", because there's
no telling what software and hardware readers will use to access articles.
Someone who reads news with "rn" on a 24-line screen and who has not
disabled the display of all the headers will see about the first 10 lines
of an article; someone who reads news with "xvnews" and has the article
window set to most of the size of a workstation screen will see the
first 40.  (Other examples abound.)  I'd recommend dropping the
idea of "screen" and going with the alternative you mentioned above,
i.e. "lines".

---Rsk
From: adc@tardis.msu.edu (Alan D. Cabrera)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.games.netrek reorganization
Date: 17 Nov 92 16:50:37 GMT
Reply-To: adc@tardis.msu.edu
Organization: Michigan State University

In article Qf0PoF600Vp188Vu1j@andrew.cmu.edu, nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Nanci Ann Miller) writes:
> Isn't Alan Cabrera the guy who is flaming people for profanity?  I also
> overheard someone say that he may be the discovery server god (anyone know
> for sure?  Alan?).  I can just see it now... with Alan moderating things,
> if your post isn't sqeaky clean you might as well forget it.... yeah right.
> Give it up Alan and quit wasting our time.
> 
> Nanci


Hmmmm.  Ok, now that you've blown off a little steam, take a deep
breath.  What are your more rational thought on splitting the group?


---
Alan Cabrera				internet:  adc@tardis.cl.msu.edu
Computer Laboratory			phone:     (517) 353-3027
Michigan State University		fax:       (517) 353-9847
514 Computer Center			bitnet:    CABRERA@MSU
East Lansing, MI 48824
Xref: sparky news.groups:22360 news.admin.policy:463
From: irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu (Josh Smith)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.policy
Subject: UDRP Clarification
Date: 18 Nov 92 16:34:28 GMT
Organization: HMC Academic Computing Services
Originator: irilyth@fenris

In a prior article, I (irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu) write:

> The Interested People List presently includes:
>
> [some folks]
>
> If I've missed anyone, drop me e-mail and let me know. It has also been
> suggested that I contact Gene Spafford and let him know what I'm up to,
> which I'll do Real Soon Now.

I should have added that I intend to include anyone involved in actively
maintaining the current documentation as well; the only reason I haven't
contacted any such people yet is that I still haven't had time to read the
current files, and thus don't even really know who wrote them or whether
said people still have any interest in keeping them up-to-date.

I mention this because I got a somewhat miffed letter from one of them (who
I'd never heard of, because I hadn't read his document yet), and just wanted
to reassure everyone that I'm not trying to make some kind of weird power
grab or make an end run around the existing process. I could say some fairly
bogus-sounding Perot-like statements here about hearing a cry for change,
being a servant of the users, and all that, all of which is fairly true, but
would probably sound fairly stupid.

In any case, I'll definitely be trying to include those who wrote the
existing docs--as soon as I have time to read their work and figure out who
they are. Stay tuned; meanwhile, public apologies if it looked like I was
trying to deal people out. That was not, and is not, the plan.
-- 
Josh Smith, User Support Coordinator  ::  irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu
Harvey Mudd College, Claremont CA     ::  consult(std-disclaimer.pl).
"Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why
several of us died of tuberculosis." -Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.policy
From: plutchak@pilsner.geo.brown.edu (Joel Plutchak)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: About the elitism in news.groups
Date: 20 Nov 1992 14:25:38 GMT
Organization: Brown University Planetary Geology
NNTP-Posting-Host: pilsner.geo.brown.edu

In article <1992Nov18.204236.649@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
>
>This all assumes that you know enough to see the issue being raised in the  
>first place. Haven't we been down this road before?

