Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!uwvax!oddjob!hao!gatech!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!ptsfa!hippo!eric From: eric@hippo.UUCP (Eric Bergan) Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc,news.stargate,news.sysadmin,news.admin Subject: Re: Spaf Pro-vote / Plea for Order Message-ID: <133@hippo.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 12:21:15 EDT Article-I.D.: hippo.133 Posted: Mon Jul 6 12:21:15 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jul-87 05:56:46 EDT References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <15982@gatech.gatech.edu> <6948@shemp.UCLA.EDU> Organization: HEALTHCARE 2000 Lines: 56 Keywords: Coherent Rules, Exponential Flaming Xref: mnetor news.groups:1179 news.misc:702 news.stargate:230 news.sysadmin:276 news.admin:624 In article <6948@shemp.UCLA.EDU>, dgreen@CS.UCLA.EDU writes: > It really is time for a USENET constitution, or at least a set of clearly > specified rules. Otherwise this flaming stuff just keeps getting bigger. > I've seen it happen before, in less electronic, but equally loud > constituencies. First, let me state that I am in favor of moderation, assuming sufficient safeguards are built in, and I applaud those people on the backbone who have spend their time trying to keep the net afloat. Now, onto the meat of the reply: In addition to a constitution, how about a "board of trustees" to help in deciding policy? It is clear that there is no way under the current existance of news to enforce policy on all the systems that make up the net, but I imagine if the decisions were open, and reasonable, that most of the net would follow them. I think part of the resentment is due to people feeling that there is a small group of backbone administrators plotting what the rest of the world will read and think. (I certainly do not happen to think that this is what is going on, but who knows...) It seems clear to me that some sort of representative body is needed to make decisions, since trying to reach a decision using the media of news itself is an takes exponential time with respect to the complexity (and or political sensitivity) of the issue. Suppose we had a board of trustees. This board would be responsible for deciding about the creation of new groups, selection of moderators, and dealing with the various problems that may arise. The membership of the board would be made up of: - representitives from each of the backbone sites. Since they pay so many bills, both in time and money, they deserve seats on the board. - members at large. Chosen from the net populace (by election?) to represent the interests of readers and smaller sites. - moderators? Not sure about the wisdom of this. On the one hand, they face the day to day problems of moderating a news group. On the other hand, I don't think we want the board getting too large to function efficiently. Obviously, none of the decisions reached by the board would force any site to do anything (except as the decisions are implemented in either new versions of news software, or by the site feeding you). But hopefully the decisions will be reasonable, and a greater amount of light (and less heat) will be shed on the decision making process. Comments? Is it unworkable? -- eric ...!ptsfa!hippo!eric