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From: fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. &)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group,net.flame
Subject: Re: Fear and Loathing on the Clouds
Message-ID: <10819@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 27-Oct-85 14:03:58 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10819
Posted: Sun Oct 27 14:03:58 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 28-Oct-85 04:10:00 EST
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Let's get something straight: while the USENET has been discussed at
BOF meetings at the various USENIX Conferences, there has NEVER been an
action taken on the network with out the usual procedure of building
consensus on the network itself.

One such discussion which received notice was the one regarding the
proposed removal of net.general. A vote was taken at the meeting in
which the majority of people present were in favor of removal.
However, it was put to the network itself in net.news.group thereafter,
and the result was that we still have net.general.

No UNIX conference (be it EUUG or USENIX or /usr/group) is large enough
that it can constitute a quorum of USENET members, and therefore no
such meeting can make decisions for the network. The people that you
could call the `leading citizens' of the network have always been
cognizant of this, and submitted proposals to the network at large,
regardless of the outcome of any vote at any specific meeting.

As an aside, even if we codified rules for such meetings, there would
always be someone feeling disenfranchised because they didn't get their
two cents in; this has been my personal observation of several
cooperative and volunteer organizations over the last five years.

On the other hand, if people don't pay attention to the designated
newsgroup for meta-discussions of the network (e.g. net.news.group),
then they have only themselves to blame for the state of the network as
a whole.

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU