Summary of proposal status

[Terence P. Ma]

In article <CMM.0.90.2.699239856.kristoff at genbank.bio.net> kristoff at GENBANK.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson) writes:
>
>>Newsgroup creation
>>------------------
>>
>
>HOWEVER, the one point that we are not settled on here is the role of
>NO votes, both George and David have brought up counter points.  I
>still do not like the idea of NO votes being able to cancel out yes
>votes because each YES vote represents a measure of potential activity
>and a NO vote does not diminish this.  However, it is possible that
>there may be good reasons for not creating a new newsgroup such as
>were pointed out earlier.  
>
>I can think of two possibilities for getting around the problem: 1)
>Have a discussion period about the group first on bionet.general to
>resolve these by consensus and then only count YES votes on the
>revised proposal or 2) accept NO votes but use them as follows - still
>use 80 YES votes as the passage limit but cancel the group if a
>sizable number of NO votes are also obtained (what is reasonable? a
>number > the number of YES votes?).  If NO votes can cancel YES votes,
>20 NO votes would make it necessary to get 100 yes votes if the needed
>difference was 80.  This still does not strike me as fair.  Of the two
>methods I prefer the discussion approach (#1).

I rarely post to bionet (get it through USENET).  As a systems
administrator as well as a scientist, I find that time disappears
faster than I'd like when dealing with issues on-line.  For example,
I often do not have the time to detail my thoughts on a particular
issue, but may feel strongly for/against it.  Other times, someone
expresses my point of view and I don't want to repeat it and use up
the every decreasing bandwidth.  I strongly feel that NO votes are
valuable.  Furthermore, I also feel that the YES - NO paradigm is
appropriate.  Perhaps the third option is that instead of making
passage be YES - NO where YES > 80, a smaller number of votes should
be required, say 50.  From what I have read of the discussion, I
never saw a real justification that the number of YES votes for a
group should be increased, other than it was from a long time ago.
So, if it isn't really causing a problem, why change?

By following your other recommendations on voting procedure, I think
that it will be possible to minimize the problems.

Regards!
-- 
Terence P. Ma, Ph.D.		     VOICE:	601-984-1654
Department of Anatomy		     FAX:	601-984-1655
University of Mississippi Med. Ctr.  INTERNET:	tpm at anat.UMSMED.EDU
Jackson, MS 39216-4505		     UUCP:	... uunet!tpm-sprl!tpm