Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!jik
From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Subject: Re: v01INF1: Status - Status of comp.sources.reviewed
Message-ID: <1991Apr14.190013.9991@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
References: <1991Apr11.022612.2522@rick.doc.ca> <9418: Apr1121:48:4291@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <scs.671464069@hela.iti.org> <16390:Apr1305:56:2091@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 91 19:00:13 GMT
Lines: 49

In article <16390:Apr1305:56:2091@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>, brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
|> What I do mind is that you're pretending to have modelled the process on
|> journal publication. I wonder how many of the comp.sources.reviewed
|> reviewers have ever been referees, let alone editors, of professional or
|> academic journals---especially since the current c.s.r rules have almost
|> nothing in common with those of any established publication.

  It is my impression that Dan is arguing that the moderator and reviewers of
c.s.r are doing something improper, because they are claiming to model the
newsgroup on the journal review process, when they don't know how that process
actually works.

  Dan has further claimed that the people who voted for the newsgroup are
therefore being cheated, because they voted for a newsgroup modelled on the
journal review process, and that's not what they're getting.

  It seems to me that there is a fatal flaw in Dan's argument.  It is very
unlikely that, as a whole, the people who voted for the group know more about
the "real" journal review process than the moderator and reviewers. 
Furthermore, when the group was being discussed, I think it was made quite
clear how the moderator intended to run things.

  Therefore, it seems to me that what the voters were voting on were what they
*thought* the group was going to be like, not what the "real" journal review
process is like.  If that's the case, then Dan, they're getting exactly what
they voted for.

  In other words, if we said that we were going to do things like an academic
journal, and the people who voted "yes" for the group have the same idea as we
do about how academic journals do things, then they're getting what they voted
for, even if we're all wrong about how academic journals actually work.

  In any case, I think all of this argument is stupid and useless.  As I have
recently pointed out to someone else in E-mail when discussing a newsgroup,
groups do not always end up doing exactly what was specified in their
charters, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.  Now that the group has
been created, if it provides a service that the Usenet as a whole finds
useful, then it will flourish, and if it does not, then it will whither and
die.

  My impression is that Mr. Bernstein seems to be saying that the people who
voted for the group were not smart enough to understand what they were voting
for.  I find that assertion offensive.

-- 
Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
Office: 617-253-8085			      Home: 617-782-0710
