newgroup procedures: something still missing...
Walter Roberson
through most of the 275+ messages in the four drafts of Tim's proposal.
I have, though, gone through sufficient of the responses to see that
people are mostly arguing over the details of the proposal ("is this part
mandatory or advisatory?") but seem to be accepting the general
tenats of the proposal.
I, though, still have the instinct that we are missing something,
and that Tim's proposal, though clearly an honest attempt to
find a solution, is the wrong foundation to move forward on.
The major premises of Tim's proposals are that there are too many
barriers to "the right sort of proposal", and that those are
recognizable as such by "the right sort of people" who should be
empowered to "do the right thing" on behalf of a populace which is
unable or unwilling to make the "right" collective decisions for itself.
I, though, am not so sure that the Grand Committee and the
Committee For Public Safety are what we should be headed towards.
I think that first we need a better understanding of how and why
the current situation has arisen.
I do not have the answer, just the instinct that we aren't persuing
the right questions.
In this line, I happened across a paper today that has an analysis
that appears strikingly relevant. The paper is "Free Riding on Gnutella",
Eyatan Adar and Bernardo A. Huberman,
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_10/adar/
and it includes these paragraphs:
While a lot of attention has been focused on the issue of free
access to music and the violation of copyright laws through these
systems, there remains an additional problem of securing enough
cooperation in such large and anonymous systems so they become
truly useful. Since users are not monitored as to who makes their
files available to the rest of the network (produce) or downloads
remote files (consume), nor are statistics maintained, the
possibility exist that as the user community in such networks gets
large, users will stop producing and only consume. This free riding
behavior is the result of a social dilemma that all users of such
systems confront, even though they may not be aware of its
existence.
In a general social dilemma, a group of people attempts to utilize
a common good in the absence of central authority. In the case of a
system like Gnutella, one common good is the provision of a very
large library of files, music and other documents to the user
community. Another might be the shared bandwidth in the system. The
dilemma for each individual is then to either contribute to the
common good, or to shirk and free ride on the work of others.
Since files on Gnutella are treated like a public good and the
users are not charged in proportion to their use, it appears
rational for people to download music files without contributing by
making their own files accessible to other users. Because every
individual can reason this way and free ride on the efforts of
others, the whole system's performance can degrade considerably,
which makes everyone worse off - the tragedy of the digital commons
[Ha68].
If one alters the wording slightly to increase the emphasis on text,
and one changes the name, these paragraphs would appear to be
quite applicable to Usenet :(
Also later down in the paper
The data also shows that the top 1 percent (333 hosts) represent
approximately 37 percent of the total files shared. This quickly
escalates to the top 20 percent (6,667 hosts) sharing 98% of the
files.
In the absence of arbitron statistics for the last decade, do
these Gnutella figures give us significant insight as to what
Usenet traffic is probably like?
See also [Hu96], Hubermann and Glance "Beliefs and Cooperation",
http://econwpa.wustl.edu/eps/game/papers/9405/9405001.pdf
This paper goes into some formal game-theoretical analyses of
possible beliefs in the value of cooperation. I would be interested
in the thoughts of others as to which of the five major models given
there are probably operative in Usenet.
Please note that the the analysis of Hubermann/Glance strongly
implies that if we evaluate incorrectly which of the cooperation
models is predominent, that the changes Tim proposed could
potentially make Usenet a considerably worse place, as the "rational
response" to Tim's proposed structure would be for the majority of people
to feel that they have no meaningful effect on outcomes, and so
to "defect". The cure is to, if possible, *heighten* the effects
of "audience participation".
There is lots of other interesting material buried in Hubermann/Glance
including predictions that things stay the same for a long time, but
when they do change, they change very rapidly. When there is a rash
of defection "the time scale of recovery is many orders of
magnitude larger than the crossver time." Which is to say that if
we get it wrong this time, it's going to take a *long* time to fix!
Todd Michel McComb
Walter Roberson <robe...@mts.net> wrote:
>Which is to say that if we get it wrong this time, it's going to
>take a *long* time to fix!
I think this is quite correct.
