Dear administrators and readers,
I would like to express my strongest objection to the way
the renaming of the soc.culture.magyar USENET group is being handled.
1, Timing of the "CFV: soc.culture.hungarian"
=========================================
The period between the last RFD and the CFV was too large;
long enough, that people joining the process now, have missed
most of the pro-contra debates. Currently, the CFV lacks the
opponents' arguments against the renaming ,contains only the
proponents oppinion, therefore makes the CFV biased.
I would suggest at least an insert by the opponents to the CFV.
2, CHARTER
=======
There has been no agreement on the charter, namely, whether the
soc.culture.magyar group should contain discussions about politics, or
rather two separate soc.culture.magyar/hungarian and
talk.politics.magyar/hungarian groups should be created. This sole fact
should ask for the immediate cancellation of the CFV.
3, The title of the CFV
====================
As we have discussed during our RFD period, this call is about the
renaming of soc.culture.magyar and not the creation of
soc.culture.hungarian .
The title of the CFV should respect this very fact !
4, Voting procedure
================
The formulation of the voting procedure is strongly biased.
Even though, the
I vote YES on soc.culture.hungarian
and
I vote NO on soc.culture.magyar
lead to the same result, it can be easily shown, that statistically
the two different lines would result in two different responses.
Therefore, the call for vote should contain both, e.g.
I vote YES on renaming soc.culture.magyar to soc.culture.hungarian
I vote NO on renaming soc.culture.magyar to soc.culture.hungarian
I vote ABSTAIN on renaming soc.culture.magyar to soc.culture.hungarian
I CANCEL my vote on renaming soc.culture.magyar to soc.culture.hungarian
Becasue of the things mentioned above, I am asking for
1, an immediate cancellation of the current "CFV: soc.culture.hungarian"
2, a new discussion period, during which one could settle
the problems with the CHARTER of the group
3, a new RFD
4, a new CFV after the discussion period, that would correct the
shortcomings of the current one
Without these, the vote on the renaming of the soc.culture.magyar group
should be invalidated because of biased conduct.
Sincerely,
Gotthard
--
personal email : 
Hungarian-American list : 
WWW : http://www.glue.umd.edu/~gotthard
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 1 May 1995 16:16:33 -0400
From: Warren Lavallee  >
Newgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, soc.culture.magyar,
soc.culture.europe, alt.politics.europe.misc, alt.politics.ec
Subject: CFV: soc.culture.hungarian
FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
unmoderated group soc.culture.hungarian (replaces soc.culture.magyar)
Newsgroups line:
soc.culture.hungarian The Hungarian (Magyar) people & their culture.
Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 1994.
This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. For voting
questions only contact Warren Lavallee  >. For
questions about the proposed group contact Zoli Fekete
 >.
DISTRIBUTION
This CFV has been cross-posted to:
soc.culture.magyar
soc.culture.europe
alt.politics.europe.misc
alt.politics.ec
and EMailed to:
CHARTER
The newsgroup is intended to provide a general medium for those
interested to express, share, and exchange their views, ideas, and
feelings about Hungary and Hungarian culture. Questions concerning
Hungarians living either in the country or abroad would be discussed.
Possible discussion issues include aspects of Hungary
- culture, history, philosophy, ideology, geography;
- societies, traditions, customs;
- literature, poetry, art, folklore;
- languages, books;
- science, technology;
- food, cooking;
- local events, news, programs, economy;
- communities abroad, problems, needs; and
- other things normally discussed in the "soc.culture" newsgroups,
in particular, politics is an appropriate topic.
The group shall be unmoderated.
The language used is either English or Hungarian, by the choice of
the poster. Posters should bear in mind that using English makes
their writing accessible to non-Hungarians as well as most Hungarian
Usenetters, who tend to understand (or are, at least, able to read)
English. Hungarian writers are encouraged to use their native tongue
when the topic is likely to be of interest to Hungarian speakers only
(such as questions regarding local communities or things of domestic
significance). It is recommended that authors of substantially long
contributions include a short summary in the other language, if they
can. Keep in mind that using Hungarian will unavoidably cut almost all
non-Hungarians out of the discussion! On the other hand, this ought not
to prevent having threads running in Hungarian, if there is interest
for such. Many newsreaders can utilize "Summary:" or "Keywords:" field
designations to aid readers in selecting articles prior to reading
them, this could be used to indicate the language used in the article.
Generally it is a good idea to use "Subject:" titles in the language
corresponding to the rest of the post, too! Note that articles are often
crossposted to other groups as well (usually ones concerning neighboring
countries), in which case English should be used.
RATIONALE
Currently no Usenet newsgroup bears 'hungarian' in its name.
This omission makes it difficult to locate the newsgroup dealing with
such interests (the bit.listserv.hungary gatewayed group is not in the
main hierarchies, and suffers from very poor propagation). There is
obviously a great need for a newsgroup dealing with the issues outlined
above in the charter, and soc.culture.magyar has been such for the past
four years. The name of that group, however, does not conform to the
established Usenet conventions; it is also somewhat misleading, given
that its traffic is mostly in English, contrary to what the native
language name may suggest. Experience has shown relatively small
audience, few authors and low traffic for that group. This suggests
that many people are unaware of its existence - indeed there is
anecdotal evidence for many persons, even Hungarian speakers, missing
s.c.m because of its irregular name. It appears that only perhaps a few
hundred users are reading the newsgroup - to be compared with the
several thousand subscribers to the Hungarian email lists (which, in
turn, serve still only a small portion of Hungarians worldwide).
In the view of the proponent, it is necessary to create a newsgroup
with an English name: soc.culture.hungarian. The standardized name
should help more patrons locate the group, furthering its goal to
provide a global link for all people interested in Hungarian affairs.
The creation of the new group would also enable us to write a new
charter, thus to eliminate the restriction imposed in the s.c.magyar
charter for English only discussion language.
I suggest that the existing s.c.m should be superseded by the new
group. Not keeping the former would prevent the confusion of having
two similar groups with different names. The option of one single group
was preferred by the majority of participants in the debate prior the
CFV.
HOW TO VOTE
Send MAIL to: 
Just Replying should work if you are not reading this on a mailing list.
Your mail message should contain *one* and only one of the following
statements. DO NOT QUOTE THIS CFV IN YOUR VOTE.
I vote YES on soc.culture.hungarian
I vote NO on soc.culture.hungarian
I vote ABSTAIN on soc.culture.hungarian
I CANCEL my vote on soc.culture.hungarian
Neither ABSTAIN nor CANCEL messages are counted as votes; they serve
only to cancel any previous vote. Abstentions are noted in the final
vote list, whereas CANCEL removes your vote from that list entirely.
(This is the only difference between the two.)
Anything else may be rejected by the automatic vote counting program. The
votetaker will respond to your received ballots with a personal acknowledge-
ment by mail - if you do not receive one within several days, try again.
It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly.
If you later change your mind you may vote again; only your last valid
vote will count.
Standard Guidelines for voting apply: no more than one vote per person,
no more than one vote per account. If you attempt multiple votes or
other vote fraud, all your votes may be canceled and your name published.
The complete vote list will be posted with the vote result, including
how each person voted. Note that Usenet votes are not done by secret
ballot.
There will then be a five-day period during which the published vote
list may be corrected and any irregularities addressed. The
requirements for group creation are 100 more YES votes than NO votes,
and 2/3 of all counted votes being YES.
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