Re: comp.sw.components & newsgroup voting

[billwolf@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,)]

From article <3193@ficc.uu.net>, by jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell):
> In article <4535@hubcap.UUCP>, William Thomas Wolfe,2847, writes:
>> 
>>     The comp.sw.components Mailing List is ...  96 ... strong,
>>     and ...  2 have so far stated that they want to be on
>>     the mailing list but would not presently support a newsgroup.  They
>>     are more than neutralized by 3 people who voted in favor of the
>>     newsgroup but did not want to be on the mailing list. 
>> 
>>     Therefore, I think this essentially amounts to a tempest in a teapot, 
> 
> 
> Someone else has already dealt with the other issues here, so I'll just
> deal with one: it *seems* (correctly me politely if I'm wrong), that
> William is saying that it's okay to be unethical and presumptuous, as
> long as it's on a small scale, or if only a few people are hurt
> thereby.  *If* that's his argument, I don't buy it.  

    OK, I will.  My purpose in writing that was to indicate that due
    to the extremely low incidence of the situation of someone wanting
    to be in the mailing list but not the newsgroup, and the fact that
    they were outweighed by the opposite position anyway, this rather 
    lengthy discussion was an excessive expenditure of resources relative 
    to the size of the actual "problem".

    Now since you have redirected this discussion back into comp.lang.ada,
    etc., I will include the response that I already posted to news.groups,
    and I will follow the original poster's lead in trying to get this
    discussion back into news.groups where it belongs.   


From article <10301@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, by tse@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Gary Tse):
% vn documentation is not holy writ.

    Nice dodge.  The law really isn't the law, it's just some fuzzy
    approximation... I like that.

    (As I mentioned in my response to your e-mail, upon looking for the
     exact source in response to your request, it was some e-mail my
     news administrator sent me which was originally written by Gene
     Spafford, who apparently is a backbone administrator or some such person).
 
% I hope you are going to notify news.groups also.  This is probably just 
% an oversight.

    I was, but the voting population wasn't expected to read news.groups.
    (Look at the list in context of the article!)

%>    As another practical matter, even if I didn't agree to drop the YES vote
%>    of anyone who objected, 
% 
% Whoa... You think you have THE CHOICE OF NOT AGREEING TO DROP SOMEONE'S 
% INVOLUNTARY YES VOTE?  (Sorry for shouting, but I am shocked and outraged.)
% This is the USENET, not <insert favourite dictatorship here>.

   No, that was just a passing thought.  As mentioned in the article,
   I did not plan to actually use that algorithm.  Further, it must be
   noted that people were notified as they entered the mailing list that
   I planned to vote their proxies YES, thus giving them an opportunity 
   to raise objections.

% Are you collecting votes now?  This has not been properly broadcasted in
% news.groups.  

   I was six or eight weeks ago, and it WAS properly broadcasted in 
   news.groups.  Evidently, everyone was on vacation at the time, and
   only forty people or so ever responded.  I will hold another vote
   when the mailing list contains enough hard-core YES votes to make
   the outcome of the election a virtual certainty.
 

   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu
   comp.sw.components Mailing List administrator