ANNOUNCEMENT: New Big-8 Board Chair, and Current Status
Tim Skirvin
As of today, I have taken over as the Chair of the Big-8 Board,
replacing Brian Edmonds. Thank you, Brian, for all of your work to date,
both with the old system and in helping us put this new system together.
(To be clear, he's not leaving the Board, he's just stepping down as
Chair.)
As my first public action, I want to offer a basic idea of what
we've been up to for these last couple of months. The simple answer is
that we've done a lot of talking, and laying out the issues we have to
solve internally; but we haven't made a whole lot of decisions, because
the framework to make those decisions wasn't in place. This has recently
changed, as we have finally set down an official set of Voting Policies,
documented on the web here:
http://www.killfile.org/big8/vote.html
Approving these Voting Policies was Brian's penultimate act;
running the vote where I was elected Chair was the last. Now, I plan to
follow through, and begin running votes on many issues over the next few
days - starting with simple questions like "what will our final name be?",
moving into real questions like "will we allow moderation-in-place?", and
perhaps finishing our revisions to a final group creation system in the
next few weeks. I will report on the results of these votes as they come
down the pipeline. Hopefully you won't get too sick of seeing my name in
news.announce.newgroups...
- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
Chair, Big-8 Board
--
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/ Skirv's Homepage <FISH>< <*>
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/faqs/ Skirv's FAQs
2Rowdy
Tim Skirvin, that requests spam to be sent to <tski...@killfile.org>
and I became inspired,
> in place. This has recently changed, as we have finally set down
> an official set of Voting Policies, documented on the web here:
>
> http://www.killfile.org/big8/vote.html
Interesting. How many people are on the board?
> Chair, Big-8 Board
Please stop being a Chair. People sit on those and if you take your
new position any seriously than that's the last thing you want to
happen.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
Newsgroups Are used to spread virusses.
Did your newsreader post that virus?
James Farrar
wrote:
>I was reading <11415101...@isc.org>, made by the entity known as
>Tim Skirvin, that requests spam to be sent to <tski...@killfile.org>
>and I became inspired,
>
>> in place. This has recently changed, as we have finally set down
>> an official set of Voting Policies, documented on the web here:
>>
>> http://www.killfile.org/big8/vote.html
>
>Interesting. How many people are on the board?
>
>> Chair, Big-8 Board
>
>Please stop being a Chair. People sit on those and if you take your
>new position any seriously than that's the last thing you want to
>happen.
Do you suggest he be a Chairman?
--
James Farrar
. @gmail.com
Tim Skirvin
>> in place. This has recently changed, as we have finally set down
>> an official set of Voting Policies, documented on the web here:
>> http://www.killfile.org/big8/vote.html
>Interesting. How many people are on the board?
11.
Tom Perrett
to do with creating groups but are all about how you folks
work internally as a board, if that is so then interesting
but not important to us when interest is in groups
being created.
Tom
Cheers,
Tom [Tom Perrett] <to...@st.net.au>
Proud to be member of Melbournee DPS, first
port of call re Victorian research - http://home.vicnet.net.au/~dpsoc
Jim Logajan
> Now, I plan
> to follow through, and begin running votes on many issues over the
> next few days - starting with simple questions like "what will our
> final name be?", moving into real questions like "will we allow
> moderation-in-place?", and perhaps finishing our revisions to a final
> group creation system in the next few weeks.
Thanks for the update.
Still, moderation in place and the name you choose to call yourselves seem
rather low priority issues relative to the central purpose of the
committee's existence: Big 8 newsgroup creation. How about the first
question you ask is what your priorities should be and tackle questions in
that order?
At the current rate of progress, those "few weeks" are really going to be a
"few months." If you can somehow avoid the pursuit of the Platonic perfect
system, you might be able to get a working system published before the
start of the next ice age (and I'm even taking into account global
warming!)
Tim Skirvin
>> [...] begin running votes on many issues over the next few days -
>> starting with simple questions like "what will our final name be?",
>> moving into real questions like "will we allow moderation-in-place?",
>> and perhaps finishing our revisions to a final group creation system in
>> the next few weeks.
>At the current rate of progress, those "few weeks" are really going to be a
>"few months."
I believe that I'll be able to speed our progress up dramatically
over the next few weeks. Stay tuned to see if I can deliver...
Philip
Skirvin) wrote:
>
> As of today, I have taken over as the Chair of the Big-8 Board,
>replacing Brian Edmonds. ...
>
> - Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
> Chair, Big-8 Board
Congrats and best of luck.
Geoff Berrow
following:
> As my first public action, I want to offer a basic idea of what
>we've been up to for these last couple of months. The simple answer is
>that we've done a lot of talking, and laying out the issues we have to
>solve internally; but we haven't made a whole lot of decisions, because
>the framework to make those decisions wasn't in place. This has recently
>changed, as we have finally set down an official set of Voting Policies,
Impressive. It appears to cover things in very fine detail. If this is
an example of the care and trouble you are going to take then Jim
Logajan is right and I'm having a hard time believing you are going to
accomplish anything in a timely manner.
I'll also remind you that if you want to come up with a workable system
that meets with broad approval that you will at some stage need to
consult with the readers of news.groups, upon whom the weight of your
deliberations will be inflicted.
I am disappointed to note that, having made a proposal outlining a
system for the management of the Big 8 hierarchies, not one of the self
selected board saw fit to even comment, much less consider it as a
possible solution.
There seems no notion in this place of the need to make broad brush
strokes in the first instance; instead everything is micro managed to
the last detail. That's why it's so hard to get anything done.
People, the car is off the road and you can't get to work. The
paintwork can wait, just get the engine running.
--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the (uk.*) commitee's, mine.
2Rowdy
the entity known as James Farrar, that requests spam to be sent to
<james.s...@gmail.com> and I became inspired,
>>> Chair, Big-8 Board
>>
>> Please stop being a Chair. People sit on those and if you take your
>> new position any seriously than that's the last thing you want to
>> happen.
>
> Do you suggest he be a Chairman?
Chairman, Admin, Authority, Important Usenet Personality (IUP),
Controller, The Person With The Powers (TPWTP) whatever but not a
chair. Nobody has any respect for a chair. Now a door, that's
something different. That has respect. Specially if it has a lock.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
I drank of the purifying Nirang, the sterile urine of the spotless white bull of which there is but one in ten thousand. I am the wearer of The Secret Girdle that once belonged to DE.
2Rowdy
<tski...@killfile.org> and I became inspired,
>>> an official set of Voting Policies
>> Interesting. How many people are on the board?
>
> 11.
Quite a lot of rules to keep the worms in the can.
I prefer something like consensus, majority and authoritative powers
but I guess you couldn't agree on that (though some of that is in it).
Are there any non-Americans on that board?
Is there a list of boardmembers?
Have you agreed on a list of problems to be tackled?
What is the first problem to be tackled?
I expect announcements before decisions are being made. So the board
has an option to ignore or agree on consensus in news.groups.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
No, I am not demented,
just gray haired
Henrietta K Thomas
<to...@st.net.au> wrote:
>Am I right in understanding that these policies have nothing
>to do with creating groups but are all about how you folks
>work internally as a board, if that is so then interesting
>but not important to us when interest is in groups
>being created.
Sorry to hear you say that, Tom. The first thing any committee must do
is set the ground rules to its own internal procedures. They need not
be published, of course, but publishing them should (IMO) give the
audience here some reassurance that the Board intends to operate in an
orderly, businesslike fashion. This bodes well for the future as the
Board sets its priorities and tackles the issues facing the Big 8 (see
Rowdy's article).
These things take time, and (IIRC) the Board has about six months left
on the clock. A lot can be accomplished in six months. Have patience.
--
Henruetta K. Thomas
Visit the us.* website at http://www.usenetnews.us
Molly Mockford
<ae7738f156f6f553...@nntp.aacity.net>:
>I was reading <dv9k021lm54qfb45s...@4ax.com>, made by
>the entity known as James Farrar, that requests spam to be sent to
><james.s...@gmail.com> and I became inspired,
>
>>>> Chair, Big-8 Board
>>>
>>> Please stop being a Chair. People sit on those and if you take your
>>> new position any seriously than that's the last thing you want to
>>> happen.
>>
>> Do you suggest he be a Chairman?
>
>Chairman, Admin, Authority, Important Usenet Personality (IUP),
>Controller, The Person With The Powers (TPWTP) whatever but not a
>chair. Nobody has any respect for a chair. Now a door, that's
>something different. That has respect. Specially if it has a lock.
I have noticed that the sort of man who says "I'm not going to be known
as a Chair - I'm not a piece of wood!" rarely has any objections to
forming part of a Board.
--
Molly
I don't speak for the Committee. If I ever do, it will be made
specifically clear.
My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not be so for ever.
William Bagwell
>snips
>Is there a list of boardmembers?
Yes. Say, didn't you just chastise someone over in a.c for not using
Google? :)
>Have you agreed on a list of problems to be tackled?
>What is the first problem to be tackled?
Probably how to keep news.groups from becoming another alt.config.
--
William
Wayne Brown
>
> As of today, I have taken over as the Chair of the Big-8 Board,
> replacing Brian Edmonds. Thank you, Brian, for all of your work to date,
> both with the old system and in helping us put this new system together.
> (To be clear, he's not leaving the Board, he's just stepping down as
> Chair.)