Regarding some of your other points, I think they have some validity,
but largely tangential validity. The vast majority of Usenet users
are simply not affected by anything that happens here. If the
groups they like to use are already in existence, they are simply
done with us -- perhaps without ever having encountered us in the
first place.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Walter Roberson
Todd Michel McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
[of my article <ZHf2f.2238$lb7....@news1.mts.net> ]
:Regarding some of your other points, I think they have some validity,
:but largely tangential validity. The vast majority of Usenet users
:are simply not affected by anything that happens here. If the
:groups they like to use are already in existence, they are simply
:done with us -- perhaps without ever having encountered us in the
:first place.
I think the validity is more than tangential.
Huberman and Lukose, "Social dilemmas and internet congestion",
... the number one and number two reasons for dissatisfaction as
slow access and the inability to find relevant information respectively
We can't do much about "slow access", but what we do here is to
work towards making it easier for people to find relevant information
on Usenet, by attempting to provide a quality selection of topics
and a useful and consistant categorization process.
This organization effort is, in the terms of the "Free Ride on Gnutella"
paper I cited previously, a contribution to the public good, and so
would be part of the "rational" equations of anyone who knew about
the effort or realized the need for such an effort.
Interestly, this leads us to an observation that might explain how
and why we are in the present situation:
The value of the Usenet namespace and newsgroup selection measures
diminishes as more effective discussion search-engines arise.
The alternate formulation of this is,
"news.groups has largely been put out of business by Google Groups."
Do the efforts of news.groups members still have more than residual
value? Certainly! But the value of organizing for *finding* information
is much diminished. What is left, what we could potentially still
work upon, is the value of organizing as a component of developing
*community*.
Google's search engine is oriented towards finding a particular signal
out of disorganization, noise and chaos, but its very success tactitly
encourages the increase in organizational entropy: if you can find
what you are looking for where-ever it has been posted, then you
do not need to care whether the search space is ordered or chaotic.
Organization is of no particular concern to googlization, only keyword
selection and citation interrelationships. The existance of newsgroup
topic selectivity is, to Google, more of a -discovered- interrelationship,
rather than an inherent property to be exploited in order to determine
relevance.
But this chaos-neutral search only works when searching for *existing*
signals, and is antagonistic to efforts by content creators (and I
include those who actively wish to ask questions in that term) to find
the optimum place to post in order to get the best answers (as a
consumer) or to have the greatest influence (as a producer). If your
interest is Anti-Taxol Albatross-Crocuses, then which of the
myriad places should you *post* to?
A news.groups integrated as part of a concerted effort to build
or locate or index interest communities, would, I think, end up with
a noticably different proposal than Tim's drafts are leading towards.
And yet Tim's drafts are useful tools for approaching the question,
"Okay, so we've found an interest community that might be worth adding.
Now what -exactly- do we *do* to make the decision and to enact
the decision??"
--
I was very young in those days, but I was also rather dim.
-- Christopher Priest
Todd Michel McComb
Walter Roberson <robe...@ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca> wrote:
>We can't do much about "slow access", but what we do here is to
>work towards making it easier for people to find relevant information
>on Usenet, by attempting to provide a quality selection of topics
>and a useful and consistant categorization process.
I think the point is that we are largely finished with that job.
Barring some new radical reorganization of Usenet namespace, we're
only fiddling with a few percentage point of it on the fringes.
The number of dead groups we should remove is probably more than
the new groups we'll create in the next 10 years, and it might not
be comparable.
If we were starting from scratch with the group list, rather than
the group process, I don't think there's any question but that we
would need extensive public input. As it is, if we get to something
like comp.databases.mysql today, well, what else are we going to
call it? The naming decision was effectively made for us years
ago.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Tim Skirvin
>The major premises of Tim's proposals are that there are too many
>barriers to "the right sort of proposal", and that those are
>recognizable as such by "the right sort of people" who should be
>empowered to "do the right thing" on behalf of a populace which is
>unable or unwilling to make the "right" collective decisions for itself.
I'm glad that you've got your rhetoric down.
