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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!neuro1!sob
From: sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: voting methods
Message-ID: <656@neuro1.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 03:05:49 EST
Article-I.D.: neuro1.656
Posted: Tue Nov  5 03:05:49 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Nov-85 04:28:24 EST
Reply-To: sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber)
Organization: Neurophysiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
Lines: 34

A few questions and thoughts on voting.

I think that voting here is haphazard at best. I think it could be automated
much as the other control messages are automated on usenet. If a vote need
be taken, a control message (call it getvote) is issued on the network.
When the news software encounters this message (when  user is reading the
group), it asks the user to cast a vote (Yes, No, No Opinion) and perhaps
asks for comments. The user casts a vote, and the software stores the vote
for later tabulation.

This tabulation could occur on each machine on the net and the "batched"
results would be forwarded back to the originator of the getvote control
message, or each vote could be forwarded back (I know the last one is
easy to implement, but would weigh down the network alot). The expire
program would remove the getvote message and voting would close.

Results could be tabulated by the getvote originator and posted to net.news.group and the "will of the net" determined. 


Now the questions:

1. Is this a good idea, or am I just wasting bandwidth?
2. If it is a good idea, would requests for votes be posted to
net.news.group for new groups or rmgroups or should it be posted to net.general
or some place where more people would have a chance to vote?
3. What about sites that continue to run archaic netnews or notes? What
if anything should be done for them?

Thoughtful comments welcome by mail or here. I summarize any mail I get 
on this topic to this group.
-- 
Stan		uucp:{ihnp4!shell,rice}!neuro1!sob     Opinions expressed
Olan		ARPA:sob@rice.arpa		       here are ONLY mine &
Barber		CIS:71565,623   BBS:(713)660-9262      noone else's.