So the guy that came up with the big, bureaucratic plan for screwing up
news.groups has become the Head Bureaucrat. Big Surprise...
--
Wayne Brown (HPCC #1104) | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
fwb...@bellsouth.net | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give
| your pelt to the trapper."
e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"
Jonathan Kamens
>Impressive. It appears to cover things in very fine detail. If this is
>an example of the care and trouble you are going to take then Jim
>Logajan is right and I'm having a hard time believing you are going to
>accomplish anything in a timely manner.
It did take us longer than it should have to agree to these voting
rules, but this has little to do with the "detail" or "care and
trouble" and much more to do with issues related to the internal
workings of the board which have been addressed and we hope will not
recur.
>I'll also remind you that if you want to come up with a workable system
>that meets with broad approval that you will at some stage need to
>consult with the readers of news.groups, upon whom the weight of your
>deliberations will be inflicted.
There is certainly no system that will make everyone happy. It is not
even obvious that there is any system that will "meet with broad
approval." Our goal, from my point of view, is to come up with a
system that (a) accomplishes the goals of creating groups that will be
well-used and not creating groups that won't be well-used and (b)
doesn't cause the volunteers running the system to burn out. If we
are able to come up with such a system, then whether it "meets with
broad approval" is in my opinion secondary.
>I am disappointed to note that, having made a proposal outlining a
>system for the management of the Big 8 hierarchies, not one of the self
>selected board saw fit to even comment, much less consider it as a
>possible solution.
I won't speak for the entire board (in this paragraph or anywhere else
in this message), but I personally did not comment on your proposal
exactly because I do not consider it a possible solution. From our
discussions so far, I believe that it has become clear that a majority
of the board wishes to go in a direction that is very different from
how uk.* works. It would be a waste of our time and yours to discuss
the details of how such a system would work in the Big 8 if we believe
that's the wrong kind of system to have and thus have no intention of
moving in that direction.
>There seems no notion in this place of the need to make broad brush
>strokes in the first instance; instead everything is micro managed to
>the last detail. That's why it's so hard to get anything done.
In fact, we have discussed coming up with a broad outline of the
eventual system, giving it a try, and fine-tuning it based on the
results. We may very well do such a thing sooner rather than later,
although no decisions have been made as of yet. As I said above, the
lack of much visible progress before now has in my opinion been the
result of internal board issues which have been resolved, not of the
content or tenor of our discussions.
Geoff Berrow
Kamens contained the following:
>>I am disappointed to note that, having made a proposal outlining a
>>system for the management of the Big 8 hierarchies, not one of the self
>>selected board saw fit to even comment, much less consider it as a
>>possible solution.
>
>I won't speak for the entire board (in this paragraph or anywhere else
>in this message), but I personally did not comment on your proposal
>exactly because I do not consider it a possible solution. From our
>discussions so far, I believe that it has become clear that a majority
>of the board wishes to go in a direction that is very different from
>how uk.* works. It would be a waste of our time and yours to discuss
>the details of how such a system would work in the Big 8 if we believe
>that's the wrong kind of system to have and thus have no intention of
>moving in that direction.
Well thanks for letting me know that much at least. It saves me putting
any more effort into the proposal.
Will the new wheel have seven sides or nine?
BowTie
[...]
> Will the new wheel have seven sides or nine?
prolly 11, as odd as that may seem ;)
--
Usenet has a seat for everyone
Tim Skirvin
>Are there any non-Americans on that board?
Yes.
>Is there a list of boardmembers?
Yes: me, Marty, jik, Brian, Ru, Joe, BarB, Yves, Tom, Jon, and
Dave. I don't have anything more useful off-hand, though it's the same as
it was in the initial announcement.
>Have you agreed on a list of problems to be tackled?
More-or-less; we have a nice list of problems, but haven't sat
down and formalized it in a list that's ready for publication yet. It
seemed like it was easier to just solve them.
>What is the first problem to be tackled?
My announcement listed a couple; and I *hope* we kickstart a few
more things than that, but we'll see how well that goes. This is my first
week on the job, and I'm trying to get my bearings while I work...
>I expect announcements before decisions are being made. So the board
>has an option to ignore or agree on consensus in news.groups.
That's probably not how things are going to work, at least not at
first. Announcements will follow decisions. If/when we need help working
out a decision, we'll post about it - though perhaps just in news.groups,
and not in news.announce.newgroups.
Tim Skirvin
>Now, now. Just because Geoff is a sore loser doesn't mean you should
>ridicule him.
For the record, I *don't* think that Geoff's idea is a bad one; I
just don't think it's what we're going to go with.
Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
lot less toxic. It'd be nice if ideas were brought here with an
expectation of making them better, instead of tearing them down. That
goes for more than just newsgroup proposals...
Tim Skirvin
>I am disappointed to note that, having made a proposal outlining a
>system for the management of the Big 8 hierarchies, not one of the self
>selected board saw fit to even comment, much less consider it as a
>possible solution.
It's interesting, and it's reasonably laid out. I do like it,
but I like some other ideas that we've been throwing around more. As
such, I'm not willing to champion the idea myself with the Board; and
given that no other Board member has decided to champion it either, I'm
not sure how far it's going to get.
>There seems no notion in this place of the need to make broad brush
>strokes in the first instance; instead everything is micro managed to the
>last detail. [...] People, the car is off the road and you can't get to
>work. The paintwork can wait, just get the engine running.
I disagree. To borrow your analogy, I feel that getting the voting
rules in place was as necessary as installing a steering wheel and the
transmission; while we might be able to get a bit further if we had an
engine first, I'd rather be able to steer before we start moving...
(And I guess we already have the tires.)
Tim Skirvin
>> Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
>> is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
>> lot less toxic.
>There was a ":-)" in my original text. Perhaps you didn't see it.
I saw it, but I still wanted to make my point. I don't think that
you were being hostile, or that anyone here was at this point; but it's
happened plenty of times in the past, and I'd like it known *now* that I
don't plan to stand idly by and watch it start up again.
2Rowdy
<tski...@killfile.org> and I became inspired,
>> I expect announcements before decisions are being made. So the
>> board has an option to ignore or agree on consensus in news.groups.
>
> That's probably not how things are going to work, at least
> not at first. Announcements will follow decisions. If/when we
> need help working out a decision, we'll post about it - though
> perhaps just in news.groups, and not in news.announce.newgroups.
Think that is a workable approach. Thank you for the complete reply.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
2Rowdy
the entity known as William Bagwell, that requests spam to be sent to
<use-...@s.this.one.invalid> and I became inspired,
> On Sun, 5 Mar 2006 11:25:17 +0100, "2Rowdy" > wrote:
>
>> snips
>> Is there a list of boardmembers?
>
> Yes. Say, didn't you just chastise someone over in a.c for not using
> Google? :)
With the aid of Google,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise
That's what I do if I chastise someone.
>> Have you agreed on a list of problems to be tackled?
>> What is the first problem to be tackled?
>
> Probably how to keep news.groups from becoming another alt.config.
That can't be too difficult.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
They killed the Credo. Viva el Credo!
2Rowdy
known as Molly Mockford, that requests spam to be sent to
<nospam...@mollymockford.me.uk> and I became inspired,
> At 11:08:17 on Sun, 5 Mar 2006, 2Rowdy <Harry...@gmail.com>
> wrote in <ae7738f156f6f553...@nntp.aacity.net>:
>
>> I was reading <dv9k021lm54qfb45s...@4ax.com>, made by
>> the entity known as James Farrar, that requests spam to be sent to
>> <james.s...@gmail.com> and I became inspired,
>>
>>>>> Chair, Big-8 Board
>>>>
>>>> Please stop being a Chair. People sit on those and if you take
>>>> your new position any seriously than that's the last thing you
>>>> want to happen.
>>>
>>> Do you suggest he be a Chairman?
>>
>> Chairman, Admin, Authority, Important Usenet Personality (IUP),
>> Controller, The Person With The Powers (TPWTP) whatever but not a
>> chair. Nobody has any respect for a chair. Now a door, that's
>> something different. That has respect. Specially if it has a lock.
>
> I have noticed that the sort of man who says "I'm not going to be
> known as a Chair - I'm not a piece of wood!" rarely has any
> objections to forming part of a Board.
Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for Chairman?
I thought I knew the lingo a little but that's something new for me.
Poor chairs. Now you know why the foreigners are giggling.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
This posting is optimised for reading with Microsoft Outlook Express
Jim Logajan
> Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
> is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
> lot less toxic.
Unless you intend to do a moderation-in-place of news.groups, you have
absolutely no control over what people post here - so making the process
less toxic seems impossible. My humble suggestion is to concentrate your
efforts on aspects you presumably would have control over. If your planned
newgroup process requires a less toxic news.groups, I predict it will fail.
:-(
Peter J Ross
wrote in news.groups:
> I was reading <Gl88Qxky...@molly.mockford>, made by the entity
> known as Molly Mockford, that requests spam to be sent to
> <nospam...@mollymockford.me.uk> and I became inspired,
>
>> At 11:08:17 on Sun, 5 Mar 2006, 2Rowdy <Harry...@gmail.com>
>> wrote in <ae7738f156f6f553...@nntp.aacity.net>:
>>
>>> I was reading <dv9k021lm54qfb45s...@4ax.com>, made by
>>> the entity known as James Farrar, that requests spam to be sent to
>>> <james.s...@gmail.com> and I became inspired,
>>>
>>>>>> Chair, Big-8 Board
>>>>>
>>>>> Please stop being a Chair. People sit on those and if you take
>>>>> your new position any seriously than that's the last thing you
>>>>> want to happen.
