15 Apr 1998: Amendment to guidelines (retromoderation)
From: SJFBeckwith <sjfb@steves.org.uk>
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 20:05:53 GMT
Subject: RESULT: Amendment to guidelines (retromoderation) - Proposal B wins.
Newsgroups: uk.net.news.management,uk.net.news.config,uk.net.news.announce
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RESULT OF CALL FOR VOTES
Summary:
Amendment to guidelines (retromoderation) - Proposal B wins.
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Voting closed at 23:59:59 GMT, 10th April 1998.
Proponent: jonivar@ph.ed.ac.uk (jon ivar skullerud)
Votetaker: sjfb@steves.org.uk (SJFBeckwith)
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Distribution:
uk.net.news.announce, uk.net.news.config, uk.net.news.management
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The Results:
Ban Retromoderation?
Status Quo = 13
Proposal A = 11
Proposal B = 47
ReOpen Discussion = 1
Proposal B wins as it has over half the potential votes. (i.e. if all
votes, other than those for proposal b, were transfered to the same option
it would still fail to beat proposal b.)
Therefore, the Guidelines should be changed as detailed in PROPOSAL B.
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Rationale:
Recently, a proposal has been put forward for a retromoderated group
in the uk.* hierarchy, and the possibility of retromoderation has been
mentioned in several other rfds. Retromoderation ('moderating' a
group by cancelling articles) is
a) inefficient - the articles will have been read by many people
before the cancel message propagates, and some sites do not even
respect cancel messages,
b) wasteful - involving the issuing of extra messages, thereby
potentially increasing the use of bandwidth,
c) unnecessary - traditional moderation can perform all the functions
that retromoderation is intended to perform, and robomoderation
will in most cases do so much more efficiently,
d) abuse of the cancel mechanism - only the sender and the newsadmin
on the sender's site has the authority to issue cancels for their
own articles (except in the case of forged approvals in moderated
newsgroups, which can be cancelled by the moderator).
Retromoderation involves forging the From: or Sender:
field of a message to make it appear to news software that it comes
from the sender of the original article, and is likely to lead to
diminishing respect for the cancel mechanism in the longer term.
Spam-cancelling is grudgingly accepted by most newsadmins, but only
because it is the lesser of two evils and takes place according to
strict, content-independent guidelines, something that is not the
case for retromoderation.
Because of this, retromoderation has no place in a well-managed
hierarchy, and should not be allowed in uk.*. This should be clearly
stated in the guidelines, along with the ban on binaries in non-binary
hierarchies.The rationale for the proposal including any points raised
at the RFD stage.
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Proposal A:
In "Guidelines for group creation within the uk hierarchy", under the
section "The Discussion", point 1, paragraph 4, before the sentence "The
One-line Summary will eventually...", add the following sentence:
Retromoderation, ie moderation of a newsgroup by way of
content-based cancelling of articles, is not allowed, and RFDs which
include the possibility of retromoderation will not be accepted.
Proposal B:
In "Guidelines for group creation within the uk hierarchy", under the
section "The Discussion", point 1, paragraph 4, before the sentence "The
One-line Summary will eventually...", add the following sentence:
Retromoderation, ie moderation of a newsgroup by way of
content-based cancelling of articles, is not allowed, and RFDs which
include the possibility of retromoderation will not be accepted.
This does not affect the general power of moderators to cancel
articles which have appeared in the group as a result of forgery,
catastrophic failure of moderation software, or in other unforseen
emergency circumstances.
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The Particulars of the Vote
valid votes
name email address s a b r
________________________________________________________________________
alex d. baxter a.baxter;ic.ac.uk 3 2 1 4
alan fleming af%contract.co.uk 4 2 1 3
aidan folkes af6715~bristol.ac.uk - 1 2 3
anthony frost afrost*acorn.co.uk 2 - - 1
angus gulliver agulliver;prodigy.net 4 2 1 3
andy mabbett amabbett%bham-assist.demon.co.uk - 2 1 -
andrew simmonds andrew~c-side.demon.co.uk 3 2 1 4
adrian wontroba aw1*stade.co.uk - - 1 -
