CFV to reorganize this group
Dr. Joseph M Zawodny
The Call For Votes (CFV) to reorganize rec.radio.amateur... has been out
since May 9, 1993. I stumbled across it in rec.radio.packet, but I did
not see it posted here. I've been told that it is also in news.groups
and a few other places. Whatever your disposition towards this proposed
reorganization, I encourage you to vote on it.
73,
--
Joseph M. Zawodny (KO4LW) NASA Langley Research Center
Internet: zaw...@arbd0.larc.nasa.gov MS-475, Hampton VA, 23681-0001
Packet: ko...@wb0tax.va.usa
Ian Kluft
>Maybe I missed it somehow, but in case I am not alone I'll pass this on.
>The Call For Votes (CFV) to reorganize rec.radio.amateur... has been out
>since May 9, 1993. I stumbled across it in rec.radio.packet, but I did
>not see it posted here. I've been told that it is also in news.groups
>and a few other places. Whatever your disposition towards this proposed
>reorganization, I encourage you to vote on it.
One single copy was cross-posted to news.announce.newgroups, news.groups,
rec.radio.amateur.misc, rec.radio.amateur.packet, rec.radio.amateur.policy,
and rec.radio.info. Your newsreader software probably noted that you saw it
first in r.r.a.packet and didn't display it again in the other newsgroups.
It looks like it made it OK. It arrived at my site properly cross-posted
to all the required groups. We talk directly to UUNET so, with only one hop
from the moderator of news.announce.newgroups, there wasn't much room for
problems to occur.
Anyway, thanks for speaking up when you thought there might be a problem. I'm
glad to help clear it up.
--
Ian Kluft KD6EUI PP-ASEL Amdahl Corporation, Open Systems Development
ikl...@uts.amdahl.com Santa Clara, CA
[disclaimer: any opinions expressed are mine only... not those of my employer]
Randall Rhea
>Maybe I missed it somehow, but in case I am not alone I'll pass this on.
>The Call For Votes (CFV) to reorganize rec.radio.amateur... has been out
>since May 9, 1993. I stumbled across it in rec.radio.packet, but I did
>not see it posted here. I've been told that it is also in news.groups
>and a few other places. Whatever your disposition towards this proposed
>reorganization, I encourage you to vote on it.
I encourage a "no" vote on this proposal. I appreciate the work
that went into it, but there are far too many new groups being
proposed. In the end, most of the new groups will have little
or no activity, and everyone will keep using "misc".
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Randall Rhea Informix Software, Inc.
Project Manager, MIS Sales/Marketing Systems uunet!pyramid!infmx!randall
Daniel D. Todd
[Dr. Zawodny's comments deleted]
:
: I encourage a "no" vote on this proposal. I appreciate the work
: that went into it, but there are far too many new groups being
: proposed. In the end, most of the new groups will have little
: or no activity, and everyone will keep using "misc".
I was going to vote no as well. I guess I wasn't following the thread
closely enough though because I didn't realize we were voting on each
group individually in the CFV. This works out much better. I did vote no
on most of the groups but space, homebrew and instruction got a yes vote.
My $.02
Dan
---
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
* Daniel D. Todd Packet: KC6UUD@WA6RDH.#nocal.ca.usa *
* Internet: DDT...@ucdavis.edu *
* Snail Mail: 1750 Hanover #102 *
* Davis CA 95616 *
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
* I do not speak for the University of California.... *
* and it sure as hell doesn't speak for me!! *
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
Paul W Schleck KD3FU
>I encourage a "no" vote on this proposal. I appreciate the work
>that went into it, but there are far too many new groups being
>proposed. In the end, most of the new groups will have little
>or no activity, and everyone will keep using "misc".
I must hasten to point out that there are actually 11 proposals, each
requiring an individual "no" (or yes or abstain) vote. If you think there
are too many groups, I encourage you to vote yes for the ones that you
want, and at least abstain from voting against the ones you don't care
about ("no" votes should be reserved for newsgroups that you think would
be detrimental to Usenet).
During the news.groups discussion, Jon Bloom pointed out that even if
*.misc remains an unmanageable anarchy, it's still worthwhile to try to
spawn off noise-free forums for topic-specific discussion. Personally,
I'm looking forward to the possible creation of TCP/IP, homebrew, and
space newsgroups.