[quotes on Gnutella]
>If one alters the wording slightly to increase the emphasis on text,
>and one changes the name, these paragraphs would appear to be
>quite applicable to Usenet :(
I firmly believe that, given enough time, all networks will
eventually converge on Usenet. P2P networks are already half-way there
(generally the easy-to-do parts).
>Please note that the the analysis of Hubermann/Glance strongly
>implies that if we evaluate incorrectly which of the cooperation
>models is predominent, that the changes Tim proposed could
>potentially make Usenet a considerably worse place, as the "rational
>response" to Tim's proposed structure would be for the majority of people
>to feel that they have no meaningful effect on outcomes, and so
>to "defect". The cure is to, if possible, *heighten* the effects
>of "audience participation".
I'm going to ramble for a bit. Forgive me if my points aren't yet
suitable for a FAQ; I kindof want to write one about this topic, if we get
to the stage where the Proposal is at least formalized, but I'm not there
yet.
"Audience participation" is my *goal* on this Proposal. It's not
just a side thing; it's the point. I want people to think that their
voice may actually have something resembling a point. The RFD/CFV system
solve this when there were hundreds or thousands of participants; but in a
world of 50-100 participants, that's no longer the case.
Right now, the voice of a single outsider means absolutely nothing.
Yes, it looks like it *should* matter - but what happens when you're one
of forty people to show up for the vote? The group fails for lack of
support. If that was your goal, great; but it would have been just as
easy to not show up. But if you wanted it to pass, what can be more
frustrating than to know that your voice not only didn't matter, that you
really needed to show up with at least 20 of your friends to actually get
anywhere?
I want for the people that show up at these things to get some
impression that they're discussing something that might matter. That by
making cogent points, they may convince somebody besides themselves. In
this current Usenet environment, a lobbyist will hold *much* more power
than a single voter; their actions may actually affect somebody that can
make a difference. And anybody can be a lobbyist.
I've gone out of my way to do two things with this:
1. Not really give anybody any new powers.
2. Play up the powers that they already have.
The former isn't really that hard - the power always lies in the
n.a.n Moderators' hands, and that's not likely to change any time soon.
Yes, the Advisory Board members will have more power, but it will be
mostly advisory. Basically, the Committee is just going to have someone
to listen to, and a known group of people that can cause them some trouble
occasionally...
The latter, though, is tricky. I want the people involved to feel
like they're doing something useful, and to have some sense that what
they're doing makes a difference. In the current system, everybody's
powers are played down - it just looks like a self-running system, from
the outside. There may be some sysadmins involved in there somewhere,
but they're not particularly worthy of concern... or at least that's the
perspective of outsiders. That's gotta be fixed; and it seems that
showing everybody more clearly that they have a few powers would be a good
way to do it.
As for the "it's hard to get volunteers" issue - I hope that my
tiered system will help with that. Exec Committee members will generally
be old Advisory Board members, promoted to fill empty spaces. The Ad
Board will be old Proponents, who looked at the system and said "you know,
I could do more with this". And new Proponents will hopefully come to a
system that works efficiently and effectively. That's the goal. I think
it could be self-sustaining...
Okay, sure, the system may change again when/if we get a few
hundred people involved that actually care about the system, and want to
participate. Each person's voice would then be smaller than it is now;
but guess what, the system is set up to deal with that! The size of the
Ad Board can be grown, or the polling mechanisms can go back to an RFD/CFV
system in addition to the Advisory Board's input. It's up to the views of
the Excutive Committee - and I really, really want that Committee to be
made up of sane individuals who care about this stuff, just like we've got
now.
On a more personal note, I want to do this because I want to be
able to convince a single one of my friends that this process might be
interesting to them. *One* *single* *friend*. I've got a lot of 'em; but
they all roll their eyes when they hear me talk about Usenet, doubly so if
they actually know anything about the voting process. And why shouldn't
they? The current system hasn't given them anything that they care about
in the last few years. They'll occasionally advise me a bit on what they
know, but none of them have come out of a vote happy yet...
Okay, rambling done.
- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
--
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/ Skirv's Homepage <FISH>< <*>
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/cows/ Skirv's Cows
Ken Arromdee
Tim Skirvin <tski...@killfile.org> wrote:
> "Audience participation" is my *goal* on this Proposal. ...
> Right now, the voice of a single outsider means absolutely nothing.
>Yes, it looks like it *should* matter - but what happens when you're one
>of forty people to show up for the vote? The group fails for lack of
>support.
A single outsider's voice may fail when the group fails by lack of support.
But a single outsider's voice may also fail when the single outsider faces
active opposition from lots of other outsiders.
In the first case, your proposal may make the audience members feel they
can participate more. In the second case it will have the opposite effect.
If your real concern is the first case, I suggest radically changing your
plan. Keep the voting process (perhaps with a 50 vote margin), with one
addition: if a proposal fails because of lack of support, the proponent can
appeal to the Cabal to pass it anyway.
> I've gone out of my way to do two things with this:
> 1. Not really give anybody any new powers.
> 2. Play up the powers that they already have.
The problem with this idea is that powers which are played down also tend
not to get used a lot. There were plenty of times under the voting system
where the Cabal hated the voters' decision, could have overruled it, and
didn't.
Playing up the powers increases their use (especially when it also blurs the
distinction between exceptional cases and normal cases.)
--
Ken Arromdee / arromdee_AT_rahul.net / http://www.rahul.net/arromdee
"You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk
on water." --Samantha Carter, Stargate SG-1
Todd Michel McComb
Ken Arromdee <arro...@green.rahul.net> wrote:
>In the first case, your proposal may make the audience members
>feel they can participate more. In the second case it will have
>the opposite effect.
It's your first case that I think we've struggled with. When it
comes to expediting things, the trick is knowing the difference.
We haven't been dealing with many controversial votes lately (other
than controversies *about* the vote), and I do think it's worth
keeping in mind how the previous system handled some of these cases.
When we do have a bunch of interested parties -- in a reorg, say
-- directly polling them makes a lot of sense.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Ken Arromdee
Todd Michel McComb <mcc...@medieval.org> wrote:
>>In the first case, your proposal may make the audience members
>>feel they can participate more. In the second case it will have
>>the opposite effect.
>It's your first case that I think we've struggled with. When it
>comes to expediting things, the trick is knowing the difference.
And it's the second case I'm worried about.
The proposal strikes me as a very blunt instrument (play on words not
intended). If the problem is that groups fail because of apathy, then do
something about *that* problem. Getting rid of the vote is massive overkill
with more side effects than main effects.
>When we do have a bunch of interested parties -- in a reorg, say
>-- directly polling them makes a lot of sense.
I don't think that will work. My concern is that I want the users to be able
to vote for something the Cabal doesn't want, and get it anyway if the vote
comes out well.
The voting system, however much of a failure it otherwise was, has managed
to do this a number of times. But that only works if the vote is such
a standard procedure that the Cabal is reluctant to casually overrule it.
If the new standard procedure is "the Cabal decides, and they may take a
vote when it's really necessary", it'll never happen again. The Cabal will
just overrule the vote (or refuse to have one at all) when the users
"misunderstand" or vote for the "wrong reasons".
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
Arromdee) wrote in <dikmi7$sgd$1...@blue.rahul.net>:
> ... If the new standard procedure is "the Cabal decides, and they may take a
>vote when it's really necessary" ...
Or use other data collection procedures (Todd McCombs desiderata),
if they can be developed.
> ... , it'll never happen again.
I respectfully predict a different future.
>The Cabal will
>just overrule the vote (or refuse to have one at all) when the users
>"misunderstand" or vote for the "wrong reasons".
Yes, they may and probably will, from time to time.
I am OK with the folks who hold the keys to the kingdom
having explicit authority to use them as they see fit. That
seems to me to be the structure of the present system.
The nature of that structure is made more apparent by
Tim's proposal.
Marty
Tim Skirvin
>If the new standard procedure is "the Cabal decides, and they may take a
>vote when it's really necessary", it'll never happen again. The Cabal will
>just overrule the vote (or refuse to have one at all) when the users
>"misunderstand" or vote for the "wrong reasons".
