Text 23239, 76 rader
Skriven 2011-12-02 14:40:00 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Paul Quinn
Ärende: 1:1/1
=============
On 30 Nov 2011, Paul Quinn wrote to Dale Shipp
about Fidonews Editor

Sorry to take a while to respond.  Your message was on the other 
side of the wall, and I did not see it at first.

PQ > In a message to Roy Witt you wrote:

  DS> There is only one fidonews editor listed in the spot designatied by
  DS> P4, which is 1:1/1.

PQ > That is the lousiest, stinkin'est and most awful'est statement.
PQ > Sure, it's still there but most of us wiped our collective arses
PQ > on that over 5 years ago.  That section makes it plain that
PQ > Fidonet encompases only Zone 1, and is an abomination.

Perhaps I should have put a warning on my statement.  It was meant as a
tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic remark on a problem with the wording in P4.
It was not meant to be in support of what happened with this echo, or of
the "replacement" of the FIDONEWS editor -- I do not support either of
those actions.

Let me give you a little history.

The current fidonet policy is P4.07, which was ratified in 1989.  It has
in it a statement about the fidonews magazine and says that the editor 
should be listed as 1:1/1.

Shortly after Björn became editor of the fidonews magazine, Frank Vest
wrote a proposal to modify fidonet policy P4.07 to change the entry that
dictated that the editor of fidonews be listed as 1:1/1.  He sent that
policy revision to all sitting RCs asking them to request the IC start
an election to make such a change in policy.

That request fell on deaf ears.

There had been other attempts to modify policy, but none as simple as
that one. It became obvious that P4.07 was worded in such a way as to
make change almost impossible.   Some would say that is a good thing,
others thought that change should be hard, but not impossible.

The way policy is written it takes a majority of *ALL* RCs to request a
change.

I began a movement to attempt to make change in policy more possible.  I
solicited the support of the then current IC, Ward Dossche.  He agreed
to be proactive to get the RCs to request a change in policy.  So the
process began.

The process finally ended about three years later in March of 2004, when
Ward called for a vote by the then sitting RCs on whether or not to take
that policy revision to a vote by the *Cs as dictated by P4.07.  In that
vote, a majority of the RCs who bothered to respond voted in favor of
doing that -- but not even a majority of all RCs bothered to respond.
There were 54 RCs.  25 responded, with a vote of 15 AYE, 7 NO, and 3
ABSTAIN.  Hence the measure died there.

That process had taken considerable effort on the part of many
interested parties from five of the six zones.  In the end, about all
that was accomplished was to demonstrate that P4 would never be changed.

PQ > Why don't you volunteer to run a proper election in here, to
PQ > correctly choose a moderator/editor.

Because doing such a thing would be wrong.

                               Dale Shipp
                  fido_261_1466 (at) comcast (dot) net
                              (1:261/1466)


... Shipwrecked on Hesperus in Columbia, Maryland. 14:39:39, 02 Dec 2011
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30

--- Maximus/NT 3.01
 * Origin: Owl's Anchor (1:261/1466)