Remember, you don't have to agree with the whole thing, Usenet doesn't
work like our pork-barrel US Congress! :-)
73, Paul W. Schleck, KD3FU
Ian Kluft
>ran...@informix.com (Randall Rhea) writes:
>: I encourage a "no" vote on this proposal. I appreciate the work
>: that went into it, but there are far too many new groups being
>: proposed. In the end, most of the new groups will have little
>: or no activity, and everyone will keep using "misc".
>I was going to vote no as well. I guess I wasn't following the thread
>closely enough though because I didn't realize we were voting on each
>group individually in the CFV. This works out much better. I did vote no
>on most of the groups but space, homebrew and instruction got a yes vote.
>My $.02
That must have been easy to miss or something. (I don't know how many times
we said it.) Yes, there are actually 11 separate votes going on - one for
each proposed newsgroup.
I'd like to remind everyone that every newsgroup on the proposal got there
by people making convincing arguments that their proposed newsgroup had an
interested following. They had to convince a scrutinizing, often-skeptical
audience. Usually the only sure way to do that was to point out what the
current traffic levels are for that topic.
If you don't see the need for a specific newsgroup, you can abstain from
voting on it. Someone else did see the need and was able to convince others
of its merits.
Please reserve your "no" votes only for groups that you think have some sort
of serious problems. After all, someone else had to argue very hard to gain
the support of others to get it on the proposal. And, who knows, that person
may be supporting the newsgroups you want.
The final decision on each newsgroup is yours... just don't forget to vote.
Chuck Harris - WA3UQV
>Please reserve your "no" votes only for groups that you think have some sort
>of serious problems. After all, someone else had to argue very hard to gain
>the support of others to get it on the proposal. And, who knows, that person
>may be supporting the newsgroups you want.
Bad idea! Abstaining on a vote is the same as a "yes" vote. Since SOMEONE
wanted the group, or it wouldn't be on the ballet. Abstaining is how we
get these groups that pass with 6 "yes" votes, and 0 "no" votes (and 40,000
abstentions)
Vote NO for any group that you don't want to vote YES for! We have too many
unused newsgroups already.
------
Chuck Harris - WA3UQV
ch...@eng.umd.edu
Mark E. Bailey
Not quite true. In order for any group to be created, the vote must satisfy
two conditions:
1. 2/3 of the votes cast must be in favor
2. The difference between the number of yes votes and no votes must be at
least 100.
If the yes votes don't outnumber the no's by at least 100, nothing happens.
If you don't care, ABSTAIN.
--
Mark Bailey KD4D Motto: Life's too short to drink cheap beer.
me...@eng.umd.edu Disclaimer: I didn't really say this.
David Adams
|In article <f0zC03Y...@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> ikl...@uts.amdahl.com (Ian Kluft) writes:
|>Please reserve your "no" votes only for groups that you think have some sort
|>of serious problems. After all, someone else had to argue very hard to gain
|>the support of others to get it on the proposal. And, who knows, that person
|>may be supporting the newsgroups you want.
|
|Bad idea! Abstaining on a vote is the same as a "yes" vote. Since SOMEONE
|wanted the group, or it wouldn't be on the ballet. Abstaining is how we
|get these groups that pass with 6 "yes" votes, and 0 "no" votes (and 40,000
|abstentions)
|
The requirements are "twice as many yes votes as no votes AND 100 more yes
votes than no votes." There has been talk about making these requirements more stringent, but apparently nothing has come of this?
Hence 6 to 0 will not pass. Never has.
|Vote NO for any group that you don't want to vote YES for! We have too many
|unused newsgroups already.
Well, that is the standard objection. I wouldn't go so far as to say that
an abstention == yes. It actually takes quite a bit of momentum to get a
group going, and not nearly so much to kill one that would be created.
Groups that fail must wait at least 6 months before making another attempt.
In my experience, the best way to organize the drive to create a new group
is to create a mailing list first. Then when you have collected the
votes, begin the RFD process.
|
|------
|Chuck Harris - WA3UQV
|ch...@eng.umd.edu
---
--David C. Adams Statistician Cray Research Inc. dad...@cray.com
Old cowboys never die. They just smell that way!
Ian Kluft
>wanted the group, or it wouldn't be on the ballet. Abstaining is how we
>get these groups that pass with 6 "yes" votes, and 0 "no" votes (and 40,000
>abstentions)
>Vote NO for any group that you don't want to vote YES for! We have too many
>unused newsgroups already.
An abstention isn't equivalent to yes because this isn't a simple majority
vote. Each newsgroup, in order to pass, needs at least a 2/3 majority and
the yes votes need to outnumber the no votes by at least 100.