Ken, I think you've finally fallen for the verbal trap you set for
yourself years ago. You've been using confrontational words to describe
a group of people that you think is in charge of Usenet for years; and
you've attributed past actions to this nebulous group as well. Both of
these were reasonable; at least there was evidence that you could believe
in. But to now attribute *future* hostile actions to a group that barely
exists? I think you're stretching...
I'd still encourage you to be involved in this process. I don't
think I'd mind seeing you on the Executive Committee; you're still the one
member of the Opposition that I truly respect, even while I'm restraining
myself from strangling you.
Todd Michel McComb
Ken Arromdee <arro...@green.rahul.net> wrote:
>My concern is that I want the users to be able to vote for something
>the Cabal doesn't want, and get it anyway if the vote comes out
>well. The voting system, however much of a failure it otherwise
>was, has managed to do this a number of times.
When was the last time something like this happened?
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Todd Michel McComb
Ken Arromdee <arro...@green.rahul.net> wrote:
>Perhaps I'm fighting the last war.
Well, I do think it's worth keeping in mind the problems we've had
in the past. Our recent problems have fit a different mold than
those you're describing, but we don't want to adopt something that's
just going to bring back old problems.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
BarB
wrote:
>I should perhaps start by saying that I have not had time to go
>through most of the 275+ messages in the four drafts of Tim's proposal.
>I have, though, gone through sufficient of the responses to see that
>people are mostly arguing over the details of the proposal ("is this part
>mandatory or advisatory?") but seem to be accepting the general
>tenats of the proposal.
I'm trying to find somewhere to get a word in here and I too am way
behind on reading.:) You are expressing some of my concerns. We
don't really know what we are fixing because we don't really have a
handle on why people don't vote. Is it too complicated as some
believe? Is revealing an email address a stumbling block? Does it
take too long between RFD and CFV that users forget, or, is it as
some feel, that the proponents have neglected to promote the
discussion in relevant groups?
>I, though, still have the instinct that we are missing something,
>and that Tim's proposal, though clearly an honest attempt to
>find a solution, is the wrong foundation to move forward on.
>
I think we need data. I'd like to see a former proponent run a survey
of his group which passed say in the last year. Are there users there
who didn't vote? Why didn't they vote? Did they know about the RFD?
Did they forget or was it too complicated? We might want to do
things like shorten the time between RFD and CFV or perhaps allow
people to call for a ballot at any time during the RFD period which
would not be sent until the CFV was initiated.
>The major premises of Tim's proposals are that there are too many
>barriers to "the right sort of proposal", and that those are
>recognizable as such by "the right sort of people" who should be
>empowered to "do the right thing" on behalf of a populace which is
>unable or unwilling to make the "right" collective decisions for itself.
I look back at proposals which I have been concerned with, and I am
very hesitant to depend on any panel of news groupies, myself
included, to know whether a group should be formed. I know better
than most here, how the animal groups function, yet I couldn't have
told you whether a group for cat breeds was a good idea at first. I
needed to put out some feelers among some personal mailing lists to
decide for myself that it wasn't likely to go anywhere, yet, as a
news groupie, I originally supported the idea.
I guess I want to say that I don't want to see the voting system
thrown out completely. In my opinion, it's still the best measure of
who is going to use the group. Perhaps a compromise: If the group
passes a vote, it's formed. If it doesn't pass, the council could
override and vote to form it anyway.
>
>I, though, am not so sure that the Grand Committee and the
>Committee For Public Safety are what we should be headed towards.
>I think that first we need a better understanding of how and why
>the current situation has arisen.
I agree.
>
BarB
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
Arromdee) wrote in <dim2k8$m88$1...@blue.rahul.net>:
> ... I'm aware that there really isn't a "Cabal" in the sense of a group of
>co-conspirators, but I can't think of anything better to call it. ...
I wish we did have a Cabal to give some force to Tim's proposal.
Google News, Supernews, Newsguy, individual.net (in-duh-vidual.net?),
Stanford, and any other classic news servers with news admins who still
care enough to say, "We'll back the decisions of the Big Eight Team
(B8T)."
Right now, it seems that control messages are popped into a bottle
and floated out into the electronic abyss.
Marty
Walter Roberson
Tim Skirvin <tski...@killfile.org> wrote:
:just a side thing; it's the point. I want people to think that their
:voice may actually have something resembling a point. The RFD/CFV system
:solve this when there were hundreds or thousands of participants; but in a
:world of 50-100 participants, that's no longer the case.
Tim, I've been reading your drafts, and as best I could tell from them,
a major point of them is that the general populace is -not-
participating in the new group formation process, and thus that it
would be better for Usenet if a committee of dedicated people was
formed whose deliberations would -replace- the missing public
participation.
And based on Todd's and Russ's comments and the Team's override of the
SQL vote, and your lack of verbage opposing that action within your
draft, it appeared to me from the drafts that you are also trying to
provide firm underpinnings to the idea that there is (or should exist)
a group whose deliberations are sufficiently cogent as to override the
expressed will (apathy) of the public and to enact what they know
in their hearts "should" have happened.
You have proposed committee sizes that are not trivial in themselves,
but yet which form only a sliver of a hair of the number of people we
suspect are reading Usenet. And you haven't provided any clear
mechanism by which people become members of the committee, other than
by the existing members agreeing to appoint them.
If, hypothetically, I believed that the then-existing team was not
doing things properly or not adequately considering the needs of Usenet
denizens, then how would I become a member of the team in order to
reform from within? It appears that I could just "ask" to become a
member, and that the existing members might say, "He doesn't have his
own kook newsgroup yet, and we like his .signatures -- Okay, Rusty's in
the club." But if I have been expressing sufficient discontent to feel
that the team needs to be -reformed- (rather than just re-caffinated),
then chances are that one of the existing team members would say,
"IX-Nay, I don't get along with him" and that that might be the end of
the matter. If several of the other team members for some odd reason
thought that I would provide a necessary viewpoint and were willing to
visibly back me in the secret deliberations, and it came down to a "If
you let him in, then I resign!"... well, groups that try to work by
consenus tend to want to avoid obvious interpersonal conflicts and so
tend to be conservative about allowing in any boat-rockers if doing so
would disturb the existing members.
So... if I were not the emininent spiritual leader that I am, with
the existing team members anxious for my input (hah!), how would
I get on the team to make waves? If (say) the readership in Brazil
were to say, "We really feel like we aren't being heard, and we
want a voice on the committees, and our choice is esquire Roberson"
then what leverage would they have to make that stick? Where are
the processes by which a constituancy gets to choose their
representative even if the existing members might not be entirely
happy with the choice?
I am, in this matter, not unmindful that if Elections were made
part of the procedures, then all kinds of politics could creep in.
Someone might, for example, run successfully on the platform of only
permitting newsgroups that have the right Moral Message -- repeal
soc.feminism and sci.military and soc.humanism!!
Which reminds me of a point: in the drafts, I noted the potential
for process abuse by k00ks. I suggest you review the procedures
asking at each point, "Suppose someone -wanted- to cause problems:
how would the proposed system react? Would the system be forced into
inordinate reactions for obvious absurdities?"
--
If you lie to the compiler, it will get its revenge. -- Eric Sosman
Tim Skirvin
>Tim, I've been reading your drafts, and as best I could tell from them,
>a major point of them is that the general populace is -not-
>participating in the new group formation process, and thus that it
>would be better for Usenet if a committee of dedicated people was
>formed whose deliberations would -replace- the missing public
>participation.
More or less.
Do you think these points are contradictory? I don't. I envision
a group of people that can make the actual decisions, that are advised by
an active audience of advisors. The more information they can get, the
wiser their decisions can be.
>And based on Todd's and Russ's comments and the Team's override of the
>SQL vote, and your lack of verbage opposing that action within your
>draft, it appeared to me from the drafts that you are also trying to
>provide firm underpinnings to the idea that there is (or should exist)
>a group whose deliberations are sufficiently cogent as to override the
>expressed will (apathy) of the public and to enact what they know
>in their hearts "should" have happened.
