Sorry, but in my rather standard RMAIL, when I do an "r" as I did to the
message I'm replying to, I get a single To: address of news-answers-request.
If this was not noticed by a replier, the message would not go to f-m.
>The evidence in this case is convincing, but as of now, we do not
>consider it compelling enough to warrant authorizing someone else to
>post Mark Moraes' FAQs, over his objection. We have *never*, since
>*.answers was created, allowed someone to post someone else's FAQ
>without the approval of that someone else. That is not a bridge that
>we wish to cross, now or in the future. We do not want to be put in
>the position of judging people. That has nothing to do with being
In most cases, I'd agree. In fact, I suspect we actually agree on quite
a bit. The problem appears that I consider this case to be a particularly
glaring exception to the normal scheme of things and you don't. In particular,
this is a FAQ that does not impact only a single group, but rather all of
Usenet...and Usenet is also at a point where this FAQ is sorely needed to
be as available as possible due to the unprecedented newbie influx.
I also do not see this as a matter of judging people, but rather of getting
information out. If Moraes started posting the FAQs one week after someone
else did, more power to him. The situation would be solved, and as far as
I'm concerned he could keep in charge of them unless the situation of months
without posting reoccured.
>*.answers. Furthermore, if you contact Mark Moraes repeately and
>receive no response at all for an extended period of time (at least a
>month, as I mentioned concerning our policy in my last message), we
Um, this came up last September/October. I recall getting a short email
message from him saying the posts were coming, although I don't recall seeing
them. It's been stated here that Moraes has not posted them in at least three
months based on their expiration in one area at rtfm. Personally, I would
place much greater emphasis on his not posting for an extended period of time
(at least three, more likely six plus months already) than on getting email
saying "They're coming, they're coming" over that period. At this point, email
from him means nothing, while posts would mean something.
>We agree that the information involved is of great importance to the
>Usenet community. We agree that the fact that the FAQs are not being
>posted is a Bad Thing. We even agree that Mark Moraes has been
>significantly more lax in their posting then he reasonably should have
>been.
Yep, we're in agreement on all of these...
>Mark Moraes and resolving any problems he's having. Having seen no
>evidence to the contrary, we believe that he is a reasonable person
>who is as interested in the good of the Usenet as we are, and that the
>fact that he has not posted the FAQs is simply because he has not been
>able to do so, due to business in the Real World or to some other
>reason over which he has no control.
I'm sorry, but this doesn't wash. I have no problem with him not having
time to update the posts to be better or improved. That does take time.
Posting six posts which have already been written and used for a
considerable period of time takes five minutes max. If he doesn't have
five minutes over three months, he doesn't have time to be in charge
of these critical posts. But that's a side issue beyond just getting the
info out.
>That is our judgment; if you do not agree with it, I'm sorry, but you're just
>going to have to live with it.
Actually, no. I don't. But only because I've neither the desire to be involved
in nor time to waste on a autopost/autocancel war, and I don't want to waste
y'all's time either. Still, I strongly suspect that I'd win public opinion
on news.admin.misc if I posted that I was posting the long unseen critical
newbie posts only to have them cancelled. Not all of it by any means, but
a fair amount. (and just to make it clear, I've no plans whatsoever to do
this. I just dislike the "Tough, you can't do anything" type of response
when there certainly is something, just not something I choose to do)
What I have done is send mail to the news.announce.newusers address you
suggested as of this morning. So far, no response. Therefore, I'm posting
the last versions of the six posts to news.newusers.questions and
news.admin.misc, and urging other FAQ maintainers who reference these
posts in their FAQs to suggest looking for them in n.n.q. until they
start reappearing on a regular basis in n.n.a. and n.a.
>It is a case of doing something explicitly against the wishes of a
>contributor to the Usenet. Doing so could potentially offend that
>contributor and make him unwilling to contribute to the Usenet in the
>future, a result which would do no good to anyone.
One quick question; do you actually have anything explicit from Moraes
saying no one else shall post this, or is this an assumption?
And at this point, three things occur to me; one, if Moraes did no
contributions to Usenet, we'd have a hard time telling the difference from the
past few months, two, if his feelings are hurt by someone doing the task he's
not doing, that's should be his problem, and three, given a choice between
providing needed guidance to thousands of newbies and causing one person to
become unreasonably offended, I'll take the former.
>What I am saying is that although we are aware that he is not posting
>them, we are also aware that he is trying to get them posted and that
>he says he is still actively maintaining them.
Um, after three plus months, it'd seem that if he's having that much
problem posting them he should either email them to someone who can post
them, or realize his site has sufficient problems that he either needs
to get an alternate site/account to handle his duties or voluntarily
step aside. We're not talking about a week or two lag here after all.
>We are willing to be patient and give him a chance to get his act together,
>because (a) we've seen a lot worse,
On single group relevant FAQs, or material of such general importance? I
argue the latter makes a difference.
>(b) we do not wish to piss him off
Why? I mean, short of general politeness, what difference would it make if
he was p.o.ed? He's already not posting. Insert quote about needs of many
vs. needs of one here. And if he got p.o.ed because information was posted
when he'd not been able to do it, instead of being glad that the info got
out, I'd argue that he's thinking about this task in the wrong way.
>(c) we believe that he's doing the best he can,
So? Once again, a week or two, no problem. Three plus months and falling down
on the job in September as well to boot, maybe his best isn't good enough.
>(d) we are not willing to be the ones to take over the postings from him,
I've offered to do this as a stopgap measure.
>(e) he says he is updating the postings and we do not wish out-of-date
>information to be posted.
Um, when I snarfed the latest versions of the six files from rtfm in early
October (when I previously posted them to news.newusers.questions btw),
here were the modified lines:
Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
Last-change: 25 Apr 1993 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
Last-change: 25 Apr 1993 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
Last-change: 25 Apr 1993 by msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Last-change: 30 Nov 91 by brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
These were not files traditionally frequently updated. While I applaud a
desire to update them, there comes a time when one needs to cut bait and
repost the older versions until the new ones are ready. I also just
read over them, and noticed nothing that could be described as out of date
in any time critical sense (OK, so the FAQ about what HASA stands for is
not really relevant any more; there's also no harm in it being there).
While several could be improved by adding things, there is no reason the
old versions shouldn't be posted while things are being added.
Btw, the posting date for these was April 1993. Anyone know for sure if
they've actually been posted since?
>Again, if you wish to correspond with him and work something out, there is
>nothing stopping you from doing that.
Um, why? Y'all have said you've been corresponding with him and nothing's
happened. Unless you think someone specifically offering to take over the
posts is what's needed to email him with, I don't see what mail from me
would do that mail from you wouldn't.
>At some point in the future, we might decide that Moraes is delinquent enough
>that the FAQs should reasonably be handed over to someone else in spite of
>any objections from him. Until now, however, we have not reached that
>conclusion.
Um, could we ask for something a bit more specific? You mentioned if I emailed
him and got no response at all for a month, that would do it. But what's the
difference between no email response and three plus months of not posting the
FAQs? It'd seem that if he responded during that month with "It's coming real
soon now", that'd reset the clock for another month, whether he posted the
FAQs or not.
>It is inappropriate to conclude from the fact that we disagree with
>you that we are inflexible. It is possible, you know, for a
>disagreement to exist between open-minded people.
Sorry, but when y'all admit there's a problem but state that x won't
happen because "we have never done x", that's inflexible. You've chosen
to put the "FAQ ownership principle" over everything else. In your own
words:
>post Mark Moraes' FAQs, over his objection. We have *never*, since
>*.answers was created, allowed someone to post someone else's FAQ
>without the approval of that someone else. That is not a bridge that
>we wish to cross, now or in the future. We do not want to be put in
Sorry, but that's inflexible. You've ruled out a course of action and are
focused on one way of seeing the issue, that of ownership. And, to be honest,
given that the most recent version of these posts that I've seen don't even
have Moraes' name on them in any capacity, I'd consider his ownership claim to
currently be vanishingly small. Certainly the ones I'm posting to
news.newusers.questions have nothing to do with him in the slightest.
tyg tyg@hq.ileaf.com
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