>>>>
>>>> Do you suggest he be a Chairman?
>>>
>>> Chairman, Admin, Authority, Important Usenet Personality (IUP),
>>> Controller, The Person With The Powers (TPWTP) whatever but not a
>>> chair. Nobody has any respect for a chair. Now a door, that's
>>> something different. That has respect. Specially if it has a lock.
>>
>> I have noticed that the sort of man who says "I'm not going to be
>> known as a Chair - I'm not a piece of wood!" rarely has any
>> objections to forming part of a Board.
>
> Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for Chairman?
It's used because it's supposed to be "non-sexist". Compare
"firefighter" for "fireman", and the various circumlocutions that are
used to avoid such words as "postman" and "milkman".
> I thought I knew the lingo a little but that's something new for me.
> Poor chairs. Now you know why the foreigners are giggling.
At least it's a less ugly word than "Chairperson".
Even in a good cause, I think that artificial adjustments to
the English language are doubleplusungood.
To me, a woman can be a chairman just as much as a man can be a bitch.
Perhaps I just unbellythink ingsoc.
PJR :-)
--
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by His noodly / _ \ / _ \
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BowTie
>I was reading <Gl88Qxky...@molly.mockford>, made by the entity
> known as Molly Mockford, that requests spam to be sent to
>> I have noticed that the sort of man who says "I'm not going to be
>> known as a Chair - I'm not a piece of wood!" rarely has any
>> objections to forming part of a Board.
> Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for Chairman?
> I thought I knew the lingo a little but that's something new for me.
> Poor chairs. Now you know why the foreigners are giggling.
I hope nobody catches you talking to a chair ;)
so you say: "Hi chair" and find your confronted with a whole different
configuration :(
Russ Allbery
>> Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for Chairman?
Yes.
1658-9 in Burton Diary 23 Mar. (1828) 243 The Chair behaves himself
like a Busby amongst so many school-boys..and takes a little too much
on him.
1676-7 GREW Salts in Water i. §1 (Read bef. Royal Soc.), It was
referred to Me by this Honourable Chair, to examine and produce the
Experiment.
1887 Times 5 Sept. 9/2 It can hardly be conceived that the Chair would
fail to gain the support of the House.
among many other citations in the OED.
> It's used because it's supposed to be "non-sexist".
It's become more popular because it's non-sexist, but it's a long-standing
part of the English language and some of us think it sounds better whether
non-sexist or not.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
2Rowdy
the entity known as BowTie, that requests spam to be sent to
<bowtieATbrightdslDOTnet> and I became inspired,
I won't talk to a chair or a board ever again. Scary. They could start
talking back to me.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
They killed the Credo. Viva el Credo!
2Rowdy
entity known as Peter J Ross, that requests spam to be sent to
<p...@kookbusters.org> and I became inspired,
>> Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for
>> Chairman?
> At least it's a less ugly word than "Chairperson".
No. A chair is a chair. From any standpoint.
> Even in a good cause, I think that artificial adjustments to
> the English language are doubleplusungood.
>
> To me, a woman can be a chairman just as much as a man can be a
> bitch. Perhaps I just unbellythink ingsoc.
The Dutch had that problem a long time ago when there was no man left
for the throne.
Our Queen is King.
It saved us the trouble of rewriting all law's.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
Peter J Ross
wrote in news.groups:
> I was reading <slrne0mo9...@nntp.alcatroll.com>, made by the
> entity known as Peter J Ross, that requests spam to be sent to
> <p...@kookbusters.org> and I became inspired,
>
>>> Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for
>>> Chairman?
>
>> At least it's a less ugly word than "Chairperson".
>
> No. A chair is a chair. From any standpoint.
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
>> Even in a good cause, I think that artificial adjustments to
>> the English language are doubleplusungood.
>>
>> To me, a woman can be a chairman just as much as a man can be a
>> bitch. Perhaps I just unbellythink ingsoc.
>
> The Dutch had that problem a long time ago when there was no man left
> for the throne.
> Our Queen is King.
> It saved us the trouble of rewriting all law's.
Our Queen is the Duke of Lancaster, not the Duchess of.
Peter J Ross
wrote in news.groups:
> Peter J Ross <p...@kookbusters.org> writes:
>> 2Rowdy <Harry...@gmail.com> wrote in news.groups:
>
>>> Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for Chairman?
>
> Yes.
>
> 1658-9 in Burton Diary 23 Mar. (1828) 243 The Chair behaves himself
> like a Busby amongst so many school-boys..and takes a little too much
> on him.
>
> 1676-7 GREW Salts in Water i. §1 (Read bef. Royal Soc.), It was
> referred to Me by this Honourable Chair, to examine and produce the
> Experiment.
>
> 1887 Times 5 Sept. 9/2 It can hardly be conceived that the Chair would
> fail to gain the support of the House.
>
> among many other citations in the OED.
Non-prescriptive dictionaries are a guide to usage, not to *good* usage.
But the quotation from /The Times/ is correct in a metaphorical way;
in 1887 the Speaker of the House of Commons might well be referred to
as "the Chair" (with a capital letter) if one wanted to emphasise his
prestige as opposed to the mere politicians who sat on mere benches.
>> It's used because it's supposed to be "non-sexist".
>
> It's become more popular because it's non-sexist, but it's a long-standing
> part of the English language and some of us think it sounds better whether
> non-sexist or not.
I don't think it sounds better, but I suppose that's a matter of taste
and ear-training. In the word "chairman", the syllable "man" is
reduced to an unimportant appendage, which is quite non-sexist enough
for me.
I'll win this argument if Tim's use of "chair" is marked by the 2106
edition of the OED as "obsolete", and you'll win if the same happens
to "chairman". Meanwhile we can have a grand old row about it in order
to provide proof to 2Rowdy (whose first language is Dutch, through no
fault of his own) that a few English-speakers still care a little bit
about their mother tongue and its vicissitudes, one way or another.
First one to use the plurals of "virus" or "octopus" as an
illustration loses, OK?
Dr John Stockton
Sun, 5 Mar 2006 01:15:05 remote, seen in news:news.groups, Tim Skirvin
<tski...@killfile.org> posted :
> I believe that I'll be able to speed our progress up dramatically
>over the next few weeks. Stay tuned to see if I can deliver...
You failed before; there is no reason to expect you to be successful
now; the need is for a new system, not a Slightly Refurbished Self-
Selected Cabal.
--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ???@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME. ©
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
Check boilerplate spelling -- error is a public sign of incompetence.
Never fully trust an article from a poster who gives no full real name.
Russ Allbery
> Non-prescriptive dictionaries are a guide to usage, not to *good* usage.
That's the great thing about being a prescriptivist: not only are you
always right, but anyone who disagrees with you is just displaying their
lack of good breeding.
Peter J Ross
<tski...@killfile.org> wrote in news.groups:
> As of today, I have taken over as the Chair of the Big-8 Board,
> replacing Brian Edmonds. Thank you, Brian, for all of your work to date,
> both with the old system and in helping us put this new system together.
> (To be clear, he's not leaving the Board, he's just stepping down as
> Chair.)
I, for one, welcome our new Skirvian overlord.
> As my first public action, I want to offer a basic idea of what
> we've been up to for these last couple of months.
[Summary: "not very much so far"]
> Now, I plan to
> follow through, and begin running votes on many issues over the next few
> days - starting with simple questions like "what will our final name be?",
> moving into real questions like "will we allow moderation-in-place?",
This news was so exciting that I just experienced the most powerful
orgasm of my life. Show me your gigantic throbbing "will we allow
moderation-in-place" question again, big boy!
> and
> perhaps finishing our revisions to a final group creation system in the
> next few weeks. I will report on the results of these votes as they come
> down the pipeline. Hopefully you won't get too sick of seeing my name in
> news.announce.newgroups...
It beats the MMF stuff that seemed recently to be NAN's only content.
But seriously: good luck. And testing the system with the less
important questions first is probably a good idea.
And please return BarB undamaged to alt.config some time this year.
Adam is pining.
Geoff Berrow
Skirvin contained the following:
>Geoff Berrow <blth...@ckdog.co.uk> writes:
>
>>I am disappointed to note that, having made a proposal outlining a
>>system for the management of the Big 8 hierarchies, not one of the self
>>selected board saw fit to even comment, much less consider it as a
>>possible solution.
>
> It's interesting, and it's reasonably laid out. I do like it,
>but I like some other ideas that we've been throwing around more. As
>such, I'm not willing to champion the idea myself with the Board; and
>given that no other Board member has decided to champion it either, I'm
>not sure how far it's going to get.
Well I never thought I would get the support, it's not in the nature of
this place, but I was challenged so I stepped up to the plate. If you
have something you think will work, go for it. But I'll repeat,
re-inventing the wheel is not a good idea. And if you go for something
new, be sure to build in a mechanism for change, because you will
certainly need to modify it as time goes on.
>
>>There seems no notion in this place of the need to make broad brush
>>strokes in the first instance; instead everything is micro managed to the
>>last detail. [...] People, the car is off the road and you can't get to
>>work. The paintwork can wait, just get the engine running.