brian mccauley b.a.mccauley;bham.ac.uk 1 4 2 3
william boughton bill%xencat.demon.co.uk - 2 1 -
barry johnson bj~camino.demon.co.uk 3 2 1 4
ben harris bjh21*cam.ac.uk 3 2 1 4
brett paul dunbar brett;dimetrodon.demon.co.uk 3 2 1 4
mark brown broonie%tardis.ed.ac.uk 3 2 1 4
claire speed c.speed~mcc.ac.uk 2 1 4 3
james lawson chasm*ccl4.org - 2 1 -
charles lindsey chl;clw.cs.man.ac.uk 1 2 4 3
chris m. dickson chris%dickson.demon.co.uk 1 4 3 2
chris isbell chris~isbell.demon.co.uk 4 2 1 3
colin cockerill colinc*btinternet.com 3 2 1 4
dave mayall david.mayall%ukonline.co.uk 4 2 1 3
dr doug clow djmc100~york.ac.uk - 2 1 3
duncan dewar duncan*dewar.softnet.co.uk 3 4 1 2
jonathan wheeler j.f.wheeler;rl.ac.uk 4 2 1 3
james nash j.nash%mdx.ac.uk 4 1 2 3
jon harley j.w.harley~warwick.ac.uk 4 2 1 3
james lynn james*biometry.demon.co.uk 3 2 1 4
james kemp james;jmkemp.demon.co.uk - 2 1 -
john sharman jayshar%norvic.demon.co.uk 4 1 3 2
jeff lewis jeff~rhondda.demon.co.uk 4 2 1 3
j. m. line jml4*cus.cam.ac.uk - 1 2 -
john c. elliott john.elliott;bigfoot.com 3 1 2 4
john robinson john%thebeard.demon.co.uk 4 2 1 3
jon ivar skullerud jonivar~ph.ed.ac.uk - 1 2 -
dr john stockton jrs*merlyn.demon.co.uk 4 2 1 3
james sears js;null.net 2 - 1 -
julie brandon julie%merp.demon.co.uk 1 4 3 2
lyn david thomas lyn~stuffing.demon.co.uk - 2 1 -
mark eller mark*ellmar.demon.co.uk - 1 - -
mark goodge mark;good-stuff.co.uk 3 2 1 4
martin radford martin%zamenhof.demon.co.uk 2 4 1 3
matthew balyuzi matt~matthewb.demon.co.uk 1 - - 2
max bone maxb*maxmax.demon.co.uk 2 - 1 -
darren wyn rees merlin;netlink.co.uk 1 - - 2
michael parry michael%unicorn-connection.co.uk 3 2 1 4
neil irving neil~neilirving.demon.co.uk - 2 1 3
paul womar newsmaster*pwomar.demon.co.uk 1 - - -
nickie roome nickie;erewhon.u-net.com - 2 1 -
nf stevens norman%arcady.u-net.com 4 2 1 3
paul bolchover pb10003~cus.cam.ac.uk 1 4 3 2
peter duck pduck*zetnet.co.uk 4 2 1 3
peter bell peter;bell.demon.co.uk 4 2 1 3
patrick herring ph%anweald.exnet.co.uk 3 4 1 2
philip hunt philh~vision25.demon.co.uk - 2 1 -
phil wade philwade*enterprise.net 3 2 1 -
pete humble pjh1;le.ac.uk 1 - - 2
pekka p. pirinen ppp%pirinen.demon.co.uk 1 4 3 2
richard ashton richard~corixia.demon.co.uk 3 2 1 4
richard lamont richard*stonix.demon.co.uk 3 1 2 4
richard clayton richard;turnpike.com - 2 1 3
rick martin rick.martin%pixel-group.com - 1 - -
rob alexander rob~mhairi.demon.co.uk 4 2 1 3
robert irvine robert*irvine;gecm.com 4 2 1 3
roy stilling rpjs;kalevala.demon.co.uk 1 3 2 4
simon gray simon%star-one.org.uk - 2 1 -
stephen gower stephen.gower~st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk 4 2 1 3
steve sutton steve*etheral.demon.co.uk - 2 1 -
steve way steveway;ways.demon.co.uk 1 - - 2
thomas lee tfl%psp.co.uk 3 1 4 2
anthony gold tgold~panix.com 1 - - 2
tim sneath tim.sneath*diamond.co.uk 3 2 1 4
rachael munns vashti;dream.org.uk 4 3 1 2
s status quo
a proposal a
b proposal b
r reopen discussion
invalid votes
name email problem
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dave sparks dave.sparks;sisyphus.demon.co.uk 2
franck brunel fbrunel%pasteur.fr 3
john c. elliott john.elliott~bigfoot.com 2
marcus durham marcus*zenn.demon.co.uk 4
peter sullivan peter;manorcon.demon.co.uk 2
steve peake puppet%pop.dial.pipex.com 2
thaddeus thaddeus~alexh.clara.net 2
1 acknowledgement bounced. user does not exist at address, address does
not exist or address incorrectly input.
2 name or address (or both) was missing from the ballot form.
3 not on ballot form
4 spoilt paper
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Votetakers Notes
#1 In an effort to cut out all the crap from postings and make them as
readable as possible, I cut out the text of the losing options and the
rationale. This appears to have upset a member of the Committee who
now claims he cannot accept it as a valid results posting without
them. So don't blame me - I tried.
This vote was conducted by a neutral third party member of UKVoting.
UKVoting is a group of independent votetakers who count votes on CFVs in
the uk hierarchy. The rules under which this vote is taken are posted
regularly to uk.net.news.announce or can be found at the following URL:
ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/news.answers/uk/voting
There is a five day discussion period after these results are posted to
uk.net.news.announce.
Allegations of irregularity should be sent to control@usenet.org.uk.
SJFBeckwith,
- --
Co-Ordinator and Votetaker, UKVoting.
The UKVoting web pages can be found at http://www.cirra.com/ukvoting/
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