Amazingly, even on UseNet, getting enough participation in the vote isn't
always a given. As an example of what voting volumes have been seen in other
groups, here are some recent results I pulled out of my news spool:
comp.sys.harris passes 134:9
soc.college.teaching-asst passes 233:37
talk.politics.conservative fails 155:58
comp.object.logic passes 195:22
rec.music.light-rock fails 79:49
comp.dcom.lans.token-ring passes 143:10
Only one of those even got into the 200's so the 100-vote-margin requirement
can be considered significant. (That's probably good, too. Making a new
newsgroup should not be easy.)
So, having shown what the voter turnout typically is, more people will probably
agree now that it's OK to abstain if you don't have an opinion on a given
newsgroup.
That's also why I keep reminding people - don't forget to vote. I hope I'm
not the only one doing that. (If enough people participate in the vote then
we will be able to say the process worked, whatever the results.)
Dr. Joseph M Zawodny
>
>Bad idea! Abstaining on a vote is the same as a "yes" vote. Since SOMEONE
>wanted the group, or it wouldn't be on the ballet. Abstaining is how we
>get these groups that pass with 6 "yes" votes, and 0 "no" votes (and 40,000
>abstentions)
>
WRONG! The vote must pass by a 2/3 majority with at least 100 more YES votes
than NO votes. I'll be surprized if we get more than 3 or 4 hundred votes
total (not counting abstentions). This does seem quite fair and I agree that
a NO vote should not be cast against groups that the voter really does not
care about (would not subscribe to).
Chuck Harris - WA3UQV
>In article <1stqqg...@mojo.eng.umd.edu> ch...@eng.umd.edu (Chuck Harris - WA3UQV) writes:
>>
>>Bad idea! Abstaining on a vote is the same as a "yes" vote. Since SOMEONE
>>wanted the group, or it wouldn't be on the ballet. Abstaining is how we
>>get these groups that pass with 6 "yes" votes, and 0 "no" votes (and 40,000
>>abstentions)
>>
>>Chuck Harris - WA3UQV
>
>WRONG! The vote must pass by a 2/3 majority with at least 100 more YES votes
>than NO votes. I'll be surprized if we get more than 3 or 4 hundred votes
Ok, I'll rephrase the above: "Abstaining is how we get these groups that pass
with 100 "yes" votes, 0 "no" votes (and 40,000 abstentions)."
Did the ratios of yes's to abstentions change all that much?
If you like things mostly the way they currently are, your only choice is to
vote "NO" for all of those groups that you don't wish to vote "yes" for. It
gives your vote more power.
Scott Turner
> I must hasten to point out that there are actually 11 proposals, each
> requiring an individual "no" (or yes or abstain) vote. If you think there
> are too many groups, I encourage you to vote yes for the ones that you
> want, and at least abstain from voting against the ones you don't care
> about ("no" votes should be reserved for newsgroups that you think would
> be detrimental to Usenet).
ARGHHHH!!!!! Please vote the way you feel you should vote. Yes means
yes, no means no and abstain means don't care. My guess is that for
most of the readers of these groups those terms are self-explanatory.
Doggone it Paul, if you feel as I do that there are *WAY TOO MANY
GROUPS* the best way to keep the divisions from happening is to vote no
on the groups you don't want. That's exactly what I intend to do, and
it's what I would encourage others to do as well.
I'll assume your directions are well-intended, but from where I stand if
people follow your rules it almost guarantees passage of the new groups.
That's something many here simply don't want. Was that your intent?
Let's keep this thing fair and allow people to vote for, against or
abstain as they choose. The amount of work that went into these
proposals should be appreciated, but is irrelevant to the voting
process. Let the groups stand or fall on their own merits.
BTW, I personally do believe that this recent trend to excessively
subdivide groups is detrimental to Usenet *users*.
I'll be voting no.
PS I picked on Paul's posting, but a similar one from Ian Kluft carried
an almost identical message.
Scott Turner N0VRF sc...@hpisla.LVLD.HP.COM
HP VXI Systems Division
The QRPer
>
> If you don't see the need for a specific newsgroup, you can abstain from
> voting on it. Someone else did see the need and was able to convince others
> of its merits.
>
Or you could vote NO if they were unable to convince you!
