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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!allegra!oliveb!hplabs!hao!woods
From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group
Subject: Re: the recent rmgroups have started me thinking ...
Message-ID: <1824@hao.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 14:35:47 EST
Article-I.D.: hao.1824
Posted: Mon Oct 28 14:35:47 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Oct-85 06:55:55 EST
References: <179@mit-eddie.UUCP> <777@adobe.UUCP>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 89
Xref: watmath net.news:4184 net.news.group:4072

> Right.  I was in on the creation of net.bizarre (my apologies)--rather,
> once it was created improperly, I voted for its continuation as a "legal"
> group.  People on the net took pains to conduct the polling and consesus
> stuff pretty officially, and the group was finally allowed to exist based
> on the responses of people from all over the net.  

   This does not in any way change the fact that THERE WAS NO PREVIOUSLY
DEMONSTRATED NEED for the group. How many times does it need to be repeated
before it penetrates your thick skull? VOTES ALONE ARE NOT SUFFICIENT GROUNDS
FOR CREATING A NEW GROUP, no matter HOW many votes there are. Votes should
be taken only AFTER there is a DEMONSTRATED NEED for a new group BASED ON
PREVIOUS POSTINGS in existing groups. This group was created improperly, and 
that's all there is to it. Therefore, unless the rules for creating groups 
are changed, or are to be considered just so many ASCII characters, this 
group should be removed. Period.

> In any case, the group has existed for some months without *ANY* grumblings
> about its not being legal.

  This is not at all true. It was removed and then once again created 
improperly. This group has NEVER "officially" existed. Since the backbone sites
no longer carry it, calling it net.anything is a joke.

> If you didn't like the way it was created, you
> had your chance to voice that when the discussion was going on in net.

  And many did.

> news.group.  How come all of a sudden, given some of the foolishness that is
> posted there (you might note, by the way, that the quality is gradually
> improving...) Gene and others decide that it must not have been created
> legally, because they don't like what is being posted to it.  

  Once again, for the 100th time for those with extra thick skulls, THE CONTENT
OF THE GROUP IS TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. No one said ANYTHING about the content.
Only the method of creation is at issue. Those who continually make statements
like "because they don't like what is being posted to it" are deliberately
bringing up irrelevant issues to hide the FACT, which is that net.bizarre
was not created according to the agreed-upon procedure for creating groups.
Period. The only reason I can see for these statements is to save one's own
"pet" group, just the sort of thing the rules were designed to AVOID.

> I don't think it is up to an individual site to decide if it likes a group
> or not.  It can decide if it likes the *net* or not, and is free to leave
> it if it doesn't like it.

  Firstly, I disagree with this because it is unrealistic. Take this attitude,
and many sites will indeed drop off the net, and what will you have left?
Secondly, it is unenforceable. You cannot force any site to carry any groups
they don't want, and you can't force them off the net as long as someone else
is still willing to talk to them. To force a site off the net would require
complete agreement from every site. What do you think the chances of that are?
Stop dreaming and come back to REALITY.

> If a site participates in the net, though, it
> really is obligated to forward things.

  Whether this is morally true is debatable, and irrelevant. As above, it is 
clearly unenforceable.

> This makes things a bit delicate.  If a number of the "backbone" sites
> decide that they are sick of the net altogether, they will ruin the
> current topology of the net.  However, the net will persist, just watch.

  And who do you suppose will pay for it?

> There needs to be a way to control the growth of the net, since it is
> getting to be leviathan,

  Clever deduction, Sherlock. That's the whole idea behind restricting
creation of new groups.

> I don't approve of sites taking things into their own hands in any form.

  Then offer to pay their phone bills for them, or shut up.

> This includes "ignoring" rmgroups, "recreating" groups, etc., etc.  When
> one error is made,

  ...then it ought to be corrected. If it isn't, it is essentially a license
for such "errors" to be made again in the future, a luxury we can no longer
tolerate.

--Greg
--
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