>
> I disagree. To borrow your analogy, I feel that getting the voting
>rules in place was as necessary as installing a steering wheel and the
>transmission; while we might be able to get a bit further if we had an
>engine first, I'd rather be able to steer before we start moving...
Tim they are a great set of rules, but they go way beyond what you need.
Can't you see how, if everything is micro managed to the same detail,
this process could take for ever?
> (And I guess we already have the tires.)
If you say so...I couldn't possibly comment.
Peter J Ross
wrote in news.groups:
> Peter J Ross <p...@kookbusters.org> writes:
>
>> Non-prescriptive dictionaries are a guide to usage, not to *good* usage.
>
> That's the great thing about being a prescriptivist: not only are you
> always right, but anyone who disagrees with you is just displaying their
> lack of good breeding.
Your post implies that you are wearing not only leopard-skin stockings
(slightly worn at the heels), but also a huge luminous headdress woven
from Wayne Brown's toenail clippings by your great-aunt Ermintrude.
This is as easy to deduce about you from your post as what you deduced
about me was from mine. I am not a presciptivist, OK? I merely reserve
the right to prefer what I call good English to what I call bad
English, OK?
You snipped my discussion of the scholarly merits of the cited
evidence.
But lighten up, why don't you? I was having a jolly little off-topic
chat, as indicated by the subject-line, just as we used to have in the
shelters during the Blitz while Vera Lynn and George Formby were
having sex in a dark corner. I certainly didn't expect the Spanish
Inquisition.
Russ Allbery
> Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote in news.groups:
>> Peter J Ross <p...@kookbusters.org> writes:
>>> Non-prescriptive dictionaries are a guide to usage, not to *good*
>>> usage.
>> That's the great thing about being a prescriptivist: not only are you
>> always right, but anyone who disagrees with you is just displaying
>> their lack of good breeding.
[...]
> This is as easy to deduce about you from your post as what you deduced
> about me was from mine. I am not a presciptivist, OK?
Oh, I was aiming for succinct (okay, pithy) and therefore was abusing the
impersonal "you." I didn't mean that to come across as accusative.
Although...
> I merely reserve the right to prefer what I call good English to what I
> call bad English, OK?
...that's basically the definition of prescriptivism in grammar. It
doesn't mean anything bad beyond the belief that there is a right and
wrong in the use of language. I have prescriptivist leanings myself; I
just like poking fun at them too.
> You snipped my discussion of the scholarly merits of the cited evidence.
Yes, because I don't have anything in particular to say about it. I don't
think you really contradicted my point (in other words, you didn't
convince me), and I don't really feel like arguing with you about it.
> But lighten up, why don't you?
That was me lightening up. I really don't care much one way or the other.
But I do apologize for not signalling that very well.
Whiskers
(I just spotted this strange diversion ...)
Yes, 'the Chair' is a long-established usage to refer to the member of a
committee who is elected or appointed to act as referee of the internal
debate and representative of the whole committee when interacting with
other people or bodies or with the public at large. This goes a long way
back into the mists of time, long before 'political correctness' reared
it's ugly head.
'Please address all remarks through the Chair' is a common plea in any
committee that gets out of hand. Of course, to be polite one may well
address or refer to a female taking that role, as 'Madam Chairman'. (The
suffix '...man' refers to 'human' rather than 'male human', but that
subtlety is lost on many).
We also say 'the Bench' when we mean 'all the magistrates judging a case',
(because magistrates used to sit on a bench, as they lacked the status
that would qualify them for a chair each - only judges got chairs, as they
were substituting for the monarch - who would naturally have a throne) and
'the Board' to mean 'all the chief managers of the organisation' (because
they would meet sitting around a 'board' [table]).
I consider such usage to be comparable to saying 'Westminster' when
meaning 'parliament' or 'Whitehall' when meaning 'the Civil Service' or
'the Pentagon' when meaning 'the US military leaders', etc. (See also
'the Palace', 'the Vatican', 'the Kremlin', 'the White House' and others).
In all these instances, the reference is not so much to a person, or to
a group of people, as to the power or authority represented by the office
they hold - as signified by some physical object, which probably remains
the same through many changes of office-holder. At the top of the British
government system, we thus have 'the Crown'. That does /not/ mean that
we are governed by a silly hat! (Although sometimes it does rather seem as
though we are).
--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
<slrne0n29...@nntp.alcatroll.com>:
> I certainly didn't expect the Spanish
>Inquisition.
Nemo expectat inquisitionem hispaniolam! :-P
Marty
Bill Cole
Jim Logajan <Jam...@Lugoj.com> wrote:
> tski...@killfile.org (Tim Skirvin) wrote:
> > Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
> > is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
> > lot less toxic.
>
> Unless you intend to do a moderation-in-place of news.groups
Which will be ignored at some sites by carelessness and at some sites (I
can only guarantee one..) will be rejected intentionally.
>, you have
> absolutely no control over what people post here
Absolutely correct.
I should note for those not using the multi-year news.groups scorecard
that this may be the very first time I have agreed more than slightly
with Mr. Logajan. I have split the clauses to make that possible...
> - so making the process
> less toxic seems impossible.
> My humble suggestion is to concentrate your
> efforts on aspects you presumably would have control over. If your planned
> newgroup process requires a less toxic news.groups, I predict it will fail.
> :-(
It MAY BE possible to reduce the toxicity here for people with strong
filtering tools/skills by re-framing the legitimate scope of debate on
proposals and figuring out how to restructure the process to fast-track
(not railroad to one side or the other, but speed to a decision)
proposals that have a strong likelihood of turning obnoxious.
--
Now where did I hide that website...
Dave Balderstone
Skirvin <tski...@killfile.org> wrote:
> Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
> is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
> lot less toxic.
The Board can't do it "on its own", so you will?
Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SUPER TIM!
--
Talking about art is like dancing about architecture - Frank Zappa
Wayne Brown
>
> I saw it, but I still wanted to make my point. I don't think that
> you were being hostile, or that anyone here was at this point; but it's
> happened plenty of times in the past, and I'd like it known *now* that I
> don't plan to stand idly by and watch it start up again.
Ooh, we'd better be careful, Mr. Big-Shot Scurvy... uh,
*Skirvin*... doesn't "plan to stand idly by." Look out, he might
do something really drastic, like burying us under yet *another* few
thousand lines of legalese.
--
Wayne Brown (HPCC #1104) | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
fwb...@bellsouth.net | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give
| your pelt to the trapper."
e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"
Jim Logajan
> In article <tskirvin.20060305194753$25...@cairo.ks.uiuc.edu>, Tim
> Skirvin <tski...@killfile.org> wrote:
>
>> Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
>> is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
>> lot less toxic.
>
> The Board can't do it "on its own", so you will?
>
> Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SUPER TIM!
"Oh mighty conjurer of fire without the use of flood or stone; what is thyn
name?"
"They call me...Tim."
Adam H. Kerman
>Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for Chairman?
It's a poor attempt at substituting a gender-neutral work for a
gender-masculine word. English has few words that are gender specific. In
the olden days, gender masculine words were used for female persons when
no appropriate gender female word was available, and no one cared.
Today, people care and do contortions to avoid using gender masculine
words, even calling themselves pieces of furniture.
HINT: You could have called yourself president, Tim. Sheesh
Adam H. Kerman
>Peter J Ross <p...@kookbusters.org> writes:
>>2Rowdy <Harry...@gmail.com> wrote in news.groups:
>>>Are you telling me that Chair is a normal English term for Chairman?
>Yes.
> 1658-9 in Burton Diary 23 Mar. (1828) 243 The Chair behaves himself
> like a Busby amongst so many school-boys..and takes a little too much
> on him.
> 1676-7 GREW Salts in Water i. 1 (Read bef. Royal Soc.), It was
> referred to Me by this Honourable Chair, to examine and produce the
> Experiment.
> 1887 Times 5 Sept. 9/2 It can hardly be conceived that the Chair would
> fail to gain the support of the House.
>among many other citations in the OED.
In parliamentary usage, "the chair" is a reference to the person who is in
the act of presiding at a meeting. Traditionally, it's not the name of the
office. For a variety of reasons, the chairman may not chair a particular
meeting or a portion of a meeting. Someone else presides in his absence.
The chairman may have a conflict of interest and recuse himself. Or he may
have a particular interest in an issue and would temporarily cease
presiding at the meeting so that he could speak from the floor.
No, Tim's usage isn't "normal".
Adam H. Kerman
>Are there any non-Americans on that board?
Tim is the token American. There is one Texan. The others are Canadian.
Geoff Berrow
contained the following:
>Yes, 'the Chair' is a long-established usage to refer to the member of a
>committee who is elected or appointed to act as referee of the internal
>debate and representative of the whole committee when interacting with
>other people or bodies or with the public at large.
Long established to refer to the /office/. The /person/ holding the
position has been the chairman (or madam chairman) up until fairly
recently.
I think we could resolve all the problems by using an apostrophe.
chair'man
'manager
'manhole
e'mancipation
hu'man
'manual
Ger'man
But I don't know what to do about 'person'.
James Farrar
<blth...@ckdog.co.uk> wrote:
>But I don't know what to do about 'person'.
Perchild.
--
James Farrar
. @gmail.com
Brian Mailman
> But I don't know what to do about 'person'.
"pern' as used by The WELL.
B/
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to news.groups...
>Geoff Berrow wrote:
>> But I don't know what to do about 'person'.
>
>"pern' as used by The WELL.
That'll get ya into legal defficulties with Anne McCaffrey, no?
