"Normally create without a vote"?

[Una Smith]

BIOSCI Administrator  <biosci-help at net.bio.net> wrote:

>I should note that, although this group is in the bionet.prof-society
>domain, we are voting on it because the Canadian Federation of
>Biological Societies (CFBS) wants the group to be an open unmoderated
>discussion group instead of a moderated, announcements-only newsgroup
>which we would normally create without a vote.
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Whoops!  This sounds like historical revisionism to me, Dave!  ;-)  
It's certainly not the way things are "normally" done in bionet.*.

How about a replay of the vote on whether we would vote on all
newsgroup proposals in bionet.*, please.  I never did see an
outcome, and I assumed you had abandoned the whole (bad) idea.

To my knowledge, *all* newsgroups in bionet.* are still to be
voted on prior to creation.  Why the verbal aside suggesting the
policy is otherwise?

Regardless, I applaud the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies
for wanting to do a proper job of creating a new newsgroup.  I think
it is vitally important for the continued high propagation and public
esteem (note, *public*) of bionet.* newsgroups that we do not behave
as though we think we have some special entitlement to use the global
network of computers that carry Usenet newsgroups.

-- 
	Una Smith			smith-una at yale.edu

Department of Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT  06520-8104  USA