29 Dec 2014: Create moderated newsgroup uk.radio.amateur.moderated
From: Graham Drabble <g.drabble@ukvoting.org.uk>
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 20:46:49 +0000
Subject: RESULT - Create moderated newsgroup uk.radio.amateur.moderated FAILS 31:27
Newsgroups: uk.net.news.announce,uk.net.news.config,uk.radio.amateur
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
RESULT OF CALL FOR VOTES
Summary: Create moderated newsgroup uk.radio.amateur.moderated
Create moderated newsgroup uk.radio.amateur.moderated FAILS 31:27
YES beat NO by a majority of 4 votes. For the proposal to succeed,
there must be 12 more YES votes than NO votes. Accordingly, the proposal
FAILS.
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Voting closed at 23:59:59 GMT, 17th December 2014.
Proponent : "Paul W. Schleck, K3FU" <pschleck@novia.net>
Votetaker: Graham Drabble <g.drabble@ukvoting.org.uk>
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Distribution:
These results have been posted to the following newsgroups:
uk.net.news.announce
uk.net.news.config
uk.radio.amateur
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Results:
The results follow below in the following order:
1) Summary of Mail Received During the Voting Period
2) Results
3) Individual Vote Details
4) Votetakers Comments
5) Voting and Appeal Guidelines
6) Rationale
7) Newsgroups Line
8) Proposal
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY OF MAIL RECEIVED DURING THE VOTING PERIOD
72 messages were received to the Ballot Request Address, of which:
71 were valid Ballot Requests
1 was a test message sent by the votetaker
66 messages were received to the Voting Address, of which:
60 were valid and counted votes
1 was deemed invalid due not specifying a voting preference
5 were repeat votes
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
RESULTS:
Create moderated newsgroup uk.radio.amateur.moderated
YES : 31 votes
NO : 27 votes
ABSTAIN : 2 vote
Total : 60 votes
YES beat NO by a majority of 4 votes. For the proposal to succeed,
there must be 12 more YES votes than NO votes. Accordingly, the proposal
FAILS
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDIVIDUAL VOTE DETAILS
Voted YES (30)
==============
Anthony Gold not-for-mail -at- ahjg,co,uk
Bob Evans ukramv -at- deleteifspam,lichtech,co,uk
Bob Smits bob -at- rsmits,ca
Brian Howie brian -at- b-howie,demon,co,uk
Brian Reay g8osn -at- yahoo,co,uk
David Damerell damerell -at- chiark,greenend,org,uk
G4UGM dave,g4ugm -at- gmail,com
Graham Nye nospam -at- thenyes,org,uk
Huge huge -at- huge,org,uk
I J Clifton ian,clifton -at- chem,ox,ac,uk
Ian Chard G7OMZ ian -at- chard,org
Ian Jackson ianREMOVETHISjackson -at- g3ohx,demon,co,uk
Jerry Stuckle jstuckle -at- attglobal,net
John john,whittingtonpain -at- gmail,com
Laurie usenetvoting -at- outlook,com
Matthew Vernon matthew -at- debian,org
Mike Tomlinson mike -at- jasper,org,uk
Nathan Hull nathan -at- hully,co,uk
Owen Dunn owend -at- chiark,greenend,org,uk
Paul W. Schleck pschleck -at- oasis,novia,net
Phil W Lee phil -at- lee-family,me,uk
Richard Kettlewell rjk -at- greenend,org,uk
Roger Bell_West roger+unna201412 -at- firedrake,org
Roger Hayter roger -at- hayter,org
Sn!pe aka g8dgc snipe -at- notforspam,fsnet,co,uk
Stephen Thomas Cole usenet -at- stephenthomascole,com
Victor Meldrew vicmeld -at- gmail,com
Wm tcnw81 -at- tarrcity,demon,co,uk
crn crn -at- netunix,com
lordgnome les -at- corfe-castle,demon,co,uk
Voted NO (27)
=============
A. non Eyemouse anoneyemouse -at- eml,cc
A.Lee alan -at- darkroom,plus,com
Brian Brian -at- bjforster,force9,co,uk
Brian Morrison bdm -at- fenrir,org,uk
Charlie Ivermee charlie -at- peartreegreen,org
Clive D.W. Feather clive -at- davros,org
David david -at- benison,co,uk
Fred Roberts arbiter57 -at- hotmail,co,uk
G6JPG G6JPG -at- soft255,demon,co,uk
John the R-T t_e_n_e_s_u -at- hotmail,com
Llymru llymru -at- gmail,com
MW3QRO mw3qro -at- gmail,com
Mark Goodge mark -at- good-stuff,co,uk
Mike Fleming mike -at- tauzero,co,uk
Molly Mockford uram -at- mollymockford,me,uk
Owen Rees owenrees -at- fastmail,fm
Paul Cummins paulcummins -at- tiscali,co,uk
Pedt so -at- manygiggl,es
Peter Parry peter -at- wpp,ltd,uk
Philip R Barr gi8lbp -at- gi4gov,plus,com
Road_Hog lordsmith -at- gmail,com
Rob Morley nospam -at- ntlworld,com
Sara Merriman sarakirk -at- blueyonder,co,uk
Spike Aero,Spike -at- mail,com
Steve g8izy -at- blueyonder,co,uk
kat littlelionne -at- hotmail,com
paul {voter} -at- watman,clara,co,uk
Voted ABSTAIN (2)
=================
Frank Turner-Smith G3VKI g3vki -at- turner-smith,co,uk
antoniusliberalis antoniusliberalis -at- inbox,com
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Votetakers Comments:
Not the simplest of votes for a number of reasons:
1) Problems with the UKVoting mail server meaning that ballot papers could
not be sent to some people for a short period of time. This was resolved
by Jon and all ballot requests were replied to. Apologies to anyone whose
request was delayed.