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
Whiskers
That's better than what I was going to say :))
2Rowdy
the entity known as Geoff Berrow, that requests spam to be sent to
<blth...@ckdog.co.uk> and I became inspired,
> I think we could resolve all the problems by using an apostrophe.
'manual
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
[sig is lost, please use Google to find it]
2Rowdy
the entity known as Whiskers, that requests spam to be sent to
<catwh...@operamail.com> and I became inspired,
> In all these instances, the reference is not so much to a person,
> or to
> a group of people, as to the power or authority represented by the
> office they hold
Thank you ZX Leader.
--
d:J0han; Certifiable me
http://www.aacity.net Citroen Newsgroup
Sig is being randomised, pls wait . . . .
Whiskers
> On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 07:56:21 -0800, Brian Mailman <bmai...@sfo.invalid>
> allegedly declared to news.groups...
>>Geoff Berrow wrote:
>>> But I don't know what to do about 'person'.
>>
>>"pern' as used by The WELL.
>
> That'll get ya into legal defficulties with Anne McCaffrey, no?
I think she has dibs on 'Petaybe' (Powers That Be) too.
Whiskers
> I was reading <eehsd3-...@ID-107770.user.individual.net>, made by
> the entity known as Whiskers, that requests spam to be sent to
> <catwh...@operamail.com> and I became inspired,
>
>> In all these instances, the reference is not so much to a person,
>> or to
>> a group of people, as to the power or authority represented by the
>> office they hold
>
> Thank you ZX Leader.
Roger; over and out :)) (Well, in, actually - bloomin' chilly today)
Tim Skirvin
>It MAY BE possible to reduce the toxicity here for people with strong
>filtering tools/skills by re-framing the legitimate scope of debate on
>proposals and figuring out how to restructure the process to fast-track
>(not railroad to one side or the other, but speed to a decision)
>proposals that have a strong likelihood of turning obnoxious.
This is my intention, in essence. I believe that it will be
easier to keep all of the discussions on news.groups from turning into
flamewars if there is some kind of framework to follow besides "keep the
voting public happy!". Having a Group Mentors-esque body around here
clearly saying "satisfy these needs and you can ignore the flamers" seems
like it could make all the difference...
- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
Chair, Big-8 Board
--
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/ Skirv's Homepage <FISH>< <*>
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/faqs/ Skirv's FAQs
Nicholas Fitzpatrick
He be the Chairman! The rules they have laid out:
http://www.killfile.org/big8/vote.html specify a
"Chairman" not a "Chair".
Which is quite sexist ... limiting the position to only males!
Okay, so now we've spent many months arguing on how to hold a simple vote,
can a board member (or would that be a boardman) put forward a motion
to simply continue the previously existing newsgroup creation system
until such time that a new system is put in place. It wasn't perfect,
but it at least groups could be created!
Nick
Tim Skirvin
>Okay, so now we've spent many months arguing on how to hold a simple vote,
>can a board member (or would that be a boardman) put forward a motion
>to simply continue the previously existing newsgroup creation system
>until such time that a new system is put in place. It wasn't perfect,
>but it at least groups could be created!
That idea actually has been brought up. It was shot down almost
immediately as impractical and counterproductive. At this point, it would
take more time and energy to put the old system back into place than it
will be to put a new system together.
Jim Logajan
> nf...@shell1.sentex.ca (Nicholas Fitzpatrick) writes:
>
>>Okay, so now we've spent many months arguing on how to hold a simple
>>vote, can a board member (or would that be a boardman) put forward a
>>motion to simply continue the previously existing newsgroup creation
>>system until such time that a new system is put in place. It wasn't
>>perfect, but it at least groups could be created!
>
> That idea actually has been brought up. It was shot down almost
> immediately as impractical
Could you list the impractical aspects the shooters cited?
> and counterproductive.
Hmmm. Counterproductive to what and how?
> At this point, it would take more time
How much time did the shooters claim it would take to restart the old
system? If no value was stated, then all either you or they appear to be
doing is offering empty rhetoric.
> and energy
How many Joules were estimated? :-)
> to put the old system back into place
> than it will be to put a new system together.
To make the above determinations, an estimate _must_ have been made on the
time and "energy" required to re-start the old system and another estimate
_must_ have been made on putting "a" new system together. This is the first
I've heard you had an estimate for how much time is needed to put "a" new
system together. Could you share that information with us?
Henrietta K Thomas
tski...@killfile.org (Tim Skirvin) wrote:
>Bill Cole <bi...@scconsult.com> writes:
>
>>It MAY BE possible to reduce the toxicity here for people with strong
>>filtering tools/skills by re-framing the legitimate scope of debate on
>>proposals and figuring out how to restructure the process to fast-track
>>(not railroad to one side or the other, but speed to a decision)
>>proposals that have a strong likelihood of turning obnoxious.
>
> This is my intention, in essence. I believe that it will be
>easier to keep all of the discussions on news.groups from turning into
>flamewars if there is some kind of framework to follow besides "keep the
>voting public happy!". Having a Group Mentors-esque body around here
>clearly saying "satisfy these needs and you can ignore the flamers" seems
>like it could make all the difference...
A charter for news.groups letting people know what is expected might be
useful as well.
Adam H. Kerman
Haw. Boy, are you a trouble maker.
Dave Balderstone
Skirvin <tski...@killfile.org> wrote:
> This is my intention, in essence. I believe that it will be
> easier to keep all of the discussions on news.groups from turning into
> flamewars if there is some kind of framework to follow besides "keep the
> voting public happy!". Having a Group Mentors-esque body around here
> clearly saying "satisfy these needs and you can ignore the flamers" seems
> like it could make all the difference...
I wish you well.. <cough>
Jonathan Kamens
>tski...@killfile.org (Tim Skirvin) wrote:
>> That idea actually has been brought up. It was shot down almost
>> immediately as impractical
>
>Could you list the impractical aspects the shooters cited?
Here are some off the top of my head....
* No one trustworthy is willing to run the votes.
* We still don't know how to solve the problem which precipitated this
whole mess, i.e., how to get real, interested people to vote in
sufficient numbers and filter out the bogus votes.
* We have no practical way of deciding who's right about what the
thresholds should be.
* There is no one who is (a) willing to run the old system and (b)
trusted to do so by the previous troika (Russ, Todd, Brian) or the new
board. (Yes, this is begging the question a bit, since what we're
discussing is in fact whether the new board is willing to reinstate
the old system while discussing a new one, but it is the reality of
the situation.)
* The old system was producing a ton of failed groups, many of which
common sense says should have been successful. Hence, it is not at
all obvious that reinstating the old system would accomplish the
stated purpose of allowing groups to be created while the new system
is figured out. It's just as likely that it would waste people's time
without accomplishing anything.
>> and counterproductive.
>
>Hmmm. Counterproductive to what and how?
Many of the practicality reasons cited above are also
counterproductivity reasons. Some others:
* Time spent running the old system would be time taken away from
figuring out the new one.
* The old system is known to be inaccurate, and it would be
counterproductive to make proponents go through an inaccurate system
to try to get their groups created.
I could probably think of others, but it's late (early; whatever).
>> At this point, it would take more time
>
>How much time did the shooters claim it would take to restart the old
>system?
It is not necessary to quantify the exact time to know that a lot of
it would be involved.
We'd have to, for example: find voters and get them set up; find people
willing to staff group-advice / group-mentors; and learn the nuts and
bolts of how to run the process (since Russ, Todd, and Brian are no
longer willing to do it).
However, I would state Tim's point another way... Rather than saying
that it would take *more* time and energy to resume the old system than
to come up with a new one, what I would say that regardless of exactly
how much time and energy it would take, most of it would be wasted,
since we know for a fact that we're planning a new system which would
be substantially different. We just don't wish to waste that time and
energy.
The people on the board do not believe that it is valuable to do
something bad fast rather than doing something good more slowly. We do
not believe that there is sufficient urgency surrounding resuming the
creation of new groups to warrant this.
The sky is not falling.
(I speak for myself. My comments about the beliefs of the board are
my own impressions of those beliefs. Etc.)
Chris Barnes
> I certainly didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
- Mel Brooks, _History of the World, Part I_.
--
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes
ch...@txbarnes.com Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes
You always have freedom of choice, but you never have freedom of
consequence.
Tim Skirvin
>>> Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
>>> is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
>>> lot less toxic.
>> you have absolutely no control over what people post here
>Absolutely correct.
>I should note for those not using the multi-year news.groups scorecard
>that this may be the very first time I have agreed more than slightly
>with Mr. Logajan.
I didn't spot this at first, but... look at that! I'm succeeding
already!
- Tim Skirvin (tski...@killfile.org)
--
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/ Skirv's Homepage <FISH>< <*>
http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/software/ Skirv's Software
Ed Gaillard
2Rowdy <Harry...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Nobody has any respect for a chair. Now a door, that's
>something different. That has respect. Specially if it has a lock.
Tim Skirvin guards the gate, Tim Skirvin is the gate.
Ia! Ia! Tale fhtagn! Ia! Spaf fhtagn!
-ed g.
BowTie
> Bill Cole <bi...@scconsult.com> writes:
>>>> Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
>>>> is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
>>>> lot less toxic.
>>> you have absolutely no control over what people post here
>>Absolutely correct.
>>
>>I should note for those not using the multi-year news.groups scorecard
>>that this may be the very first time I have agreed more than slightly
>>with Mr. Logajan.