   We sure have.  And it's been proven that in addition to several
offical requests for discussion and calls for votes posted to the
affected newsgroup, at least one concise, explicit-subject-line
message was posted by a concerned participant.  If those messages
weren't enough to inform people what was going on, what would
have been?  (In a brief but satisfying Email exchange with one of
the involved parties, we discussed such options as bonded couriers
hand-delivering formal invitations, and awaiting personal responses.
Would that be sufficient? :-)
   I see this particular question as a fundamental difference of
opinion between a couple people who have such low opinions of
USENET readers (or perhaps just keyboardists :-) that they believe
spoon-feeding is necessary, and those who make reasonable efforts
to inform people, and don't accept blame when those people fail
to become inform.
--
Joel Plutchak, Research Programmer/Analyst
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: ian@nasser.eecs.nwu.edu (Ian Sutherland)
Subject: Re: rec.arts.fantasy
Organization: EECS Department, Northwestern University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 15:09:45 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.040052.20420@u.washington.edu> hachiman@stein.u.washington.edu (matt) writes:
>Can we come up with a definition, not of "fantasy", but of that group of fantasy
>that kind of clumps around the Tolkein-Eddison-Howard-Eddings kind of stuff?  

This provides a perfect example of what people have been referring to.
My reaction to the grouping of these names was close to nausea.
Howard, with Tolkein?  This kind of reaction is going to be expressed
in ongoing flame wars (by posters with less restraint than yours truly
:-)

The rec.arts.sf hierarchy ain't broke.  Don't "fix" it.
-- 
Ian Sutherland
ian@eecs.nwu.edu

Sans Peur
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: talk.politics.model-un
From: <F36SI@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Tuesday, 17 Nov 1992 21:25:35 EST
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center

Lending my support behind the creation of talk.politics,model-un.
    A fine idea indeed.
Matt
Newsgroups: news.groups
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Getting information
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 02:43:41 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.004946.17586@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>>>My point is that if a LOT of other people tell you "you should have asked  
>>>someonse else", most people will stop being inquisitive after awhile.
>>No one who I'd respect would do so.
>$ ls /usr/spool/news/news/groups/* | wc -l
>1000
>$ egrep <disrespect> /usr/spool/news/news/groups/* | wc -l
>800

disrespect: No such file or directory
--
"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: Intentional ignorance of newsgroup creation
Date: 20 Nov 92 05:50:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: talon.1ehuarINNfvv
Organization: Oregon State University, College of Oceanography
NNTP-Posting-Host: skyking.oce.orst.edu

In article <1992Nov16.224509.4750@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) 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). 

Gordon -- have you bothered to read "How to create..."?

Of course there is extranious info for those seeking only how to vote.
The document ISN'T THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR HOW TO VOTE. It is the
instructions for how to CREATE NEW GROUPS. MOST of the procedure is NOT
required knowledge for those seeking to vote.

The part of "How to create..." that deals with how to vote is quite
explicit in saying that the information on how to vote must be included
in the CFV. 

>If you want people  
>to thoroughly read it and understand it, a "User's guide to Usenet voting"  
>would seem to be a good idea. 

How, pray tell, would you include the information on how to vote in such
a manual, when the actual "how to vote" information differs for each and
every vote? What email address would you put in your manual as the place
to send votes? What format would you tell people to use for the vote?

The only result such a manual would have is to confuse users. "The CFV
says send mail to address X but the manual says Y. I sent mail to Y and
got a bounce. I used the format in the manual and sent mail to X, and I
was told that my vote wasn't counted. Why not?"

>Such  
>narratives aren't really appropriate in the guidelines themselves are  
>they?

Of course not. That is why the guidelines say they should be in the CFV.
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 16 Nov 1992 14:50:14 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <21886@rpp386.lonestar.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>Just the fact that so many messages are posted with this subject line
>should be a clue.  The re-org was a bad idea.  Who ever did it should
>admit they made a mistake and just be done with it.

John, it's not like you to so carefully hide all evidence of having a clue.

The many messages posted on this subject (and not just with this subject line)
can be broken down into Dave Hayes and Gordon Van Huizen against the world.
The rest of us - including some highly respected news admins - have been
trying to convince Dave not to break the group.

The reorg was a good idea; there are simply a few folks who refuse to go along
wiht the expressed will of the net in implementing it. If they'd do so, this
whole thing would blow over.
-- 
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.
           "Cat: Four legs and an attitude." -- Jim Reese
From: tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.games.netrek reorganization
Date: 23 Nov 1992 09:10:02 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <By5v2y.1xJ.2@cs.cmu.edu> hill@norman.vi.ri.cmu.edu writes:
)Tom Holub writes
)
)> I'm sorry you don't like the Usenet guidelines, Rob, but they are the
)> way they are for a reason.  If you have something to say about the
)> content of Alan's proposal, you should speak up, but lay off the
)> comments about his procedures; they are proper.
)>  -Tom
)
)Yep..I guess they are.  I don't have to agree with them.  The question is  
): does following proper procedure help or hurt most readers of  
)rec.games.netrek?  I'll let you figure it out...

