Subject: on dave lawrence, gruop-bad-advice, plants and gardens and usenet in general

From: [email-masked] (Richard Sexton)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 09:04:12 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>,
Mike Chapman <[email-masked]> wrote:
>The latest from Dave Lawrence is that if I send him email for any reason
>I am violating his order to cease (sending him email) and desist - this
>in response to my pointing out that I would have to send him email
>to post to news.announce.newgroups.  If I send him email again, he
>is going to "lodge formal complaints at every organization
>responsible for your[my] network access."  I bet the phone company
>is going to be annoyed to hear from King Dave!
>
>So what do I do?  Forge approval?  Approve the articles with my name?
>Send email to Dave anyway because he MUST receive email in his
>capacity as the news.announce.newgroups moderator - or does he
>have the power to exclude me entirely from making proposals?
>
>Damn, I wish I had a high council to appeal to; maybe I could get
>some justice.

A valid point. I know and respect both Dave and Mike but it does
concern me that thus usenet anarchy is concentrating little
pools of "volunteers who help out" like dave and group-bad-advice
that now wield some serious power over many, many people.

This is beginning to not sit quite right.

I understood they were relayers of information, not concerned with
content, yet they reject, modify, or shut down things they don't
like.

I thought the way it was supposed to work is Dave posts RFD's
but does not comment on or reject them.

Group-bad-advice, if the "advice" part of the name is to be held
true, should be able to be safely ignored; if not they are issuing rules,
not advice.

Case in point. I cuurently am running a contentious RFD for rec.plants.

The fine rec.gardens folk were told by group-bad-advice they COULD NOT
proceed with a rec.gardens reorganization until "this rec.plants
thing is settled" ignoring th obvious fact that a rec.gardens reorganization
was an implicit part of the creation of rec.plants. One piece of "advice"
from group-bad-advice and BAM 50,000 or 500,000 or however many readers
of rec.gardens are stopped in their tracks. This is not "advice", this
is "control".

I spoke with Dave on the phone and he told me that he thought rec.plants
and rec.gardens shouls be done together, yet I have in my posession,
mail to somebody else from him wherein he say the opposite. I've repeatedly
asked both Dave and group-bad-advice to publicly clarify this; to
DECIDE which version of the truth should stand - it's been a week they havn't.

Rec.gardens and rec.plants will go forward as a single comprehensive
proposal, this is a project which will encompass:

	1) reorganization of rec.gardens
	2) Creation of rec.plants hierarchy
	3) cretion of newsgroups as adjuncts to or replacements for, plant
	mailing lists currently extant.

This is rather a major project and IMHO beyond the scope of what can
realistically be accomplished by discusing it in news.groups. As such,
I'm taking the discussion offline. I've set up [email-masked] as a mailing
list for those intersted in the discussion. Send me mail if you want
to be on it. The proponents for rec.plants, rec.gardens.reorg and
a few other that know about things botannical and newsgruop structure
and organization have been included.

So we've gotten around Dave and group-bad-advice. Great, so what are they
there for ?

I don't think this is a working system any more. Sad.

-- 

                    http://www.vrx.net/richard
  Richard J. Sexton  /  VRx Network Services, Inc.  /  [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard Sexton)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 09:04:12 -0500

--

---

From: [email-masked] (Christopher B. Stone)
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 15:29:38 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Richard Sexton <[email-masked]> wrote:

>like.  I thought the way it was supposed to work is Dave posts RFD's

This is certainly true.  OTOH, we on news.groups have been innundated 
with a lot of bad proposals lately -- which is probably due to the 
explosion of newbies on the net, who submit proposals without knowing how 
things work.

We must do something to counteract this problem of the deluge of bad 
proposals.  It takes quite a bit of energy to defeat a proposal, even a 
bad one, and a huge flamewar inevitably ensues; no matter how silly the 
proposal, someone is bound to raise charges of censorship that need to be 
refuted ad infintium; and so forth.

One possible solution is for Tale to use the pocket veto; trouble is, the 
pocket veto raises *legitimate* questions of censorship.  No one 
seriously disputes that Mike Chapman is a nut who enjoys disrupting 
things.  But what society does to the least of its members (a category 
that clearly includes Mr. Chapman), it may also do to *any* of its members.

One positive move has been the development of group-mentors.  IMHO it is 
legitimate for Tale to refer ill-thought-out proposals to group-mentors 
as he pleases.  This policy allows Tale some flexibility in allowing 
proposals through, while still stopping short of a pocket veto.

Group-mentors gets an *incredible* number of proposals that are based on 
a good idea, but are nonetheless quite convoluted -- one person submitted 
an RFD for soc.law-school, but (rightly) changed the name to 
misc.education.law-school after consulting group-mentors.

Lastly, it is entirely legitimate for Tale not to post an RFD that might 
impact another RFD or reorg already in progress.  That is why I feel Tale 
was justified in refusing Mike Chapman's RFD; we are currently voting on 
the news.admin.* reorg.

>was an implicit part of the creation of rec.plants.

Again, the fact that "a rec.gardens reorg was an implicit part of the 
creation of rec.plants" is PRECISELY why a rec.gardens.* proposal should 
not have been posted until the affairs of rec.plants were concluded.

If two rival reorgs are allowed to proceed simultaneously, we might end 
up passing two contradictory proposals.

>One piece of "advice"

A more pressing problem, however, is the fact that too many proponents 
casually disregard the comments of both group-advice and of news.groups 
in general.  If Gedaliah Freidenberg had paid the slightest bit of 
attention to group-advice, we would not have had to endure the 
soc.culture.jewish.singles debacle.

If we were to adopt a proposal for an elected "high council," that 
council should have more power to block bad RFD's -- not less.  
Otherwise, the whole concept is pointless.
-- 
    //////   //  //   //////   //   //////             Christopher B. Stone
   //       //////   /////    //   ///     
  //       //  //   //  //   //      ///          "Consensus is the negation
 //////   //  //   //   //  //   //////   of leadership." -Margaret Thatcher

---

From: [email-masked] (Dave Hayes)
Date: 30 Mar 1995 16:40:59 -0800

>that now wield some serious power over many, many people.

This is the "cabal" I've been talking about.

I could demonstrate the Cabal Nature (like the Buddah Nature, only much less
sacred), and ask to be put on these mailing lists. Watch the fun then,
as people clamor that I not be allowed to sit on these "councils" because
of blah, blah, blah. Yet who better, since I claim to be for the "little
guy", and since I'm a news admin of a semi-major site?

>This is beginning to not sit quite right.

It never has.

>I don't think this is a working system any more. Sad.

It only worked when everyone knew everyone else. Now that the general
public is out there, it only serves to piss people off.
-- 
Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
[email-masked]       [email-masked]         ...usc!elroy!dxh
    [ Keep USENET free! - http://iems.jpl.nasa.gov/~dave/voteno.html ]

       Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood.

---

From: [email-masked] (Natasha Elizabeth Dehn)
Date: 31 Mar 1995 02:20:54 GMT

Richard Sexton ([email-masked]) wrote:
....snip...
: Group-bad-advice, if the "advice" part of the name is to be held
: true, should be able to be safely ignored; if not they are issuing rules,
: not advice.

: Case in point. I cuurently am running a contentious RFD for rec.plants.

: The fine rec.gardens folk were told by group-bad-advice they COULD NOT
: proceed with a rec.gardens reorganization until "this rec.plants
: thing is settled" ignoring th obvious fact that a rec.gardens reorganization
: was an implicit part of the creation of rec.plants. One piece of "advice" 
: from group-bad-advice and BAM 50,000 or 500,000 or however many readers
: of rec.gardens are stopped in their tracks. This is not "advice", this
: is "control".

: I spoke with Dave on the phone and he told me that he thought rec.plants
: and rec.gardens shouls be done together, yet I have in my posession,
: mail to somebody else from him wherein he say the opposite. I've repeatedly
: asked both Dave and group-bad-advice to publicly clarify this; to
: DECIDE which version of the truth should stand - it's been a week they havn't.

: Rec.gardens and rec.plants will go forward as a single comprehensive
: proposal, this is a project which will encompass:

: 	1) reorganization of rec.gardens
: 	2) Creation of rec.plants hierarchy
: 	3) cretion of newsgroups as adjuncts to or replacements for, plant
: 	mailing lists currently extant.

: This is rather a major project and IMHO beyond the scope of what can
: realistically be accomplished by discusing it in news.groups. As such,
: I'm taking the discussion offline. I've set up [email-masked] as a mailing
: list for those intersted in the discussion. Send me mail if you want
: to be on it. The proponents for rec.plants, rec.gardens.reorg and
: a few other that know about things botannical and newsgruop structure
: and organization have been included.
: -- 

:                     http://www.vrx.net/richard
:   Richard J. Sexton  /  VRx Network Services, Inc.  /  [email-masked]

Well, at least now all the cards are on the table.  Richard _does_ want 
to re-organize (not "just" move) rec.gardens and he wants to take over 
internal exploratory efforts to do so.  Let me be clear too:  the fate of 
rec.gardens should not be tied to that of rec.plants or Richard Sexton in 
any way.  At this point we have every reason to believe Richard's 
interests do _not_ coincide with those of rec.gardens, and equal reason 
to believe that he will not consider the concerns raised by his opponents.  
Richard says news.groups cannot accomodate a discussion of 
his proposal, so he is taking it to a private mailing list on _his own_ 
system.  With all due respect, this is not an acceptable alternative.  We 
cannot trust Richard to moderate such a discussion in anything 
approaching a non-partisan, let alone civil, manner.  Richard wants to 
put us in a box: join his little group or be shut out of the discussion.  
Those who join may find themselves in the uncomfortable 
position of implicitely "endorsing" a proposal not of their own devising or 
opinion, since Richard is unlikely to listen to alternative viewpoints and 
likely to promote the proposal as one which "came out" of the mailing list 
discussion.  It pains me to be so cynical in this matter, but experience 
warrants cynicism in this case....

Natasha

---

From: [email-masked] (Mike Chapman)
Date: 3 Apr 1995 04:38:42 GMT

>that now wield some serious power over many, many people.

We have dictators and their mailing lists of goons in control of
the content and direction of the Big 7 - not what I think the original
plan was.

>but does not comment on or reject them.

That's how it used to be.

>true, should be able to be safely ignored; if not they are issuing rules,

Dictator Tale is happy to use his power to force you to listen to
them though.

>of rec.gardens are stopped in their tracks. This is not "advice", this

We can overthrow the Tale dictatorship if he's going to be this
abusive - I don't see how people can continue to support the 
current arrangement.

>DECIDE which version of the truth should stand - it's been a week they havn't.

Oh no, they don't like to do that.  They aren'y responsible to anyone and
just don't have to answer accusations.  

>and organization have been included.

Hmm, why not sci.plants and rec.gardens?  Rec.plants sounds like it
would duplicate rec.gardens (the reverse actually).  sci.plants or
sci.botanical would be great.

>I don't think this is a working system any more. Sad.

Did you read my proposal?  I would rather leave Tale's administration
alone and start an alternative source of opinion - it would cause much
less friction to do it that way than if we actually tried to force a
changge on Tale.

-- 
Mike Chapman, Esq., "Natural Born Flamer", Militiaman, Hacker, Intellectual,
Leader of Men, Lover, Prophet, and Lunatic.

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard Sexton)
Date: 4 Apr 1995 11:09:46 -0400

Natasha Elizabeth Dehn <[email-masked]> wrote:
>internal exploratory efforts to do so.

Wellll, actually, I want to take over ALL OF USENET. Rec.gardens
is just the beginning. Forcing David Lawrence's resignation was
a further step towards that goal (he'll probably claim it's a 
forgery in a posting - that postig would be a forgery because
David is tied up and locked in my basement with some overwintering bonsai.

>Let me be clear too:  the fate of 

Who's this we ? Or do we have a Royalty complex ? "My husband and I"
and all that?

>system.

GOD! THE NERVE! USING *HIS* TIME AND RESOURCES! JUST WHO DOES HE THINK
HE IS?!?!?!

>With all due respect, this is not an acceptable alternative.  We 

I suppose the fact that the mailing list is unmoderated doesnt get the
way of your ranting s?

>warrants cynicism in this case....

Does this mean you don't want to be on the mailing list ?

--

---

From: Jeremy Packer <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Apr 1995 08:35:01 GMT

> > sci.botanical would be great.
bionet.plants already exists as a forum for discussion of all aspects
of plant science. A couple of weeks ago there was a series of postings
there about overlap with rec.gardens, the perceived problem being that
gardening qus were cluttering up the group. The suggestion was made
that changing the name to bionet.botany might eliminate the confusion.

Two explanations were offered for the gardening qus:

1) that the volume of traffic in rec.gardens is too great

2) that rec.gardens is too US oriented

both of these seem to me like arguments for splitting rec.gardens.

Jeremy

---

From: [email-masked] (Christopher J. Netter)
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 23:20:41 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Richard

> Who's this we ? Or do we have a Royalty complex ? "My husband and I"
It can safely be said that Natasha and her husband are not the only ones
who are opposed to this idea.

Hey Richard, has it occurred to you that your style of insulting everyone
who doesn't agree with you may be wearing a little thin?  And that it may
have hurt your credibility, causing people not to trust your motives? 
This is why folks are making comments like the following.

> >approaching a non-partisan, let alone civil, manner. 
> 

In a previous posting Richard stated that 
> Actually, no it wasn't my original idea. It came from a "high profile
> poster" in rec.gardens and "news administrator" for a "very, very large
> news site", neither one of which wanted to be the point man because
> of all the inevitable abuse that comes with the job. Since I love
> abuse, I volunteered to take it on.

I wonder who this "high profile poster" might be that he/she has not come
to your aid.

But seriously, this RFD has gone on long enough to make it clear that
there are two side and nobody is going to move.  I doubt that a mailing
list discussion will cause either of these two sides to move.  Other
proposal have been made, with the most commonly heard one being most
recently echoed by Mike Chapman

> sci.botanical would be great.

Let's put this baby to bed and call for a vote.

Christopher J. Netter

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From: [email-masked] (Natasha Elizabeth Dehn)
Date: 31 Mar 1995 02:20:54 GMT

Natasha

---

From: [email-masked] (Mike Chapman)
Date: 3 Apr 1995 04:38:42 GMT

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard Sexton)
Date: 4 Apr 1995 11:09:46 -0400

--

---

From: Jeremy Packer <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Apr 1995 08:35:01 GMT

Jeremy

---

From: [email-masked] (Christopher J. Netter)
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 23:20:41 GMT

Christopher J. Netter

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard Sexton)
Date: 4 Apr 1995 11:09:46 -0400

--

---

From: Jeremy Packer <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Apr 1995 08:35:01 GMT

Jeremy

---

From: [email-masked] (Christopher J. Netter)
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 23:20:41 GMT

Christopher J. Netter

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 7 Apr 95 13:18:31 -0600

> both of these seem to me like arguments for splitting rec.gardens.

Actually, I've asked a number of folks who posted gardening questions
to bionet.plants why they chose that forum.  Of those that answered,
most (perhaps 8 or 9) said they went through the newsgroups starting
with A... and quit when they saw bionet.plants in the B's.  Never 
got as far as R.  One gentleman said he asked his question there because
he thought he'd get a better answer from the scientists than from
the gardeners.  As I recall, he got no posted replies there.

Kay Klier  [email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard Sexton)
Date: 7 Apr 1995 02:37:25 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>,
>who are opposed to this idea.

Um, ok.

>This is why folks are making comments like the following.

An idea that has merit, or not, is to be judged independantly of
the personality or the protagonist.

>there are two side and nobody is going to move. 

I posted a revision of my idesa, and expressed a desire to work with who-
ever is planning the rec.gardens reorg in a comprehensive effort. I'm
not really sure what more I can do EXCPE MAYBE TYPE IN ALL CAPS>

>I doubt that a mailing
>list discussion will cause either of these two sides to move.

With a preconception like that, of course it won't.

>Other

Ok, so maybe I was wrong about that personality thing.

>Let's put this baby to bed and call for a vote.

Here's my projected timeline:
another week to collect mailing list members
a month of dicsussion
a comprehensive RFD
two weeks of discussion
(possible 1 month for revision and re-issuence of another rfd)
voting

You can't rush these things, not when you're talking about the
simultaneous 1) reorganization of a popular newsgroup, 2) creation
of a new hierarchy and 3) conversion of several mailing lists to
newsgroups.

If done properly, it will be a structure that will last for years, instead
of being back here again next here, same bat time, same bat channel.

--

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From: [email-masked] (Natasha Elizabeth Dehn)
Date: 9 Apr 1995 21:08:29 GMT

Christopher J. Netter ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Richard
: Sexton) wrote:

: > Natasha Elizabeth Dehn <[email-masked]> wrote:
: > >Let me be clear too:  the fate of 
: > >rec.gardens should not be tied to that of rec.plants or Richard Sexton in 
: > >any way.  At this point we have every reason to believe Richard's 
: > >interests do _not_ coincide with those of rec.gardens, and equal reason 
: > 
: > Who's this we ? Or do we have a Royalty complex ? "My husband and I"
: > and all that?
: > 
: It can safely be said that Natasha and her husband are not the only ones
: who are opposed to this idea.

etc...

hey, could you all introduce me to my husband?  He and I seem to have 
missed a rather crucial step in the marital procedures!  And do I have to 
keep him if I don't like him?  or if he doesn't like me?  Does anyone 
know what he looks like?  Whether he likes cats?  ;-)

Thanx,
Natasha, who must (?) have a Royalty complex, since she doesn't seem to 
have a husband!