> I didn't spot this at first, but... look at that! I'm succeeding
> already!
*yes*, *yes*, in a bunch of different ways
you wouldn't happen to, by chance, know anything about the AUK-tards
being put on the skids? <grin>
Brian Mailman
> Bill Cole <bi...@scconsult.com> writes:
>
>>>> Also for the record, one thing that I want to do that the Board
>>>> is not going to be able to do on its own is to make news.groups a whole
>>>> lot less toxic.
>
>>> you have absolutely no control over what people post here
>
>>Absolutely correct.
>
>>I should note for those not using the multi-year news.groups scorecard
>>that this may be the very first time I have agreed more than slightly
>>with Mr. Logajan.
>
> I didn't spot this at first, but... look at that! I'm succeeding
> already!
You may wish to contemplate that as of late the Bush administration has
been uniting the people as well and that that may not be a positive
thing for it.
B/
Henrietta K Thomas
Wouldn't be the first time. :-)
Border...@aol.com
Tim Skirvin wrote:
> As of today, I have taken over as the Chair of the Big-8 Board,
> replacing Brian Edmonds. Thank you, Brian, for all of your work to date,
> both with the old system and in helping us put this new system together.
> (To be clear, he's not leaving the Board, he's just stepping down as
> Chair.)
>
> As my first public action, I want to offer a basic idea of what
> we've been up to for these last couple of months. The simple answer is
> that we've done a lot of talking, and laying out the issues we have to
> solve internally; but we haven't made a whole lot of decisions, because
> the framework to make those decisions wasn't in place. This has recently
> changed, as we have finally set down an official set of Voting Policies,
> documented on the web here:
>
> http://www.killfile.org/big8/vote.html
>
> Approving these Voting Policies was Brian's penultimate act;
> running the vote where I was elected Chair was the last. Now, I plan to
> follow through, and begin running votes on many issues over the next few
> days - starting with simple questions like "what will our final name be?",
> moving into real questions like "will we allow moderation-in-place?", and
> perhaps finishing our revisions to a final group creation system in the
> next few weeks. I will report on the results of these votes as they come
> down the pipeline. Hopefully you won't get too sick of seeing my name in
> news.announce.newgroups...> http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/faqs/ Skirv's FAQs
Jim Logajan
> Jim Logajan <Jam...@Lugoj.com> writes:
>>Could you list the impractical aspects the shooters cited?
>
> Here are some off the top of my head....
>
> * No one trustworthy is willing to run the votes.
Well - I volunteered my services to Bill Aten just prior to the termination
of the UVV. Unless I'm considered untrustworthy, that point appears
invalid.
> * We still don't know how to solve the problem which precipitated this
> whole mess, i.e., how to get real, interested people to vote in
> sufficient numbers and filter out the bogus votes.
Ahem - how many votes were called into question on the last three CFVs
using the new voting scheme? I guess I missed the formal voter fraud
objections raised against those CFVs.
> * We have no practical way of deciding who's right about what the
> thresholds should be.
Reinstating the old system doesn't require any change to the thresholds.
That's the point. *Sigh*
> * There is no one who is (a) willing to run the old system
The committee hasn't asked, so you can't actually make this claim. It is
actually within your mandate to ask. I do not recall Russ, Todd, and Brian
ever coming out and point-blank asking if someone would take over nan as-is
(i.e. employing classic moderator hand-off). So you appear to be incorrect
on this point also.
> and (b) trusted to do so by the previous troika (Russ, Todd, Brian) or
> the new board. (Yes, this is begging the question a bit, since what we're
> discussing is in fact whether the new board is willing to reinstate
> the old system while discussing a new one, but it is the reality of
> the situation.)
I'm fairly certain the "troika" specifically stated that if the new board
chose to reinstate the old system, they would not object. So only the new
board need consider the "trust" issue. And face it - if you can't find
anyone to trust to run the old system, any new system is S.O.L. too.
> * The old system was producing a ton of failed groups, many of which
> common sense says should have been successful. Hence, it is not at
> all obvious that reinstating the old system would accomplish the
> stated purpose of allowing groups to be created while the new system
> is figured out. It's just as likely that it would waste people's time
> without accomplishing anything.
I'm sorry, but the plaint about "how to get real, interested people to vote
in sufficient numbers," and the plaint that the "old system was producing a
ton of failed groups" appear to me to be mutually exclusive. I am certain
that any new system will create groups that "fail" in the same manner as
groups created under the old system. In fact I'm willing to bet money on it
against any of the board members who think otherwise.
The old system worked well enough for many years - keeping it going for a
few more months (or weeks) isn't going to cause the heavens to split
asunder.
>>Hmmm. Counterproductive to what and how?
>
> Many of the practicality reasons cited above are also
> counterproductivity reasons. Some others:
>
> * Time spent running the old system would be time taken away from
> figuring out the new one.
It would take one person to handle the nan submissions and one person to
handle the CFVs till the new system is in place. There are 11 members on
the board. I'm failing to see where all this alleged time is being spent.
> * The old system is known to be inaccurate, and it would be
> counterproductive to make proponents go through an inaccurate system
> to try to get their groups created.
The new system will be inaccurate. Again, I'm willing to bet real money on
that assertion.
>>How much time did the shooters claim it would take to restart the old
>>system?
>
> It is not necessary to quantify the exact time to know that a lot of
> it would be involved.
>
> We'd have to, for example: find voters and get them set up;
I presume you meant vote-takers? If not me, I don't see why any more than
one person needs to be delegated to find said vote takers.
> find people
> willing to staff group-advice / group-mentors; and learn the nuts and
> bolts of how to run the process (since Russ, Todd, and Brian are no
> longer willing to do it).
This is a temporary measure - you're inventing roadblocks where there are
none. Just about everyone who has read news.groups for more than a couple
years can (and does) provide public advice to public requests for help. The
old system is well understood.
> However, I would state Tim's point another way... Rather than saying
> that it would take *more* time and energy to resume the old system than
> to come up with a new one, what I would say that regardless of exactly
> how much time and energy it would take, most of it would be wasted,
> since we know for a fact that we're planning a new system which would
> be substantially different. We just don't wish to waste that time and
> energy.
You all have real lives and other things to attend to in life. I understand
that - it is why promises of a new system "in a few weeks" have been
incorrect for months now.
Face the fact that you are going to be more months (and not weeks) at the
drawing board and please spend some small time on resuming the old scheme
while you all deliberate.
> The people on the board do not believe that it is valuable to do
> something bad fast rather than doing something good more slowly. We do
> not believe that there is sufficient urgency surrounding resuming the
> creation of new groups to warrant this.
The board doesn't know all the facts and is therefore unfortunately drawing
incorrect conclusions. For example, at the end of January I decided to drop
any further consideration of submitting the group I was interested in
seeing created.
> The sky is not falling.
Of course not - it is only newsgroup creation: A handy way for people to
find others of like interests and hold discussions on those interests.
Attempts at perfection, immutability, and somberness just get in the way -
I hope the board takes their mandate sufficiently lightly so that progress
can be made and we really _can_ see a new system (warts and all) in place
in "a few weeks". :-)
> (I speak for myself. My comments about the beliefs of the board are
> my own impressions of those beliefs. Etc.)
Please consider putting temporary resumption of the old system to a formal
board vote if it hasn't already been formally voted on. Thanks.
edward ohare
>Now, now. Just because Geoff is a sore loser doesn't mean you should
>ridicule him. :-) (BTW, he couldn't sell the uk.* system in us.config,
>either.)
Oh, I don't know.... at the 11th hour who knows what will happen.
Which, I'm betting, is the same thing that will happen here.
Adam H. Kerman
>* We still don't know how to solve the problem which precipitated this
>whole mess, i.e., how to get real, interested people to vote in
>sufficient numbers and filter out the bogus votes.
Oh, for gawd's sake.
1) We know exactly why the MySQL vote failed and what steps should have
been taken to prevent its failure. It's not rocket science.
2) The vote is an interest poll. The result was "insufficient interest".
3) It was a computer-related topic, so the theory that voting was too
complicated didn't apply.
4) On the other hand, the postresql author annoyed a great many people who
might have otherwise support the group. Bad, bad strategy. Still not a
failure of the voting system.
>* We have no practical way of deciding who's right about what the
>thresholds should be.
Anyone on the committee unwilling to make a decision among several options
should simply resign. Hierarchy administration isn't about "who is right"
but sending newgroup messages and checkgroups and rmgroups based on some
sort of reasonable method of recognizing a useful set of newsgroups.
The decision you make is going to be wrong. Make the damn decision anyway
and stop looking for excuses not to do your job.
Robert Marshall
> On 2006-03-06, Martin X. Moleski, SJ <mol...@canisius.edu> wrote:
>> On Mon, 6 Mar 2006 00:53:51 +0000, Peter J Ross
>> <p...@kookbusters.org> wrote in
>> <slrne0n29...@nntp.alcatroll.com>:
>>
>>> I certainly didn't expect the Spanish
>>>Inquisition.
>>
>> Nemo expectat inquisitionem hispaniolam! :-P
>>
>> Marty
>
> That's better than what I was going to say :))
>
But why is a 'comfy chair' sexist language?
Robert
--
La grenouille songe..dans son chāteau d'eau
Jonathan Kamens
>Well - I volunteered my services to Bill Aten just prior to the termination
>of the UVV. Unless I'm considered untrustworthy, that point appears
>invalid.