There was a lot of discussion in unnc about the way in which this was
brought to our attention. Whilst thanking Stephen for trying to make us
aware (and there's nothing wrong with posting to unn* to achieve this)
an email to either the votetaker or to ukvoting@ukvoting.org.uk is the
more likely way to get a speedy reply, these tend to be checked more
often than we can read unnc.
2) There was a problem with email between the UKVoting server and the
server hosting drabble.me.uk where the votes were being forwarded to and
acknowledged from. This was picked up internally, resolved, and the
archive on ukvoting.org.uk (which is always the definitive record of votes)
used to find and ack those votes that did not make the drabble.me.uk
address.
3) The message posted by Stephen Thomas Cole to comp.misc in
Message-ID: <m6e50m$gol$1@dont-email.me>. Whilst this posting was
definitely biased, was posted to a group whose relevance was tenuous at
best and requested people to vote in a particular way I did not feel it
necessary to stop the vote. This was for two reasons
a) The posting was late in the CFV process allowing the impact to be
measured
and
b) The post did not breach the letter of the instructions contained within
the CFV.
In the case of a) I am satisfied that the post did not lead to an
anomalously large number of YES votes.
In the case of b) while the letter of the CFV may not have been breached
the post definitely could be seen as having the potential to undermine the
integrity of the vote by encouraging disinterested readers to vote in a
biased way. Had the post been earlier in the CFV I would have had little
choice but to declare the vote NULL and VOID.
In light of this it will probably be good to codify much of what has
previously evolved through custom and previous UK Voting and Committee
decisions to ensure the guidelines to supporters are clearer. UKVoting
already have guidelines in this area that are given to proponents prior
to the vote (see http://www.ukvoting.org.uk/resources/procedure.html)
and it may be a good idea to incorporate these into the CFV to guide
other supporters.
I am also aware of Message-ID: <m553ie$8di$1@dont-email.me> to
nl.radio.amateur and
Message-ID: <1lvq7hz.twvblb114yd37N%snipe@spambin.fsnet.co.uk> to
uk.rec.sheds (both on 26th November). Both of these are significantly
less controversial. The former is to a related group (and, unlike
Stephen's later post does not request people vote in a particular way),
the latter is scrupulously neutral in tone and merely points people to
the CFV.
Finally a brief note regarding the filling in of ballot papers. A large
percentage of people failed to comply with the instructions to either
"Delete this line and everything above it" or to "Please ensure that
the [ and ] remain on the same line". Both of these make ballot papers
much less parseable automatically and therefore add to the work the
vote taker needs to do during the vote.
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
This vote was conducted by a neutral third party member of UKVoting.
UKVoting is a group of independent votetakers who count votes on CFVs on
behalf of the uk.* hierarchy and other 3rd parties. The rules under
which this vote is taken are posted regularly to uk.net.news.announce or
can be found at the following URL: <http://www.usenet.org.uk/voting.html>
The UKVoting web pages can be found at <http://www.ukvoting.org.uk/>
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 (at) usenet (dot) org (dot) uk.
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
RATIONALE
uk.radio.amateur.moderated is a moderated alternative to the existing
uk.radio.amateur newsgroup. Over the past several years, the traffic on
uk.radio.amateur has become largely flame wars, spam, and personal
ad-hominem discussions of past, present, and future violations and
violators, having little or no bearing on amateur radio. Polite
requests by serious group posters to the offenders to refrain from such
behaviour have not resulted in elimination of such behaviour and has in
fact resulted in another series of flame wars. As a result, many
knowledgeable and concerned posters in uk.radio.amateur have ceased
being active therein.
It is expected that offering a moderated group will persuade those who
formerly participated to resume their participation in rational,
focused, and informed discussion. Proper moderation will enable
serious postings to the group to remain on topic while not limiting who
can voice opinions or what opinions can be voiced.
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEWSGROUPS LINE
uk.radio.amateur.moderated Amateur radio and related matters (Moderated)
- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHARTER
uk.radio.amateur.moderated
uk.radio.amateur.moderated is for the discussion of amateur ("ham")
radio, also known as the Amateur Radio Service, in the United Kingdom.
Possible topics include past, present, and future operating practices;
events; contests; past, present, and potential-future rules; power
limitations; authorised frequencies; allowed modes and band plans (or
other gentlemen's agreements) that govern how we are to operate; what
constitutes the acceptable operation of amateur stations.
This newsgroup is only intended to supplement, not supercede, any other
amateur radio newsgroups.
General communications law or government policy of various government
agencies is also on-topic, as long as the discussion relates to amateur
radio. Examples would be emergency communications, local antenna
restrictions, and property deed restrictions applying to operation of
amateur radio stations.
Discussion of other types of radio, such as Citizens Band, Broadcast,
other Personal Radio Services, Commercial or Private Land Mobile, and
Marine or Aviation services are off-topic, except when *directly*
related to amateur radio. Similarly, discussion of methods violating
applicable communications law and regulations concerning radio equipment
or operations are off-topic.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 1.4.12
Charset: noconv
iQCVAwUBVKG9uWOfGXkh8vHZAQFcFQP/cU1ud3xqhRi2HFslXR9b0F/tRRkp6zhc
iZuItVhcryUsZvYs7nFWBZ9Pu0vGUczBgCSktX9JKJz5BfmXkExxp/S9+7w6tri1
fEt2F68ssKkQLGglMDitR47XCZV85CKL632JY1OO3X7NNxbntRcZSJN3ZvO5nVIV
GCWfBuOXKV0=
=OC4b
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
You can also see the raw article.
Back ot the UKVoting homepage