--
----------------------------------------------------
Bob Schreibmaier K2PH | UUCP: ...!att!mtdcr!bob
AT&T Bell Laboratories | Internet: b...@mtdcr.att.com
Middletown, N.J. 07748 | ICBM: 40o21'N, 74o8'W
Paul W Schleck KD3FU
>In rec.radio.amateur.misc, psch...@cwis.unomaha.edu (Paul W Schleck KD3FU) writes:
>> I must hasten to point out that there are actually 11 proposals, each
>> requiring an individual "no" (or yes or abstain) vote. If you think there
>> are too many groups, I encourage you to vote yes for the ones that you
>> want, and at least abstain from voting against the ones you don't care
>> about ("no" votes should be reserved for newsgroups that you think would
>> be detrimental to Usenet).
>ARGHHHH!!!!! Please vote the way you feel you should vote. Yes means
>yes, no means no and abstain means don't care. My guess is that for
>most of the readers of these groups those terms are self-explanatory.
>Doggone it Paul, if you feel as I do that there are *WAY TOO MANY
>GROUPS* the best way to keep the divisions from happening is to vote no
>on the groups you don't want. That's exactly what I intend to do, and
>it's what I would encourage others to do as well.
>I'll assume your directions are well-intended, but from where I stand if
>people follow your rules it almost guarantees passage of the new groups.
>That's something many here simply don't want. Was that your intent?
>Let's keep this thing fair and allow people to vote for, against or
>abstain as they choose. The amount of work that went into these
>proposals should be appreciated, but is irrelevant to the voting
>process. Let the groups stand or fall on their own merits.
I was just trying to point out that with a standard Usenet vote (with
strong majority vote requirements, and significant minority veto power)
this could turn into a zero-sum game with 300 yes votes for each group,
but 101 no votes. Let's say that there are two sub-interests, one that
wants *.homebrew, *.instruction, and *.dx and another that wants
*.space, *.digital.tcp-ip, and *.emerg-services (that's the closest to a
Code/No-code dichotomy I could think of :-), with each faction numbering
300. So, each sub-interest's newsgroups get 300 votes. However,
slightly more than 1/3 (say 101) of each faction can't just live-and-let-
live, and vote against the other sub-interest's newsgroups. Both sides
are screwed out of the newsgroups they wanted.
I'll clarify what I said previously. If you want a newsgroup, vote yes.
If it really doesn't matter to you (i.e. you'll read it if it's
available, or you can at least not subscribe to it and feel that you
aren't missing anything), then abstain. Only if you feel it would be
detrimental to Usenet, should you vote no.
An abstain is not a yes vote, it is a way of saying, "If 100 people care
enough to vote for a newsgroup that I'm not interested in, I will
respect their judgement, and not jeopardize its creation by raising a
frivolous objection." Think of it as a Usenet variation on the Golden
Rule:
"Vote unto other's newsgroups, as you would have others vote unto
yours."
73, Paul W. Schleck, KD3FU
>PS I picked on Paul's posting, but a similar one from Ian Kluft carried
>an almost identical message.
I hope you appreciate this bullet I took for you, Ian! :-)
Fred Lloyd [Phoenix SE]
>
>Did the ratios of yes's to abstentions change all that much?
>
>If you like things mostly the way they currently are, your only choice is to
>vote "NO" for all of those groups that you don't wish to vote "yes" for. It
>gives your vote more power.
>
>------
>Chuck Harris - WA3UQV
Well Chuck, I think that most of us have resigned to the fact that
the whiners WILL get their way. I voted NO last time and it passed
anyway so......
Let's hear it for:
rec.radio.my.vote.is.worthless
rec.radio.amateur.nite
rec.radio.no-code.destiny
rec.radio.five.kilowatts.in.a.honda
rec.radio.it.tastes.like.chicken
rec.radio.HTX202.mods
rec.radio.hit.the.n.key.now
rec.radio.license.delays
rec.radio.real.hams.gasping
rec.radio.underwater.t-hunting
rec.radio.chicken.choking
rec.radio.military.ban.on.cw
rec.radio.200.watt.cb.swap
rec.radio.HTX202.mods (in case you missed the first one)
rec.radio.info-hams.bounced
rec.radio.cellular.favorites
-fred
[ Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ Fred....@West.Sun.COM ]
[ Sun Microsystems, Systems Engineer ]
[ Phoenix, AZ (602) 224-3517 ]
Ian Kluft
>Ok, I'll rephrase the above: "Abstaining is how we get these groups that pass
>with 100 "yes" votes, 0 "no" votes (and 40,000 abstentions)."
>
>Did the ratios of yes's to abstentions change all that much?
I think we're still miscommunicating on something here. It is possible to
abstain on a single newsgroup while casting votes for the ones you have an
opinion on. The ballot form in the CFV allows for separate votes on each
newsgroup consisting of yes, no, or abstain. The voting form on the CFV
has an example for each of yes, no and abstain.
