XPost: rec.woodworking 
 From: joe@sfbooks.com 
  
 In article , 
 Woodchuck Bill   wrote: 
  
 > I only see one proponent for this proposal. Was there an error? 
 > Perhaps the second moderator should be added to the lists of 
 > proponents too? It looks unusual that there is only one proponent.. 
 > but two moderators. 
  
 There's nothing unusual about proponent and moderator lists differing. 
 Proponents are people who are involved in crafting an RFD and a CFV, 
 and who at least in theory actively collaborate in pushing the 
 proposal on news.groups, *and* in assessing comments on the proposal 
 (whether on news.groups, in e-mail, or elsewhere) and considering 
 possible changes. 
  
 Moderators are people who, well, moderate newsgroups.  They decide 
 whether to post posts, and they have various other jobs depending 
 on circumstances.  But they rarely act as text editors or salesmen, 
 which are the two basic jobs proponents have.  (Especially if you 
 think of "salesmen" in a relatively sophisticated way.  I've worked 
 at industrial companies where a salesman might be involved in going 
 back to the plant people and saying "OK, can we do this?  If so, 
 what can I tell them about specifications and ...") 
  
 Now, in *this* case, it's pretty obvious that the only salesman 
 involved is the official proponent, so he's the only one who should 
 be listed.  Text editing is more complicated, because moderators do 
 after all have to live with what the proponents write; but the 
 other moderator candidate could be text editing behind the scenes. 
 It is also possible that she doesn't exist, although that's not my 
 read of the proponent's character based on his posts so far. 
 Whatever.  The unusual thing here is a moderated group proposal 
 with so little artillery behind it, not the details of which names 
 appear where on the RFD. 
  
 The *amusing* thing here is that the hostile reactions of the 
 rec.woodworking people have me just about ready to bet real money 
 that within two years, we'll see a moderated group proposal here 
 from them with wide consensus behind it, a la the recent 
 screenplays discussion. 
  
 Moderated group proposals from out of the blue are somewhat 
 unusual, but it's not at all unusual that when they happen, they 
 start someone scratching his or her head and saying "Hmmm, why 
 not?"  And if the traffic figures and other problems quoted are 
 at all real, then I'd sorta expect that to happen in this case too. 
  
 Assuming, of course, that the proponent doesn't snatch victory 
 from the jaws of defeat and actually a) pass a vote and b) get a 
 working group set up.  I'm not ready to bet real money on either 
 of *those* propositions, though. 
  
 Joe Bernstein 
  
 -- 
 Joe Bernstein, bookseller and writer                   joe@sfbooks.com 
  
  
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