From: barrett@daisy.ee.und.ac.za (Alan P Barrett)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored
Date: 13 Nov 1992 09:45:49 +0200
Organization: Dept. Elec. Eng., Univ. Natal, Durban, S. Africa
NNTP-Posting-Host: daisy.ee.und.ac.za

[An open letter to Dave Hayes.]

Dave,

I have been watching this fight with interest, and offer you some of
my thoughts.

You have been saying that folk in rec.music.synth are harmed by the name
change to rec.music.makers.synth, but other folk have been saying that
they don't see a mechanism that would give rise to such harm.  It seems
to me that you have not provided a good explanation of exactly *how*
they would be harmed.  It seems to me that, in the case of readers with
proper usenet access, they should just be able to unsubscribe from the
old group and subscribe to the new group; and, in the case of readers
behind some sort of gateway, the gateway maintainer should be able to
make the relevant changes without adversely affecting the readers.

I understand that some readers are at the mercy of poorly administered
gateways or news systems, and that such users really are harmed by the
name change.  This is unfortunate, but I think that it is inappropriate
for their plight to have more than a trivial effect on decisions that
affect the entire Usenet.

You have said that the readers didn't get proper warning.  I see your
point.  It seems to me that they got as much warning as is customary,
and that the vote is therefore valid, but I think that the guidelines
should be changed to increase the customary degree of warning.

You have said that the majority of the rec.music.synth readers don't care
about the newsgroup creation process, they just care about synths.  Fine.
It seems to me that if they care about synths, they should be able to
switch to the renamed version of the group, without suffering any harm.
(Discounting those at the mercy of poorly administered systems.)

You have said that the readers want to keep the old name.  This
contradicts your point that they don't care about news admin.

You have said that many readers have left the group as a direct result
of the name change, but I cannot understand why this should be.  Could
you try to explain their reasons in more detail?

You say that the vote should be invalidated.  I say NO.  It was run
according to the letter and the spirit of the guidelines, and it passed.

You say that the vote did not reflect the wishes of the affected people.
I claim that the entire net is affected by every vote, because every vote
affects the namespace that we all share.  The entire net was invited to
vote, and the vote reflects the wishes of the entire net.

You say that you want another vote to rename the group back to
rec.music.synth.  Fine, run your vote.  I hope that you have a good
explanation of why rec.music.makers.synth is the wrong place in the
hierarchy for this group, and why it should be renamed to rec.music.synth.
If this happens, I will carefully consider the merits of the vote,
without regard to the personalities of the people involved.

--apb
Alan Barrett, Dept. of Electronic Eng., Univ. of Natal, Durban, South Africa
RFC822: barrett@ee.und.ac.za                    Bang: m2xenix!undeed!barrett
Newsgroups: news.groups