I think it helps.  I think there is a large subset of the r.g.n population
that has no interest in this discussion, and that moving it to
news.groups lets those people read about netrek, which is what they
wanted to do when they subscribed.  I think most groups have a large
subset of people who have no interest in discussions about group
splits, which is why discussions about group splits belong in
news.groups.

There is a large and boring flame war going on on this topic right 
now, get in on that if you think the guidelines are wrong.
 -Tom
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Dave Hayes may be right (was Re: To keep the r.m.s rename...)
Date: 20 Nov 92 22:03:01 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1992Nov20.202016.16370@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov writes:
>chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>>I help, instruct and support the users _at_my_site_ (and no one else,
>>unless I happen to feel generous).  But I _serve_ no one.
>That is your problem.

...and you appear to have a problem with reality.

Chip's statement was a statement of fact. Only in the case of providers of
paid Usenet services - a situation I don't believe Chip is in - do the admins
serve the users. In the case of most corporate news admins, the management of
the company is the only group the admin must serve.
-- 
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.
           "Cat: Four legs and an attitude." -- Jim Reese
From: bg@dymaxion.ns.ca
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: comp.lang.basic
Date: 17 Nov 92 02:21:48 GMT
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Dymaxion Research Limited, NS, Canada

In article <Bxty6F.3yJ@uunet.uu.net>, doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) writes:
> Proposed newsgroup name: comp.lang.basic
> Status: unmoderated
> 
> Charter: comp.lang.basic is for discussion of all implementations of the
> BASIC programming language on all platforms, including MS-DOS, MS-Windows,
> Mac, Amiga, and Unix.

and VAX

> Rationale: BASIC is no longer a toy language.  Newer versions of BASIC -
> QuickBasic and Visual Basic from Microsoft, True Basic, and others -
> have added sufficient power and structure to the language to rival Pascal
> as a development language.  BASIC still remains easy to program in, and
> is a productive language for application development.  A significant number
> of current applications available as commercial, shareware, and freeware
> programs have been written in BASIC.

Amen to that.  As BASIC is the language in which the majority of our software
is now written, I would like to see a "comp." group for discussion of BASIC
issues.  I haven't seen much on "alt.basic" and hope that legitimizing the
group by giving it a place in the "comp." hierarchy will encourage its use.

Ben.
---
Ben Armstrong, Software Development                  bus: (902)422-1973
Dymaxion Research Ltd.,                              fax: (902)421-1267
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3J 1R2            Internet: bg@dymaxion.ns.ca
From: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Dave Hayes)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: About the elitism in news.groups
Date: 20 Nov 92 19:56:07 GMT
Reply-To: dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Lab - Pasadena, CA

plutchak@pilsner.geo.brown.edu (Joel Plutchak) writes:
>   I see this particular question as a fundamental difference of
>opinion between a couple people who have such low opinions of
>USENET readers (or perhaps just keyboardists :-) that they believe
>spoon-feeding is necessary, and those who make reasonable efforts
>to inform people, and don't accept blame when those people fail
>to become inform.

I agree with this except for the low opinion. MANY people just do not have
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.

Now if they KNEW that an article was going to have a direct effect on
the group...that might change.
-- 
Dave Hayes - Network & Communications Engineering - JPL / NASA - Pasadena CA
dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov       dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov         ...usc!elroy!dxh

