From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: Requiring good subject lines for RFDs (was: *BAD* music group reorg will not be honored)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 15:41:53 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: IBM Research

In article <BxBvAH.Ip4@unix.amherst.edu>, twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov6.195803.14964@bradley.bradley.edu> pwh@bradley.bradley.edu (Pete Hartman) writes:
|> 
|> >In <1992Nov06.054214.22775@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
|> >
|> >>How to remedy the problem in the future?  Either:
|> >>(1) Require that a CFV affecting a group have that group
|> >>    name explicitly in the subject.
|> >
|> >I agree that this is a good way to prevent this argument
|> >from recurring in the future.
|> 
|> The rec.music.makers CFV was posted to seven or ten newsgroups, I
|> believe.  I've seen more widely cross-posted CFVs and RFDs.  Should
|> each of these newsgroups be seperately enumerated in the subject line?
|> You've got a faster recipe for making your readers go glassy-eyed than
|> Clayton Cramer's `statistics.'
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|> 

My goodness, we might be wrong, but please don't compare us to
one of the most notorious hatemongers on the net!!

My position is this:  the vote is over; it seems to have
been conducted according to present guidelines --- it's
inappropriate and a dangerous precedent to overturn it.

However, I think the guidelines should be changed.  The
empirical fact is that a significant number of people
didn't know a vote was going on.  *I* didn't know
a vote was going on, and I was reading rec.music.synth
*and* news.groups regularly, and even posting to news.groups.

I may have been foolish, or ignorant, or whatever,
but the fact remains that I skipped over the CFV
because I thought it was about rec.music.makers ---
which I had intuitively thought had nothing to do
with rec.music.synth.  I use xrn which lets me browse
Subject lines and view only those articles which
appear interesting.  If I weren't enormously selective
about what to read, I'd be spending my whole workday
reading news.

I still think that the groups affected by a change
in a RFD or CFV should be listed in the Subject line.
Some people have argued that this would have made
the subject line too long.  That may be true,
but this brings up another issue:

*emphasis on*
If you're proposing so many changes that they can't
be summarized on one Subject line, then probably
you are proposing too many changes in a single
ballot!  Split them into separate changes and
separate ballots.
*emphasis off*

I have seen several posters in the thread argue that
"the RFD was primarily about percussion groups"
or "rec.music.synth was not the primary purpose
of the reorganization".  If that is the case, that's
a good reason to have a separate discussion just
about the percussion groups or whatever most people
are focussing on and a separate one about rec.music.synth.

I know that Tim favors the alternative "ignore a
CFV or RFD for *anything* at your own peril".  But
I think his approach is burdensome for the casual
reader of news who would like to ignore *everything*
except the few threads he/she is following and
the exception thread whose title immediately catches
the attention.

If the guidelines come up for a vote, I recommend
the "clear notification on Subject line" policy.

-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598
Newsgroups: news.groups