Path: mercury.nildram.net!lon1-news.nildram.net!borium.box.nl!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!host62-172-27-99.midband.mdip.bt.NET!not-for-mail From: Pedt Scragg Newsgroups: uk.net.news.announce,uk.net.news.config,uk.net.providers Subject: RESULT : Create newsgroup uk.net.providers.vispa PASSES 28:14 Followup-To: uk.net.news.config Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:29:08 +0000 Lines: 289 Sender: Charles Lindsey as Deputy Control Approved: Charles Lindsey as Deputy Control Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: host62-172-27-99.midband.mdip.bt.net (62.172.27.99) X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1076953655 45143034 I 62.172.27.99 ([99345]) X-Orig-Path: clerew!clw.cs.man.ac.uk!not-for-mail Xref: mercury.nildram.net uk.net.news.announce:675 uk.net.news.config:57705 uk.net.providers:1044 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- RESULT OF CALL FOR VOTES Summary: Create unmoderated newsgroup uk.net.providers.vispa Create unmoderated newsgroup uk.net.providers.vispa PASSES 28:14 YES beat NO by a majority of 14 votes. For group passage, there must be 12 more YES votes than NO votes. Accordingly, the proposal PASSES. (Please note that, due to the known ability of the "swen" virus to harvest addresses from news postings, all email addresses in this results posting, including the votetaker's and proponent's "from" and "reply-to" addresses, are spamtrapped or munged. I regret the necessity for this, but consider these circumstances sufficiently exceptional to warrant breaking the usual rules) - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Voting closed at 23:59:59 GMT, 3rd February 2004. Proponent: Roy Ellor Votetaker: Pedt Scragg - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Distribution: uk.net.news.announce uk.net.news.config uk.net.providers - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Results: The results follow below in the following order: 1) Summary of Mail Received During the Voting Period 2) Result 3) Individual Vote Details 4) Votetakers Comments 5) Voting and Appeal Guidelines 6) Rationale 7) Newsgroups Line 8) Charter - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUMMARY OF MAIL RECEIVED DURING THE VOTING PERIOD 61 messages were received to the Ballot Request Address, of which: 51 were valid Ballot Requests 7 were virus-infected messages 1 was a request for a Ballot Paper to be sent to itself 1 was a request in response to the above 1 was a test by the Votetaker 47 messages were received to the Voting Address, of which: 44 were valid Votes 1 was a requested ballot paper 1 was a vote acknowledgement 1 was a test by the Votetaker 579 messages were received to the Votetaker's Address, of which: 11 were related to the vote 2 whilst related, were Challenge/Response to the Acknowledgement 1 was a request for a Ballot Paper 1 was an administrative bounce 391 were virus laden emails 173 were junk mail / spam - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RESULT: Create unmoderated newsgroup uk.net.providers.vispa YES : 28 votes NO : 14 votes ABSTAIN : 2 votes Total : 44 votes YES beat NO by a majority of 14 votes. For group passage, there must be 12 more YES votes than NO votes. Accordingly, the proposal PASSES. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INDIVIDUAL VOTE DETAILS Voted Yes - 28 votes - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alex Mann alex?letmethink@co@uk Alex Monro alexm?pobox@com Anthony Gold bigfoot?davros@org Bob Eager rde?tavi@co@uk Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk?dsl@co@uk Casey B Alderbran chidman?ntlworld@com Cranky cranky?vispaconnect@co@uk Damien damien?hotweb@vispa@com Dave Millard dave?focus3@uk@com David Mahon dmahon_vote_unpv?amigo@co@uk Far Canal jwb61?gmx@co@uk Iain McWilliams iain?duckend@org@uk Ian Stocks ian?testbox2@co@uk Jeff Mcghie jeff?mcghie@me@uk Jim Crowther jim?crowfam@org@uk John Burton john@burton?jbmail@com John Reid john@reid?jazza@demon@co@uk Kevin Ashley k@ashley?ulcc@ac@uk Martin Cooper usenetspam?martinc@me@uk Matchstick matchstick?oofg@com Nick Wilson nick?wilson@org@uk Paul Cummins {pc}?vlaad@co@uk Quillion neil?rustica@vispa@com Roy Ellor roy?ellor@vispa@com Take A Walk wayne?machx@co@uk Tim Lee tim?datapath@co@uk Wm tcnw61?tarrcity@demon@co@uk Zab comrade54?lycos@co@uk Voted No - 14 votes - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Barry Dorrans barryd?dunno@org Dave Johnson requiem?freeuk@com Dave Mason xunpv?sarnie@org@uk Dave Mayall dave?research-group@co@uk Iain Paton ukvoting?darkvoyage@co@uk John Bean john?waterfoot@org Matt Holland matt?matt-holland@org Paul Giverin paul?giverin@co@uk Paul Harper paul?harper@net Paul-B paul?streetka@biz Pete Fenelon pete?fenelon@com Peter Parry peter?wpp@ltd@uk Peter Smyth psmyth?ukf@net Thomas Lee tfl?psp@co@uk Abstained - 2 votes - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lt. Cmdr. Jim jim?us-lot@org Philip Powell philip?blencathra@org@uk - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Votetakers Comments: Not quite as straightforward a vote as expected. My thanks to most of the voters for making it easy by following the instructions though, disappointingly, a few forgot to snip