VOTE: voting continues on comp.unix.wizards

[Eliot Lear]

Aside from the fact that I have posted areas in which I believe the
guidelines were violated, Mr. Haugh insists that we run through this
argument yet again.

>From The Guidelines (slightly reformatted, but NOT reworded):

   The Discussion

   1) A call for discussion on creation of a new newsgroup should be
      posted to news.announce.newgroups, and also to any other groups
      or mailing lists at all related to the proposed topic if
      desired. This group is moderated, and The Followup-to: header
      will be set so that the actual discussion takes place only in
      news.groups. Users on sites which have difficulty posting to
      moderated groups may mail submissions intended for
      news.announce.newgroups to "announce-newgroups at turbo.bio.net".

Mr. Haugh failed to send a call for discussion of any sort to
news.announce.newgroups, nor did he send one to news.groups.  Instead
there was discussion of comp.unix.esoterica.  As that discussion winds
down, the following ``guideline'' applies:

   2) The name and charter of the proposed group and whether it will
      be moderated or unmoderated (and if the former, who the
      moderator(s) will be) should be determined during the discussion
      period. If there is no general agreement on these points among
      the proponents of a new group at the end of 30 days of
      discussion, the discussion should be taken offline (into mail
      instead of news.groups) and the proponents should iron out the
      details among themselves.  Once that is done, a new, more
      specific proposal may be made, going back to step 1) above.

There was no consensus on the name, whatsoever.  In fact, there was no
consensus on who should take the vote, if it should be taken at all,
and what should be voted on.  Now unless (2) has no reason for
existing in those guidelines, I suspect it was to handle situations
such as just this one.  Now if that isn't bad enough, we move on to

   The Vote

   1) AFTER the discussion period, if it has been determined that a
      new group is really desired, a name and charter are agreed upon,
      and it has been determined whether the group will be moderated
      and if so who will moderate it, a call for votes may be posted
      to news.announce.newgroups and any other groups or mailing lists
      that the original call for discussion might have been posted to.
      There should be minimal delay between the end of the discussion
      period and the issuing of a call for votes.  The call for votes
      should include clear instructions for how to cast a vote. It
      must be as clearly explained and as easy to do to cast a vote
      for creation as against it, and vice versa.  It is explicitly
      permitted to set up two separate addresses to mail yes and no
      votes to provided that they are on the same machine, to set up
      an address different than that the article was posted from to
      mail votes to, or to just accept replies to the call for votes
      article, as long as it is clearly and explicitly stated in the
      call for votes article how to cast a vote.  If two addresses are
      used for a vote, the reply address must process and accept both
      yes and no votes OR reject them both.

The call for votes was not posted to news.announce.newgroups nor
news.groups, the one group in which discussion over
comp.unix.esoterica continued without a resolution.

Since we haven't gotten beyond this point in the guidelines, Mr. Haugh
has yet to break any more of the ``suggestions''.

Mr. Haugh wrongly asserts that those who do (did?/will?) not read
comp.unix.wizards have no reason to vote on the matter, yet his
assertions are riddled with fallacies, the key fallacy being that of
omission.  In this particular instance, there will be a rather big
mess if the group gets created, because many sites have aliased
comp.unix.wizards to be comp.unix.internals.  What would happen to a
message that was posted to comp.unix.wizards, and then sent to a site
that aliases wizards to internals, then passed to a site that keeps
only wizards?  Junk.  The reverse could also happen.  One could and
possibly should argue that the system administrators should be more
diligent in maintaining their news systems, yet that message has ended
up in the junk directory, anyway.  Thus, it may be in the system
administrator's interest to vote ``no''.  Yet it may also be in that
same person's interest to vote ``yes'' just out of principle (who
knows?).  Mr. Haugh argues that these people do not have a right to
vote.  Then there are the namespace purists who don't want to see a
vague term like ``wizards'' used.  Mr. Haugh doesn't want these people
to vote, either.

In addition, Mr. Haugh continues his barrage of logic by claiming to
have been in touch with a number of people involved with possibly
another vote, yet he continues his to add to the confusion by
proceeding with his current vote.  Tell me Mr. Haugh, have you been in
touch with Laird Heel or Nick Sayer?  You, sir, were the last to join
the party, and the first to wear a lamp shade.
-- 
Eliot Lear
[lear at turbo.bio.net]