This is where I start to take umbrage with your language. But
I'll ignore it as best I can, and just leave the core point:
I think that Russ and Todd's actions to override the vote and
create the mysql group were well-advised.
>If, hypothetically, I believed that the then-existing team was not
>doing things properly or not adequately considering the needs of Usenet
>denizens, then how would I become a member of the team in order to
>reform from within?
Well, for starters, volunteer. I'll presume that you're talking
about the Advisory Board here. The rules to get onto this Board is "a
majority vote of existing Board members". I don't really know how much
work this will require yet, not until the Board is put together; but I
expect that it will be less politics and more reputation...
>But if I have been expressing sufficient discontent to feel that the team
>needs to be -reformed- (rather than just re-caffinated), then chances are
>that one of the existing team members would say, "IX-Nay, I don't get
>along with him" and that that might be the end of the matter.
Why would that be the end of the matter? That's one member of a
fairly large group. Yes, you'll need to probably find a sponsor on the
Board to be reasonably considered to addition to the list; but if there's
an opening, or your case is sufficiently
I wouldn't object to having a certain number of positions on the
Advisory Board be elected by popular election. I don't particularly want to
work out the methodology of that election, though, so I haven't gone there
yet... But certainly, the rules don't preclude this.
And, really, what of it if you're not on the Advisory Board? It
means you can't issue a Formal Challenge yourself, or formally Submit a
Proposal. That doesn't stop you from posting to news.groups in an attempt
to influence the Board or Committee members, or being a Proponent yourself...
In fact, you'd be in essentially the same boat that most of us are in in
news.groups right now.
>If several of the other team members for some odd reason thought that I
>would provide a necessary viewpoint and were willing to visibly back me
>in the secret deliberations, and it came down to a "If you let him in,
>then I resign!"... well, groups that try to work by consenus tend to want
>to avoid obvious interpersonal conflicts and so tend to be conservative
>about allowing in any boat-rockers if doing so would disturb the existing
>members.
The Advisory Board does not work by consensus. You're thinking of
the Committee. *That* will likely be invitation only...
>So... if I were not the emininent spiritual leader that I am, with
>the existing team members anxious for my input (hah!), how would
>I get on the team to make waves? If (say) the readership in Brazil
>were to say, "We really feel like we aren't being heard, and we
>want a voice on the committees, and our choice is esquire Roberson"
>then what leverage would they have to make that stick? Where are
>the processes by which a constituancy gets to choose their
>representative even if the existing members might not be entirely
>happy with the choice?
Well, for starters, I'm not trying to kill off any other hierarchy
with this proposal. The Big-8 is not the only game in town, nor will it
ever be...
>Which reminds me of a point: in the drafts, I noted the potential
>for process abuse by k00ks. I suggest you review the procedures
>asking at each point, "Suppose someone -wanted- to cause problems:
>how would the proposed system react? Would the system be forced into
>inordinate reactions for obvious absurdities?"
I've built as many protections against this into the system as
I could think of. If you have any more suggestions, please make them.
- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
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Tim Skirvin
> I guess I want to say that I don't want to see the voting system
> thrown out completely. In my opinion, it's still the best measure of
> who is going to use the group. Perhaps a compromise: If the group
> passes a vote, it's formed. If it doesn't pass, the council could
> override and vote to form it anyway.
As far as I'm concerned, this would be a fine compromise. I just
don't want to try to write the Proposal as anything other than a stand-alone
system; let somebody else put together a combination Proposal, once we've
gotten the basics worked out.
- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
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Todd Michel McComb
Tim Skirvin <tski...@killfile.org> wrote:
>As far as I'm concerned, this would be a fine compromise. I just
>don't want to try to write the Proposal as anything other than a
>stand-alone system; let somebody else put together a combination
>Proposal, once we've gotten the basics worked out.