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not 
for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
Newsgroups: uk.net,news.groups
From: gtoal@ibmpcug.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: RFD: Should UK groups be sent to UUnet?
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:30:58 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.103234.18372@unipalm.co.uk> ian@unipalm.co.uk (Ian Phillipps) writes:
:I'm sorry, Guy, Graham has grasped the wrong end of the stick. The
:current position is:
:
:Anyone, anywhere, can post to uk groups and have a fair chance of their
:getting here - especially uk.misc and uk.telecom, which are in uunet's
:master list. Witness that Russian/Canadian looking for a job a few
:weeks ago. Cross-posting to any world-wide group will ensure transit. I
:deliberately cross-posted this thread to news.groups to ensure
:world-wide propogation.
:
:No-one feeds the "usenet mainstream", either directly or indirectly,
:with the uk groups at present. By the "mainstream", I mean the sites
:appearing at the top of the "inpaths"-created list - uunet is no.1,
:decwrl is no.  28. Hence (to take two examples) neither Sun nor DEC
:employees in the UK receive the full uk groups.

OK, perhaps the top 28 sites aren't currently getting uk.* groups, but
I still maintain that a couple of sites have been feeding US sites
with uk groups for some time, and they could have been passed around
had anyone adjacent wanted those groups.

The point is not whether (was it Ian?) someone asks politely whether
he should forward them; the point is no-one has the right or ability
to stop anyone if they decide they are going to pass uk groups on.

G
-- 
Newsgroups: news.groups,alt.flame,talk.bizarre,news.admin.policy,rec.music.synth,rec.music.makers.synth,rec.humor
From: kroth@david.wheaton.edu (Ken Roth)
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.arts.fantasy
Keywords: fantasy RFD arts
Organization: Wheaton College, IL
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 08:32:16 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.234844.21603@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>In article <Bxty6p.40F@uunet.uu.net> pvanheus@frodo.cs.uct.ac.za (P A van Heusden) writes:
>Nooooooooooo!!!!!!
>The problem with this group is that it is not possible to define fantasy well
>enough to separate it from science fiction, in such a way as to do what you
>want.

I must admit that this was the first problem that entered my mind when I read
this post.

What is Fantasy defined as?
While I do understand that there is a difference between Science Fiction and
Fantasy, where is the line and who is going to draw it?  Sticky case in point:
Piers Anthony, Apprentice Adept series...Fantasy or Science Fiction?
I guess what I see is a huge amount of cross-posting between groups if this
board is added..you know, just one more to add to the list.

>Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
>     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)

Ken

PS, not a bad idea in general though, but definately in need of some
thought..
-- 
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
kroth@wheaton.uucp  ||  uunet!tellab5!wheaton!kroth  ||  They call me Gryfalia  
   "We believe, we believe, 'cause we felt it burning in our hearts"--77's
  "He is no fool who loses what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose."
From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Usenet Culture (Was: Re: CFV? What's a CFV??)
Date: 20 Nov 92 16:28:24 GMT
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC

In article <1992Nov18.213508.1017@metrosoft.com> gvh@metrosoft.com (Gordon Van Huizen) writes:
> Who said anything about causing information to disappear? I'm in favor of
> more information.

Information overload. As new information comes in, other stuff always ends up
getting dropped because people can only read so much. And it's hard to even
tell what *has* been dropped unless you follow every change closely.

Why don't you do a writeup and send it in? Be a lot more useful than all this
nattering, and you'll get a better idea of the Usenet documentation process.

> > > 4. The 'will of the net' will come to mean 'the will of the creators'

> > No, the will of the net will remain "the will of the people running the
> > best-connected sites".

> So not only do you support a political system that doesn't include the
> users, but a system that only includes the "best-connected sites"?

There *IS* no political system on Usenet. There are simply a bunch of informal
agreements between sites, and power rests in the hands of those who provide
the resources. This is what Usenet *IS*. That is *ALL* Usenet is. And it works
pretty well, compared to other networks. We've seen what has happened to those
with strong central control and formal policies and procedures. No thanks, if
you want Fidonet you know where to get it.
-- 
Peter da Silva / 77487-5012 USA / +1 713 274 5180
true(<<VV$@\\$'&O 9$O%'$LT$&$"V6"$&$<4$?'&$ #I&&?$=$<<@)24 24 scale 3 21 moveto
{dup 36 eq{pop not}{dup 7 and 4 sub exch 56 and 8 div 4 sub 2 index{rlineto}{
rmoveto}ifelse}ifelse}forall stroke pop showpage % Har du kramat din varg idag?
Lines: 11