Sender: T Bruce Tober <•••@••.•••> One of my favourite (for personal, political and business reasons) newsgroups is now embroiled in a real bruhaha(sp). I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say it is UK.Politics and in part the controversy stems from proceedures in the UK hierarchy that allows anyone to vote on any matter in any newsgroup. UK.p is one of the most active ngs in the uk hierarchy with as many as 500-600 or more posts per day at times. The vote in question was one to rename (ie form a new newsgroup with virtually the same name - uk.politics becomes uk.politics.misc - create a half dozen subgroups under uk.p.m and then do away with uk.p To opponents of the measure (to rename) that is akin to destroying uk.p for various reasons not worth going into. We have no opposition, or little anyway to the formation of the subgroups. Let's not debate whether it is really a destruction of uk.p or just a renaming. in either event it is negative towards uk.p Question - Should absolutely everyone on the Net have the absolute right to vote in any newsgroup whether they're active in the group or not on absolutely any subject? My thinking is No they shouldn't. I believe they should at best be allowed to vote for creation of groups and subgroups or any other "positive" action but not on something that could have negative results to the group. My analogy would be my flying over to France next time there's a general or any other election there and voting in that election even though I don't live there and have never yet even visited the place. Part of my reasoning is that there is no guarantee that the so called lurkers actually even lurk in the group. There is no guarantee some are not just newbies looking for something to do, vote junkies looking for something to vote on, pranksters up to no good etc. Any and all comments welcome. tbt -- | Bruce Tober - •••@••.••• - B'ham, Eng | | pgp key ID 0x9E014CE9, "Fear of corrupting the mind of the | | younger generation is the loftiest form of cowardice," | | The US Congress and President are guilty as hell of such. | ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/ CyberJournal: (WWW or FTP) --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
