"Alex Heney" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 18:57:14 +0100, Don Aitken
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 18:13:23 +0100, "John Briggs"
wrote:

Strictly speaking, those who are not interested in such a group and
would
not take part in it, should not vote.

Strictly speaking, that is false.

Only if those voting are "stakeholders" (to use an ugly modern
expression)
in the uk.* hierarchy. Otherwise, the point stands - those whose only
interest in the uk.* hierarchy is opposing this particular group for
reasons
unconnected with the uk.* hierarchy should not be taking part in the
vote.

Serious question: where does this "should" come from?

John Brigg's mind.

There is no "should". Anybody who feels the group may affect them is
fully entitled to vote according to how they think it will affect
them.

Anybody else, although it is a little pointless, can also vote, in
whatever manner they feel fit.

The problem is that the latter would apply to most of those at unnc. I have
no bone to pick with those who do a valuable job in promoting usenet via the
different hierarchies, and I have seen proposals for new uk. groups in
fields I contribute to, where I have had not the slightest objection. But in
this case the idea doesn't stand up. Stop quoting the charter for rsre, in
reality it is:

- an English-language forum.
- targeting skiers who ski in Europe: [rsa, rsrm (not a success), rsrna,
rss cover non-UK based Anglophones]
- giving advice on European ski destinations (most enquiries), but also
freely given on equipment, technique and any other snowsport-related topic.

Despite this broad base, it is a minority, seasonal sport in the UK, and the
traffic reflects this. The bottom line is that the target audience for the
proposed group is identical, the potential discussion topics identical. The
vast majority of UK servers give access to rsre. A large majority of
participants in rsre are UK-based or UK ex-pats.

As David Off mentioned, in France, with many times the potential readership,
fr.rec.sport.neige-glace broke away from fr.rec.montagne. A year or so on,
often a fortnight will go by without a single post. And this in
circumstances where in theory there was room for a new group, the main
French forum (all mountain activities) being far more broad-based (with a
large majority of non-ski related topics).

Except for Don Aitken ...(skiing ancestors perhaps, Don ;o) so far most
comments from unnc in this thread reflect badly on the would-be
administrators concerned. Protecting and promoting a hierarchy, voting in
favour simply because some on rsre have suggested they would vote against,
seems to be the priority. Apparently we skiers, who by the way are keen to
promote as much discussion about our sport as possible, are to be dismissed
as "abusers of the system", "wreckers", not forgetting "f***wits".

It would be interesting to check just how many potential yes votes this
thread has produced from people who participate in the sport and do their
bit to keep discussion going in rsre. A quick look........... 0.

Pete