instructions from the Ballot Paper before sending their vote. My thanks also to those who replied promptly to queries. I would suggest, to one voter, that it makes your vote rather difficult to parse if the Ballot Paper is reformatted to 21 character line width. One voter asked for their Ballot Paper to be sent to the Ballot Request address, this subsequently generated a ballot paper to the vote address. They did not re-request a Ballot Paper when advised by email. One voter set the Reply-To: on their submitted Ballot Paper to the vote address that was not spotted prior to sending out an acknowledgement. The one voter who requested a Ballot Paper from the Votetaker's address, as noted in the summary, later successfully requested a Ballot Paper. One Ballot Request generated a Challenge/Response email as did two vote acknowledgements. An acknowledgement, initially administratively bounced, was successfully delivered Direct-to-MX though the votetaker wondered whether his own mail server would similarly be described as braindead. On this occasion, the votetaker has tried to re-Ack Challenge/Response email and Administrative Bounces. Please note that this is not usual UKVoting procedure but a personal decision taken in the light of other email commented upon within this RESULT posting. In future votes, I would take Challenge/Response requests and Administrative Bounces as a no-Ack. The Challenge / Response Ballot Request was not responded to. Given that some potential voters would be using the ISP Internal Forums currently, an enquiry was made to see whether it would be possible for read-only access to be granted to the votetaker, to aid in any needed validation of votes, for the period of the vote. It is disappointing to note that the query was not even acknowledged. In the event, any access granted would have had no effect on the validation of votes. As noted in the mail summary above, the Votetaker's address received a significant level of traffic. Of particular mention is the fact that most of the viruses are now elderly or approaching middle age. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This vote was conducted by a neutral third party member of UKVoting. UKVoting is a group of independent votetakers who count votes on behalf of the uk.* hierarchy and other 3rd parties. The rules under which votes for the uk.* hierarchy are taken are posted regularly to uk.net.news.announce or can be found at the following URL: The UKVoting web pages can be found at 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.org.uk - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RATIONALE: Vispa is a British ISP offering dialup and broadband (ADSL) services in Great Britain. Vispa has internal forums, including a Usergroup Council, but an open-to-all group where the service can be discussed and criticisms addressed in public is preferable to many. Vispa management are in complete agreement with this proposal as they desire transparency in their operations and a frank and fair discussion of the service. Current provision for this is via third party website services where registration may be required. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NEWSGROUPS LINE uk.net.providers.vispa The Vispa internet service - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHARTER: uk.net.providers.vispa This group is for the discussion of issues relating to the Vispa internet service. This includes dial-up, ADSL and other related features offered by Vispa. Discussion of non-Internet services, such as telephony or other similar products is deemed to be off-topic and not allowed. Comparisons between Vispa and other providers belong in the generic uk.net.providers group. Crossposting to any other group in the uk.net.providers.* hierarchy is forbidden. Crossposts in general must be relevant to all groups in the newsgroups header. This group has no official connection in any way with Vispa. However, Vispa staff are encouraged to participate as they would in the internal Vispa newsgroups. Advertising Advertising is forbidden For the purposes of this charter, announcements by Vispa staff of changes to the Vispa product line, prices or services are not considered to be adverts. However announcements about other, non Internet services supplied by Vispa are off-topic. Binaries & Formatting Encoded binaries (e.g. pictures, compressed files, etc.) are forbidden. Such material belongs on a web or FTP site to which a pointer may be posted. Cryptographic signatures (e.g. PGP) may be used where authentication is important and should be as short as possible. Posts must be readable as plain text. HTML, RTF and similarly formatted messages are prohibited. To see how to make some common newsreaders comply with this, read . Warning. Anyone posting contrary to this charter may be reported to their "postmaster" and/or Service Provider. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 5.0i Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBQDCpi2OfGXkh8vHZAQHwbAP/Qv3PyhzCqthrFAyKtP37uS0VkQGaU4Ml NoEBQaeaPP4eacwBSnCc0mVUZKQY3kydqb6LMXUFhtJzXFMX4Ssh/cLm9lNPqxwG KWvLbxkBJpjbqpbMkQNYiFiiywkUQoSy4cDWglaAEbJDh+ruMgNYLKi2J0N+i8tt SezRQdbyEZQ= =MziC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----