🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <33atmq$jgn@news.ycc.yale.edu>,
Una Smith <una@doliolum.biology.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>David Kristofferson <kristoff@net.bio.net> wrote >>>
>Kent Landfield <kent@sparky.sterling.com> wrote >
>
>
>>>> (1) this person has absolutely no administrative authority to be
>>>>     making any statements about the bionet USENET hierarchy.
>
>> The post I read did sound quite official. ...
>
>Since when does a factual statement equal an official one?
>Since when does anyone need permission from an authority
>before making statements of fact about policies in use in
>any Usenet hierarchy?

It would be nice if you "reported" policy changes on bionet
slightly more accurately. Your version:

  Message-ID: <32uu2f$gs7@news.ycc.yale.edu>
  [...]
  As of this summer, newsgroups within the bionet.* hierarchy
  are not all voted on before creation.  This applies to
  bionet.prof-society.* newsgroups, of which there are already
  several, moderated, for the distribution of occasional
  official news from professional societies to their members.
  Several more are proposed that would carry discussion among
  members.  These latter discussion forums may or may not be
  voted on, depending on the preferences of the individual
  proponents.
  [...]

Here's the official version:

"BIOSCI will create a moderated newsgroup without voter approval for
any professional society in the biological sciences which has a
membership of at least 500.  Smaller groups must go through the
regular BIOSCI/bionet newsgroup creation process.  Because these
groups are not discussion forums, they will be exempted from the 52
message per year minimum posting limit and would only be discontinued
if the society in question no longer wishes to use them.  If usage
seems extremely low on any group in the bionet.prof-society domain,
the BIOSCI/bionet staff will contact the society in question and
ensure that the newsgroup is still wanted."

I am unaware of any plans to create unmoderated bionet newsgroups
without a vote. A vote *is* being held currently on the 
bionet.prof-society.cfbs newsgroup specifically because the
CFBS elected to have the group created as an unmoderated discussion
group.

Incidentally, this change to the BIOSCI newsgroup creation procedure
was voted on by the bionet readership and approved by a margin of
120 YES to 16 NO.

>> ... All of a sudden people seem to feel that specific-purpose
>> hierarchy policies must be approved by the net at large.
>
>Not so.  The policy change was approved within the hierarchy.
>David Kristofferson claims that I had no authority to reveal
>the policy in this newsgroup.  Does he have the authority to
>*conceal* the policy from this newsgroup, or to dictate what
>I may or may not say?  I don't think so.

This is somewhat disingenuous, to say the least. The problem was
that Una posted an authoritative-sounding article about events in
the bionet hierarchy to news.groups and news.admin.misc. She did
not crosspost into the bionet hierarchy. We perceived this, rightly
or wrongly, as an attempt to garner support from Usenet readers in general
and Usenet administrators in particular for a position which she
had opposed in the bionet hierarchy and had lost on, and to hide
the fact that she was attempting to do so. The particular
statement she made which produced so much anger here was this:

  Message-ID: <32uu2f$gs7@news.ycc.yale.edu>
  [...]
  These newsgroups are all gated to mailing lists, so should
  you decide not to carry them at your site, due to lack of
  interest or the extremely topical nature of these groups,
  you won't be depriving any down-stream users of the chance
  to use these resources.

We interpreted this as an attempt to convince Usenet administrators
not to carry the bionet.prof-society.* newsgroups, although it was
unclear from the context whether she was talking about just the
bionet.prof-society groups or all of the bionet groups.

We have been trying very hard to convince as many people as we
can that they should use Usenet rather than the mailing lists
to get access to bionet.*. Thus, we did not take kindly
to what we perceived as Una's interference.

>
>> I would guess that many USENET sites that propagate the hierarchy
>> have no idea of the actual content or policies ...
>
>Why discourage or prevent those administrators who *do* care
>from finding out about a relevant policy change?

Had Una's article been limited to reporting a bionet policy
change, we would not have been angered about it. But
the paragraph quoted above shows things in a slightly different
light.

>
>>When I drop a hierarchy that I have been carrying, I notify the
>>sites that receive it and attempt to get them a feed from some
>>other location.
>
>Just so.  I mentioned that the bionet.prof-society.* newsgroups
>all have mailing lists attached.  Dave Mack, the current Usenet
>administrator on net.bio.net, has added that he is willing to
>provide NNTP feeds to sites that are not able to get bionet.* 
>as part of their primary feeds.  Greater awareness of these two
>alternatives should more than compensate for any decrease in
>propagation due to the new no-vote policy in this hierarchy.

Hmmm. I "added" that I am willing to provide bionet feeds?
Here's what I actually "added" (responding to the
paragraph quoted above from <32uu2f$gs7@news.ycc.yale.edu>):

  Message-ID: <3334mn$rgq@net.bio.net>
  [...]
  This inference is completely incorrect. Yes, all of the bionet
  newsgroups are gated to mailing lists. We do this as a service
  to those who, for one reason or another, cannot get Usenet but
  are able to get e-mail. We DO NOT guarantee that this service
  will be provided in perpetuity or that it will be provided to
  anyone who wants it. We most strongly urge anyone who wants 
  access to the bionet newsgroups to attempt to acquire them
  through Usenet rather than email. In particular, we will attempt
  to provide NNTP feeds of the bionet hierarchy to anyone who
  wants one and is connected to the Internet. If your service
  provider does not have access to the bionet groups, you should
  have them contact me.
  
But, hey, what's a little loss of context between friends, right?

Why should there be any "decrease in propagation due to the
new no-vote policy"? A Usenet site either has people who want
to read groups in the bionet.prof-society hierarchy or it
doesn't. If it does, the Usenet admins there should probably
carry the appropriate newsgroups, which as Una has so kindly
pointed out, I am willing to feed to them. If none of your
readers are interested, then it's a matter of whether you feel
generous toward your downstream feeds or not, isn't it?



-- 
Dave Mack
Manager, Computer Facilities
Senior Systems Administrator
IntelliGenetics, Inc./BIOSCI Project