I think that's fine, but I wanted to note that I do envision that
the committee would frequently take polls. The nature of these
polls and how they're interpreted would be up for discussion in the
committee, and would be something of a work in progress. I don't
think such a committee can make too many decisions without any
additional information, but note that even in BarB's description,
she *did* seek out information, and the committee could have easily
done as she did.
What I envision is a sort of "toolbox" of methods that the committee
can use to evaluate proposals. I don't think this can be determined
without some trial & error.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Ken Arromdee
Tim Skirvin <tski...@killfile.org> wrote:
>> thrown out completely. In my opinion, it's still the best measure of
>> who is going to use the group. Perhaps a compromise: If the group
>> passes a vote, it's formed. If it doesn't pass, the council could
>> override and vote to form it anyway.
> As far as I'm concerned, this would be a fine compromise. I just
>don't want to try to write the Proposal as anything other than a stand-alone
>system; let somebody else put together a combination Proposal, once we've
>gotten the basics worked out.
My suggestion was similar: If the group passes a vote, it's formed. If it
doesn't pass *because of apathy*, the council could override and vote to
form it anyway.
The council really has no business passing votes that failed because of active
opposition.
BarB
McComb) wrote:
> but note that even in BarB's description,
>she *did* seek out information, and the committee could have easily
>done as she did.
( About the cat.breeds group proposal) Yes I put out some feelers on
possible traffic on mailing lists where I have been a member for a
number of years. I wouldn't call it easy (or popular) to go into a
group where one is unknown for the single purpose of gathering
information. This is best left to the proponent.
I joined some cactus lists during that proposal and was roundly
ignored.:) At least I was able to see that the proponent was not
promoting the group to mailing lists, but no one was able to persuade
him to do so and the group received very few votes as expected.
BarB
Tim Skirvin
>> I'd still encourage you to be involved in this process. I don't
>>think I'd mind seeing you on the Executive Committee; you're still the one
>>member of the Opposition that I truly respect, even while I'm restraining
>>myself from strangling you.
>I'm not sure I have the time.
A valid complaint; I haven't made up my mind about whether I'd
want to be on the Committee either, for similar reasons... (Setting aside
the question of whether I'd be invited, of course.)
>And I'm not sure an opposition of one would have much influence.
On the Committee? It's a consensus-based system. Opposition of
one would be more than enough.
- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
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Tim Skirvin
>My suggestion was similar: If the group passes a vote, it's formed. If it
>doesn't pass *because of apathy*, the council could override and vote to
>form it anyway.
...so the status quo, then?
>The council really has no business passing votes that failed because of active
>opposition.
Why? Is a group suddenly not useful just because there's politics
surrounding a group name?
- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
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Dr John Stockton
17:24:23, seen in news:news.groups, Ken Arromdee
<arro...@green.rahul.net> posted :
>In article <tskirvin.20051014143927$1b...@cairo.ks.uiuc.edu>,
>Tim Skirvin <tski...@killfile.org> wrote:
>>> I guess I want to say that I don't want to see the voting system
>>> thrown out completely. In my opinion, it's still the best measure of
>>> who is going to use the group. Perhaps a compromise: If the group
>>> passes a vote, it's formed. If it doesn't pass, the council could
>>> override and vote to form it anyway.
>> As far as I'm concerned, this would be a fine compromise. I just
>>don't want to try to write the Proposal as anything other than a stand-alone
>>system; let somebody else put together a combination Proposal, once we've
>>gotten the basics worked out.
>
>My suggestion was similar: If the group passes a vote, it's formed. If it
>doesn't pass *because of apathy*, the council could override and vote to
>form it anyway.
If it's not really wanted, it should not be formed.
Your proposal would positively encourage apathy among supporters, who
would tend to think that the Cabal would create the group anyway, so why
bother to vote?
Those who take the view that the Cabal is (except sometimes) omniscient,
might favour a system where the Cabal announces that a newsgroup will by
default be formed UNLESS there is a Proposal of Opposition followed by
the passing of a vote of opposition (by a predefined type of majority,
of course).
--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME ©
Web <URL:http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html> -> Timo Salmi: Usenet Q&A.
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