Frankly, I would have some concerns with your being a
vote-taker. I am also pretty certain that doing it takes a
lot more work and would not be nearly as quick or easy for
you to set up as you think.
>> * We still don't know how to solve the problem which precipitated this
>> whole mess, i.e., how to get real, interested people to vote in
>> sufficient numbers and filter out the bogus votes.
>Ahem - how many votes were called into question on the last three CFVs
>using the new voting scheme? I guess I missed the formal voter fraud
>objections raised against those CFVs.
I have no desire to repeat the entire discussion of whether
the voting system was working. Russ, Todd, and Brian believed
it wasn't, which is why they put a stop to it. A solid
majority of the Board believes that it wasn't, which is why we
are not seriously considering a new system heavily based on
voting.
>> * We have no practical way of deciding who's right about what the
>> thresholds should be.
>Reinstating the old system doesn't require any change to the thresholds.
>That's the point. *Sigh*
Please don't play dumb. The switch from 100+ to 50+ which
Todd announced shortly before the process was put on hold was
highly controversial and never completely put to rest. If we
were to consider resuming the old system, we would
*certainly* have to decide whether to go with 100+ or 50+, if
nothing else.
>> * There is no one who is (a) willing to run the old system
>
>The committee hasn't asked, so you can't actually make this claim. It is
>actually within your mandate to ask. I do not recall Russ, Todd, and Brian
>ever coming out and point-blank asking if someone would take over nan as-is
>(i.e. employing classic moderator hand-off). So you appear to be incorrect
>on this point also.
You know, you're right. I imagine that if we as a Board
decided to resume newsgroup creation under the old system, we
could find people willing to run it. Whether those people
could be (a) trusted by the troika and/or Board to do it with
integrity, (b) sufficiently respected by the Usenet community
as a whole, and (c) competent enough to do it properly, is a
much harder question to answer.
I suspect that the only people who would meet all three of
those conditions are on the Board which has already decided
it's inappropriate to resume the old system, so the discussion
is sort of moot.
>> * The old system was producing a ton of failed groups, many of which
>> common sense says should have been successful. Hence, it is not at
>> all obvious that reinstating the old system would accomplish the
>> stated purpose of allowing groups to be created while the new system
>> is figured out. It's just as likely that it would waste people's time
>> without accomplishing anything.
>
>I'm sorry, but the plaint about "how to get real, interested people to vote
>in sufficient numbers," and the plaint that the "old system was producing a
>ton of failed groups" appear to me to be mutually exclusive.
I think you misunderstood. By "failed groups," I did not
mean groups which were created but failed to thrive. I meant
groups which should have passed their votes but didn't.
>The old system worked well enough for many years - keeping it going for a
>few more months (or weeks) isn't going to cause the heavens to split
>asunder.
Neither is not keeping it. And the latter takes less work.
>> * Time spent running the old system would be time taken away from
>> figuring out the new one.
>
>It would take one person to handle the nan submissions and one person to
>handle the CFVs till the new system is in place. There are 11 members on
>the board. I'm failing to see where all this alleged time is being spent.
You've never moderated n.a.n (or any group?) and never run a
vote, so I don't think you're in a terribly good position to
to know how much work it is to run the old system. Russ, Todd
and Brian seem to think that it takes quite a bit of work.
As someone who has both moderated newsgroups and run votes, I
would tend to agree with them.
>You all have real lives and other things to attend to in life. I understand
>that - it is why promises of a new system "in a few weeks" have been
>incorrect for months now.
As I said before, promises of a new system "in a few weeks"
turned out to be incorrect because of problems with the
internal workings of the board which have recently been
addressed. I am confident that you will see substantial
output from the Board in the next few weeks.
>The board doesn't know all the facts and is therefore unfortunately drawing
>incorrect conclusions. For example, at the end of January I decided to drop
>any further consideration of submitting the group I was interested in
>seeing created.
I'm sorry to hear that. If the group you were considering
would be a useful addition to the Usenet, then I hope you will
submit it for consideration when the new system is in place.
>Please consider putting temporary resumption of the old system to a formal
>board vote if it hasn't already been formally voted on. Thanks.
It was the first thing we voted on.
Michael Sullivan
> >I'm sorry, but the plaint about "how to get real, interested people to vote
> >in sufficient numbers," and the plaint that the "old system was producing a
> >ton of failed groups" appear to me to be mutually exclusive.
> I think you misunderstood. By "failed groups," I did not
> mean groups which were created but failed to thrive. I meant
> groups which should have passed their votes but didn't.
IMO, Usenet has become marginalized. Only the hard-core are still here.
There's enough of us to make groups work, but I believe the old
thresholds were based on a time when many more people were light usenet
users. Light usenet users mostly don't exist (not in the quantity
they used to), because usenet is no longer the only game in town for
internet wide communication. It's still by far the *best*, IMO, but
it's far from the easiest to use.
I think this is why voters do not come out in the quanitities they used
to. There are just a lot fewer users.
Note, I'm not arguing for a particular system, I'm just noting what I
believe to be the primary "problem" causing vote failures in the old
system. I actually think the old system might have been okay, from a
proponent's perspective if the vote threshold had been much smaller.
The biggest structural problem I see is the lack of respect news
providers have for the hierarchy administrator's decisions. I have no
clue how to get that back, and it feels to me like anything the board
would do that doesn't address that issue long-term is sticking fingers
in dykes.
There are severe incentive problems causing news admins not to give a
shit what the Big8 says. Back in the day, a proponent didn't have to
spend months convincing servers to carry their groups for Big8 groups,
and that was a huge advantage to getting a group in the big8.
I don't really have good answers to these problems, or I would have put
my name in the ring for the board, but I do think they are central, and
I hope they are being discussed.
Michael
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
Whiskers
Is it something to do with 'bicycle'?
Brian Mailman
> You know, you're right. I imagine that if we as a Board
> decided to resume newsgroup creation under the old system, we
> could find people willing to run it. Whether those people
> could be (a) trusted by the troika and/or Board to do it with
> integrity, (b) sufficiently respected by the Usenet community
> as a whole, and (c) competent enough to do it properly, is a
> much harder question to answer.
>
> I suspect that the only people who would meet all three of
> those conditions are on the Board...
Well, considering how the *interim* board (which has seemed to now
permanentized itself as The Board) chose itself as an ad hoc process, if
it had happened at a different time, the interim board would be composed
differently. Some people were able to volunteer at that time, some were
not.
There is nothing inherently elite by being on the board.
B/
edward ohare
>You're betting that in September the 11 (or however many are still standing)
>Whatevers will implement the uk.* system for the Big-8? That is the only
>outcome that would surprise me.
They won't implement the uk.* system intact or say that's what they've
done because of Not Invented Here but they'll borrow so much from it
they might as well have adopted it at the beginning.
Wayne Brown
>>That's the point. *Sigh*
>
> Please don't play dumb. The switch from 100+ to 50+ which
> Todd announced shortly before the process was put on hold was
> highly controversial and never completely put to rest. If we
> were to consider resuming the old system, we would
> *certainly* have to decide whether to go with 100+ or 50+, if
> nothing else.
You're the one being deliberately obtuse here. The 50+ threshold was
never used, other than being retroactively applied by Todd and the other
NAN idiots to a vote that already was over. So obviously "the old system"
must refer to the 100+ system.
I think the only reason the Politburo doesn't want to reinstate the old
system is that its success would demonstrate clearly how unnecessary
all of you are. It would be embarrassing for you to have it actually
work without your so-called "improvements."
--
Wayne Brown (HPCC #1104) | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
fwb...@bellsouth.net | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give
| your pelt to the trapper."
e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"
Adam H. Kerman
>Please don't play dumb. The switch from 100+ to 50+ which
>Todd announced shortly before the process was put on hold was
>highly controversial and never completely put to rest.
This is complete and utter balderdash.
It happened just a few months ago. We all remember quite clearly what
happened. Please. If you are going to rewrite history, do wait a few years
till events are no longer fresh in everyone's mind.
You owe everyone an apology for this.
Peter J Ross
<bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote in news.groups:
> Jonathan Kamens wrote:
>
>> You know, you're right. I imagine that if we as a Board
>> decided to resume newsgroup creation under the old system, we
>> could find people willing to run it. Whether those people
>> could be (a) trusted by the troika and/or Board to do it with
>> integrity, (b) sufficiently respected by the Usenet community
>> as a whole, and (c) competent enough to do it properly, is a
>> much harder question to answer.
>>
>> I suspect that the only people who would meet all three of
>> those conditions are on the Board...
>
> Well, considering how the *interim* board (which has seemed to now
> permanentized itself as The Board)
I noticed that too. I think I asked a question about it a few months
ago (before reading news.groups turned my hair white), and the answer
from the retiring NAN team was that the Interim Committee has the
right to make themselves permanent if they wish. But my memory may be
at fault.
> chose itself as an ad hoc process,
No, they didn't choose themselves. Todd chose them, after a vote the
exact rules of which were not clear in advance to the voters or
candidates. This may seem an insignificant point to some people, but
the *power* to choose a board belonged to Todd and his colleagues, and
the *authority* and *prestige* of the board are therefore based on
dynastic principles, however democratic the procedure might have
looked on the surface.
I'm not complaining about this; I'd have had much stronger objections
if the unwashed hordes had had a bigger say: it's just the way it
really happened.