No one is suggesting that anyone entirely abstain/refrain from voting. (Is
that what you meant by 40000 abstentions?)
BTW, I've received a bunch of requests for copies of the CFV by e-mail.
(Some people or sites may have missed it.) To save me some time from
manually sending it each time, I've made a mail-in program that will send a
copy of the official CFV as posted by David Lawrence (moderator of
news.announce.newgroups.) The script that sends the reply will not read
your mail so you don't need to say anything in it. Just send a message to
cfv-r...@uts.amdahl.com
and the script will send you a copy.
Daniel D. Todd
:
: I think we're still miscommunicating on something here. It is possible to
: abstain on a single newsgroup while casting votes for the ones you have an
: opinion on. The ballot form in the CFV allows for separate votes on each
Can you imagine anyone in r.r.a.* that doesn't have an opinion on
anything? ;-).
Dan
Mike Freeman
>:
>I was going to vote no as well. I guess I wasn't following the thread
>closely enough though because I didn't realize we were voting on each
>group individually in the CFV. This works out much better. I did vote no
>on most of the groups but space, homebrew and instruction got a yes vote.
>
Wonder, though, if everyone will vote for his/her favorite aspect of the
obby, nixing or abstaining on voting for those groups he/she is not
interested in? Further, if this happens, will we end up like the
parliaments in some country where nothing passes and governments
rise and fall with the sun because no one can put together a
majority on anything? :-) :-) :-)
--
Mike Freeman | Amateur Radio Callsign: K7UIJ
301 N.E. 107th Street | Internet: mi...@pacifier.rain.com
Vancouver, WA 98685 USA | GEnie: M.FREEMAN11
Telephone (206)574-8221 | Pushing 40 is exercise enough!
Ian Kluft
>From article <f0zC03Y...@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>, by ikl...@uts.amdahl.com (Ian Kluft):
>> If you don't see the need for a specific newsgroup, you can abstain from
>> voting on it. Someone else did see the need and was able to convince others
>> of its merits.
>Or you could vote NO if they were unable to convince you!
You're free to vote as you choose. The only argument here was when someone
else said that an abstention was somehow equivalent to a yes. Several of us
have brought up numbers to show that we believe that is not true.
Then again... in any vote or election, people often view any option that is
not their choice as against them. I'm just trying to argue against changing
the perceived definition of an abstention.
Abstaining on any given newsgroup means you do not cast a vote for or against
it. That leaves the results to be determined by the people who did have an
opinion on it. In order to pass, each separate proposed newsgroup must obtain
at least a 2/3 majority and the yes votes have to outnumber the no votes by
100.
If you have an opinion on any given newsgroup, you SHOULD vote yes or no as
appropriate. I encourage everyone to vote. In case you missed the CFV, I
set up a mail-reply program after several people asked me for copies. Just
send a message to cfv-r...@uts.amdahl.com and it will send you a copy
of the official CFV as posted by the moderator of news.announce.newgroups.
Ian Kluft
>:
>: I think we're still miscommunicating on something here. It is possible to
>: abstain on a single newsgroup while casting votes for the ones you have an
>: opinion on. The ballot form in the CFV allows for separate votes on each
> Can you imagine anyone in r.r.a.* that doesn't have an opinion on
>anything? ;-).
Sigh... This *is* UseNet. I know what you mean...
Ian Kluft
moderator of news.announce.newgroups if you want to create those newsgroups.
Don't forget to cross-post your RFD to rec.radio.info.
(Tongue firmly planted in cheek. :-)
BTW, I would argue against rec.radio.my.vote.is.worthless - since you're
apparently voting no, it takes 2 yes votes to tie it.
fll...@l1-a.west.sun.com (Fred Lloyd [Phoenix SE]) writes:
>Let's hear it for:
> rec.radio.my.vote.is.worthless
> rec.radio.amateur.nite
> rec.radio.no-code.destiny
> rec.radio.five.kilowatts.in.a.honda
> rec.radio.it.tastes.like.chicken
> rec.radio.HTX202.mods
> rec.radio.hit.the.n.key.now
> rec.radio.license.delays
> rec.radio.real.hams.gasping
> rec.radio.underwater.t-hunting
> rec.radio.chicken.choking
> rec.radio.military.ban.on.cw
> rec.radio.200.watt.cb.swap
> rec.radio.HTX202.mods (in case you missed the first one)
> rec.radio.info-hams.bounced
> rec.radio.cellular.favorites