WHATS UP: There is discussion over at news.groups to start a new top-level hierarchy named us. The main argument being that the US of A should have an own hierarchy since everyone else has one. Now you might have whatever opinion on that, that is not core of the matter, but some people are trying to sneak in something very bad under cover of the us.* hierarchy question. They, and I'm talking of a cabal of seven persons calling themselves the "US Hierarchy Coordinating Committee" out of a net population of twenty million, want to sneak through severe changes in the newgroup creation procedures that would put them in absolute command of the us.* hierarchy. TODAY: Today when a new newsgroup is to be created, anyone can propose it, a period of discussion where anyone can participate follows and its fate it decided by a vote, in which anyone can participate. TOMORROW: In the us.* hierarchy groups can only be created by the cooperation of the US Hierarchy Coordinating Committee. After they have decided on a name for the group, and 'firmed up the charter', they will start a public discussion by announcement on a (by them) moderated group. If they decide that the group get enough support they will create it. The US Hierarchy Coordinating Committee is not elected by anyone. They are totally self-appointed. Their proposal does not include any rules or guidelines on how new cabal members are choosen, nor any ways to depose the current ones. To quote them directly: "The Committee feels that it would be better to wait until the hierarchy exists for a while so that the lay of the land may be better understood before proposing a whole system of rules for changes to the Committee, the creation guidelines, and the structure of the hierarchy." They themselves want to write the rules (if any) by which they themselves can be replaced, but they don't want to show us the rules, we should just accept them, they say. WHY: Why rip up the old democratic guidelines and replace them with this oligarchic mess? They say it is to make the us.* hierarchy more efficient and easy to use. Proposals to concentrate power in the name of efficiency always makes me wary. THE NEXT 40 LINES OF THIS MESSAGE SHOULD BE UNNECESSARY: Because this proposal should not be judged after how much good the the Comittee might do, and certainly not after what good things *they* claim they'll do, but after what bad things they *can* do since their proposal totally lacks any checks and balances. So what I have written upto this point should be enough to make you jump to the "WHAT CAN I DO" part:) MY FEAR: There have been much talk recently about how Usenet is lawless, about how various nastiness float around here, and about how the wild frontier needs to be tamed. I think that is what they intends. This is an attempt to impose authority on the net, put barbed wire across the frontier. I doubt that any controversial newsgroups will pass the comittee. I suspect that us.rec.guns will be as impossible to get past the comittee tomorrow as rec.illegal.drugs would be today. So therefore I urge everyone who has interests that is ever so slightly non-mainstream, either in reality or as pictured by the media, or feels that your interests might slide out of the mainstream soon, to vote NO to the us.* hierarchy, if you want a place to discuss your interests on on Usenet tomorrow. Around here I'm thinking of you who are any or all of pro-rkba, anti-WoD, anti-BATF, anti-censorship's, anti-clipper, libertarians, etc etc. [only 4 of which is correct about me, but that is irrelevant:) ] SO WHAT? So what? This will only cover the us.* hierarchy? The rest of Usenet will be as before? Right? Well yes and no. Formally that is right, but the net is growing at an amazing rate. New sites are added daily, many of them schools and schools lower and lower on the age scale is getting access. What do you think they will choose if given the choise between getting only the pg-13 us.* hierarchy, the R-rated normal Usenet or the X-rated altnet? Especially since the us.* hierarchy advertises itself as handling the US-specific issues on the net, I think most new sites in the US will play it safe and only get the us.* hierarchy. And the way the net is growing new sites will soon be in the majority and not long after that take up 90% of the total net sites. So if you want to say something that more than 10% hear, you'll have to go through the us.* hierarchy, and you better hope your interest is covered by the cabal-approved charter of a cabal-approved newsgroup. And if you have angered any of the cabal-members in the past you are f*cked. period. WHAT CAN I DO: You can vote NO to the proposed us.* hierarchy. A us.* hierarchy might or might not be a good idea, but under these rules it would be a disaster. It should be possible to just reply to this message (press 'R' on rn/trn/rrn), edit out all quoted text except the 1 line between the dashes, and send it off. You should however check that your mail is going to "voting@qualcomm.com" and not to me before sending it off. --------- I vote NO on this us.* hierarchy proposal. --------- After voting you should recieve an ack by mail within a day or two. If not then remail your vote. The voting closes on August 8, so vote early! IMPORTANT CAVEAT: In their CFV the cabal plainly writes that they will *not* accept the usual 'more than twice as many yes as no' criteria for group creation, and if they get defeated they also plainly state that they will rewrite their proposal and refile it immediately without waiting 6 months as is the normal procedure. They claim they can do this since there arn't any formal rules for HIERARCHY creation, just NEWSGROUP creation. Well most people assumed that in the absence of specified rules, the group rules would have jurisdiction, since a hierarchy is just a bunch of individual groups, but the cabal seems determined to steamroller this through despite any opposition. Kinda makes me wonder if they'd even follow their own rules, provided they ever write any that is. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that they are made to realize that the opposition to their oligarchic proposal is compact. Explain the gravity of the situation to all your on-line friends and collegues, and get them to vote too. This is doubly important if they are sysadmins or similiar. Get them to state that they will not carry a us.* hierarchy that does not abide by normal newgroup creation procedures. Thanks -bertil- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The full text (the little there is) is available on news.announce.newgroups under the Subject "CFV: us.* hierarchy" and with Article ID <us_hierarchy-CFV1@uunet.uu.net> A SECOND OPINION: Quoted without permission under the fair use doctrine from a call to vote NO posted on news.groups by John De Armond: * New rules are being proposed by a new defacto cabal that replaces the voting system that has worked well for the most part, with a system of "bosses" who control what gets created and what doesn't. And it replaces defined criteria for passage or failure with the "judgement" of the bosses. It replaces the will of the users with the will of a few men sitting on high. This is the antithesis of the net spirit. * The proposed group creation criteria is most unsatisfactory. The newly formed cabal proposes to replace the current vote with an "interest poll" whereby if 100 people sorta indicate an interest in the group it is created regardless of the number of negative votes. This is NOT the way to create new groups. * The makeup of the cabal has been decreed from the cabal and no procedure for removing or replacing members is contemplated in this proposal. The highly controversial nature of several of the proposed cabal members combined with no mechanism for removal almost guarantees a spoils system with no checks and balances at all. "Piss me off and your group fails" isn't the way to run the net. * This vote is being conducted in a very abnormal manner, without the usual CFD discussion period. If changes are needed in the current group creation process, the proper way is to implement them in accordance with the old procedures until those procedures are formally changed. Change via fiat is again the antithesis of the net culture. For all those reasons and more, I urge everyone to REJECT this proposal and vote NO. This is a BAD heirarchy and a BAD proposal and deserves to die. -- Legal Notice: Exporting 'personal data' to non-European countries without special license issued by the Computer Inspection Agency ('Datainspektionen') for each specific case (message) is a crime. Personal data include names, even my name. If you read this message outside Europe, I'm a criminal.