> if it had happened at a different time, the interim board would be
> composed differently. Some people were able to volunteer at that
> time, some were not.
>
> There is nothing inherently elite by being on the board.
All true, but they're not a bad set of people, and the two obvious
loons who were candidates didn't obtain a seat. Much though I love
making sarcastic comments, I'll try to refrain until I see what
happens now that His Skirviness is the Official Chaise-Longue. (Sorry,
that one just slipped out.) He seems to have a go-getting approach.
Meanwhile I notice no queues of posters in alt.config demanding alt.*
groups because they're not able to make Big-8 proposals, which might
be evidence that there's no very urgent need to set a new Big-8 system
up tomorrow.
PJR :-)
--
Have you been touched ___ ___ Hammer of Thor, Jan 2006
by His noodly / _ \ / _ \
appendage? ( (_) )( (_) ) Pierre Salinger Memorial
\_ _/ \_ _/ Hook, Line & Sinker, Dec
STOP GLOBAL __ _.-\\----//--._ 2003 & May 2005
WARMING _ / _\___.-'/ _| / _\ /\/\`-._.-.__ _
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JIM LAD! \__) __) | _| _) ) || || (_ \_.-' Troll of the
/_-. || \_/ || .-'-.\ Year, 2003
http:// _._// / .--._______.-'\ \ \\__._ 2004 & 2005
www. /_._/ \ \ )) \__._)
venganza (/ _.-') ( `-._ wsd 42 ~ mhm 34x8
.org/ (_.-' :F_P: `--._) smeeter 30 ~ mwpl 12
Martin X. Moleski, SJ
> ... if
>it had happened at a different time, the interim board would be composed
>differently. Some people were able to volunteer at that time, some were
>not.
True.
>There is nothing inherently elite by being on the board.
True.
Marty
Rob Kelk
I suspect that they won't implement the uk.* system intact because it
doesn't take into account the way things are done in the Big-8, at
either the technical or social levels. (For one thing, it's got the
Board/Control relationship completely reversed. In uk.*, the Board
chooses Control, which seems to work well. In Big-8, Control chooses
the Board, which has worked well so far.) "Not invented here" is just
what the people who think "one size fits all" are using as an excuse to
fail to see that one size does *not* fit all.
--
Rob Kelk
Personal address (ROT-13): eboxryx -ng- tznvy -qbg- pbz
Any opinions here are mine, not ONAG's.
ott.* newsgroup charters: <http://onag.pinetree.org>
Russ Allbery
>> Please don't play dumb. The switch from 100+ to 50+ which Todd
>> announced shortly before the process was put on hold was highly
>> controversial and never completely put to rest.
> This is complete and utter balderdash.
Uh, it is?
It sure matches my memory of the discussion. I think there was a majority
in favor of the changed margin (with a substantial portion of that
majority still really upset about how the change was made), but it's a bit
of a stretch from that to "completely put to rest." I think Jonathan's
summary is accurate.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Jonathan Kamens
>The Big-8 is not a democracy. Never was, never will be. The oligarchy here
>does everything it can to protect itself. Membership in the oligarchy is by
>invitation not public election. (Todd called for volunteers and then used a
>selection system which ensured the outcome he wanted. At least Todd was
>honest about it - he began the process by saying that he and Russ would
>decide who would be on the new Whatever. He never said the selection would
>be by a democratic vote. He never said that everyone who volunteered would
>be selected.)
All true. I would, however, add that "the oligarchy" does what it does
not "to protect itself" but more importantly to protect Usenet.
>The oligarchy knows best and doesn't need outside opinion.
I'm curious to hear how you reconcile this assertion with the fact that
the old NAN team both apologized and changed several decisions as a
result of discussion following the mysql vote.
Or with the fact that the current Board has been actively engaged in
discussion here, both before and after they were selected by Todd.
It is a rather common (in both senses of the word) tactic for people
who don't get what they want to assert that their opinions were not
heard. Saying it doesn't make it so.
>Using Kamens'
>formulation from the same article cited immediately above: the oligarchy
>members are the only a) trustworthy, b) respected, and c) competent folks
>around.
You have elided some rather important words in your "summary" of what I
wrote. How what you wrote differs from what I wrote is left as an
exercise for the reader. I don't particularly feel like wasting time
responding to a straw-man argument based on a distortion of my words.
>Under no circumstances will they adopt any part of the uk.* voting
>system because allowing the peasants to vote could result in the peasants
>electing one of their own to The Whatever.
I imagine that it might actually be possible to devise a mechanism for
electing good leaders for the Big 8. Who knows, the Board may end up
utilizing elections in some form for this purpose, although that has
not yet been decided. What is not at all clear is whether such a
system would produce any better results than the "oligarchic" methods
that have been used in the past. Frankly, I doubt it.
Adam H. Kerman
>Adam H Kerman <a...@chinet.com> writes:
>>Jonathan Kamens <j...@kamens.brookline.ma.us> wrote:
>>>Please don't play dumb. The switch from 100+ to 50+ which Todd
>>>announced shortly before the process was put on hold was highly
>>>controversial and never completely put to rest.
>>This is complete and utter balderdash.
>Uh, it is?
>It sure matches my memory of the discussion.
Yes, Russ, it is utter balderdash.
>I think there was a majority in favor of the changed margin (with a
>substantial portion of that majority still really upset about how the
>change was made),
1) MySQL proposal was voted upon.
2) When the result was announced, it was also announced that the threshold
had been lowered and that the vote passed under the lowered threshold.
3) At my request, Todd revised the result and announced that the vote was
lost under the old rules but that a newgroup would be sent anyway.
4) Following a period of heated discussion of the decision, you and Todd
resigned.
5) You sent a newgroup for the postresql group. No one made much of a fuss
about it as, well, you had already resigned.
Wayne is correct. There has yet to be a vote under the lowered threshold.
>but it's a bit of a stretch from that to "completely put to rest." I
>think Jonathan's summary is accurate.
It is utter balderdash that the lowered threshold was highly controversial
as the discussion was tainted by the action you had taken. The experience
of several votes under the lowered threshold would have demonstrated the
wisdom of the decision, but we'll never know.
It was one of those rare instances in which a heated discussion in
news.groups was not without reason.
Brian Palmer
> "2Rowdy" <Harry...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>Are there any non-Americans on that board?
>
> Yes.
>
>>Is there a list of boardmembers?
>
> Yes: me, Marty, jik, Brian, Ru, Joe, BarB, Yves, Tom, Jon, and
> Dave. I don't have anything more useful off-hand, though it's the same as
> it was in the initial announcement.
To save others some trouble, you mean this announcement?
http://groups.google.com/group/news.announce.newgroups/msg/81d5f8e28ddf9a52
May I ask you copy+paste the message, or at least link to that, from
your big8 page on killfile.org ? It'd be handy for some of us
outsiders who weren't active when all this went down to have a
one-stop shopping place to look for information about this board. (And
similarly, if you could also host future announcements there or
wherever the board designates as an "official board site", it'd be
nice... having to go google searching for expired announcements is
sort of a pain).
--
I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard.
Russ Allbery
>>> Jonathan Kamens <j...@kamens.brookline.ma.us> wrote:
>>>> Please don't play dumb. The switch from 100+ to 50+ which Todd
>>>> announced shortly before the process was put on hold was highly
>>>> controversial and never completely put to rest.
> 1) MySQL proposal was voted upon.
> 2) When the result was announced, it was also announced that the threshold
> had been lowered and that the vote passed under the lowered threshold.
> 3) At my request, Todd revised the result and announced that the vote was
> lost under the old rules but that a newgroup would be sent anyway.
> 4) Following a period of heated discussion of the decision, you and Todd
> resigned.
> 5) You sent a newgroup for the postresql group. No one made much of a fuss
> about it as, well, you had already resigned.
> Wayne is correct. There has yet to be a vote under the lowered threshold.
Uh... right, I don't disagree about any of that, and I don't think
Jonathan is either.
How does that differ from what Jonathan said? You must have some subtle
point here that's escaping me entirely.
>> but it's a bit of a stretch from that to "completely put to rest." I
>> think Jonathan's summary is accurate.
> It is utter balderdash that the lowered threshold was highly
> controversial as the discussion was tainted by the action you had taken.
> The experience of several votes under the lowered threshold would have
> demonstrated the wisdom of the decision, but we'll never know.
Okay... as near as I can tell, you're agreeing with both Jonathan and I
vehemently and angrily while saying that what we're saying, which appears
to be exactly the same thing that you're saying, is balderdash.
I have no idea how to react to that.
Adam H. Kerman
>Uh... right, I don't disagree about any of that, and I don't think
>Jonathan is either.
>How does that differ from what Jonathan said? You must have some subtle
>point here that's escaping me entirely.
Jonathan said, "The switch from 100+ to 50+ which Todd announced shortly
before the process was put on hold was highly controversial and never
completely put to rest."
That is a false statement. The acrimony (I won't term it "controversy" as
no one supported your action) concerned the lowering of the voting
threshold for a vote understood to be taking place under existing rules.
It was not possible to have a proper debate about whether the threshold
should have been lowered given the circumstances. We don't actually know
if such a debate would have been highly controversial.
We don't know what would have happened if there had been several votes
with the lowered threshold. As the committee is unwilling to hold several
votes under the lowered threshold, we'll never know.