evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) (09/27/88)
I had originally posted a mail message to the unix-unanimous mailing list which (among other things) called for comments on the creation of a newsgroup expecially for the technical offshoot of /usr/group/cdn, "unix-unanimous". This is a summary of replies to that message, and a similar one I had posted in ont.general. I would like to resolve this by consensus at the next unix-unanimous meeting, Wednesday the 28th. Location, ususally U of T FLIS, will be different this week because the room is unavailable. Since I haven't heard otherwise, it appears likely we will meet in front of FLIS, agree on an alternative site, and put up a sign to that effect on the door of the normal meeting place. ______________________________________________________________________________ My original message posted in unix-unanimous mailing list: ______________________________________________________________________________ >Date: Sat Aug 27 21:10:03 1988 >From: evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) > >[...] >1) Should the unix-unanimous mailing list be turned into an Ont.-distribution >newsgroup? Since we're always trying to get new people to come out, maybe >we're missing something by not broadcasting our meetings or other similar >stuff. > >There are a few of us which don't get news (moore, the keeper of this list, >is one) but that can be dealt with easily by software. I think the interest >(more than 20 names on the mail list and growing regularly) is more than >demonstrated. > >If we do agree that a newsgroup is desirable, what procedures are recommended >for starting up 'ont.unix-unanimous'? I'll be damned if I'm going to drag a >regional group through news.groups (and I don't recall being given a chance >to vote on can.sun-stroke :-) Maybe a bit of discussion on ont.general? > >P.S. I suggest a distribution of 'ont' rather than 'tor' because I believe >the group may have interest which goes beyond sites in greater Metro. >[...] ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 28 Aug 88 12:00:52 EDT From: Greg Woods <utgpu!woods> I was thinking of opening this particular discussion at the meeting, but I didn't know if a appropriate crowd was present. Besides, it didn't seem that anyone else was thinking of anything like this. I've been wondering what the point of a mailing list is, when all that accomplishes is to make us a little clique with no avenues for expansion. Certianly lack of news is no problem. A simple solution might be to restrict the current mailing list to those who don't get news, make the news-group a moderated one, with the moderatior being an automatic posting program as one of the mailing list destinations. If we get our local backbone to create the group (utgpu), I think we should be off and running. It might be a good idea to mail all Ontario site admin's and ask them to consider carrying the group, and explain it's existence. Of course, we could always just leave the mailing list alone and auto-post everything into ont.general as well (as a digest?). This might even be the best solution, since ont.general is already there, and should already have the appropriate readership. Introductory notes could be periodically posted to other groups (ie: new.groups for one) (with distrib.=ont of course) in order to gather new readers. ___________________________________________________________________________ From moore!telly!brambo!ncrcan!hcr!morgan Mon Aug 29 15:18:50 1988 ont.unix-unamimous sounds good to me. If we start to discuss things that would be of a more general nature, we could even have a comp.uu (moderated) to which we post digests. Morgan. ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon Aug 29 1988 19:25:05 From: rae@tnir.uucp (Reid Ellis) This is a good idea -- to handle sites that don't get news, we can make it a moderated newsgroup, with all mail going to unix-unanimous@wherever. Reid ___________________________________________________________________________ From utzoo!utstat!chew Wed Aug 31 13:21:44 1988 Great idea. When is the next meeting ?? I should would like to attend. Boon ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 1 Sep 88 19:59:18 EDT From: Steve Hayman <watmath!sahayman> Nobody is ever going to be able to spell that. Keep it simple. How about "ont.unix". ___________________________________________________________________________ From attcan!vpk1!mbeast Wed Aug 31 19:58:18 1988 Sound good. You have my vote. Also, in the mean time, could you add me to the mailing list? ___________________________________________________________________________ From moore!telly!utzoo!lsuc!cg286!dan Tue Sep 6 20:50:52 1988 I am mailing to support you on the issues you mention. I believe 1) this newsgroup can become a ont distribution and 2) I am more interested in the technical side of discussion in u-u meeting than in marketing meeting presented in /u/g/c and I agree with you that it would a good idea that we become local chapter of a comp.org.usenix. ... just so that you know I share your ideas ... ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: 2 Sep 88 16:34:19 EDT (Fri) From: sid@brambo.UUCP (Sid Van den Heede) Sounds good to me...One day I hope to be organized enough to find the time to get involved with this group. Meanwhile I would like to read about what is happening. ___________________________________________________________________________ From: david@geac.UUCP (David Haynes) Date: 1 Sep 88 12:17:12 GMT This is not a direct comment about ont.unix-unanimous, but, one about procedure. There seems to be a large body of folks who want to set up news groups without showing the kind of volume that justifies the setting up of a newsgroup. (remember ont.singles - what???) I think that we might want to have a policy about the setting up of a new newsgroup. Maybe modelled after the US USENET policy. Their policy (paraphrased) is: 1. Find a newsgroup that is close to what you want to talk about. 2. Post there for about 3 months. 3. If, over the 3 months, you can show *sustained* volume and a true divergence from that newgroup, request to have a new newgroup created. In this case, perhaps posting the articles that would have gone to ont.unix-unanimous to ont.general for a while would suffice. On the other hand, if you are taking an established mail list over to the news, perhaps you need only show the last three months of volume for the mail list. I was facing a similar situation with the Canadian X Software Repository, in that it could become a newsgroup or a mail list. The final decision was to become a mail list until I could show sufficient volume to become a newsgroup. This has not happened yet -- aside from my erratic postings of Canadian X Notes, there have only been two user-generated postings. Opinions? -david- ___________________________________________________________________________ From: msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) Date: 2 Sep 88 21:56:08 GMT > There seems to be a large body of folks who want to set up > news groups without showing the kind of volume that justifies the > setting up of a newsgroup. (remember ont.singles - what???) > > I think that we might want to have a policy about the setting up of a > new newsgroup. Maybe modelled after the US USENET policy. If there is a US USENET policy, I'm unaware of it. I think the number of US-only groups on the net is negligible. The policy described later in the above-quoted article is that for net-wide groups. The reason the policy exists is related to the huge population -- for a basically unregulated entity -- of the net as a whole. It has arisen relatively recently; in the early days of the net, newsgroups were created with no formal procedure and sometimes, I think, even with no discussion. If that was done now, things would be too chaotic. It seems to me that the Ontario subset of the net is now too big for us to create newsgroups without discussion, but not so big that we need a formal procedure similar to the net-wide policy. Here, we can take the opposite point of view: if there seems LIKELY to be traffic, take a poll; if there is a consensus of support, then create the group. If the traffic doesn't appear, remove it again. There won't be so many people proposing groups in Ontario, or even in Canada, that that's not workable. Ont.singles was precisely such a creation ... there seemed to be likely to be going to be traffic, because net.singles (as it was then) was being cut off from Ontario. Later I proposed it for deletion as part of a general clean-up of Ontario and Canadian groups, but there was sentiment to keep it, so it stayed. I'm not subscribed to it now; if there is no traffic any more, someone should again propose it for removal. ______________________________________________________________________________ From moore!ontmoh!peter Fri Sep 9 04:52:13 1988 Has Evan redefined "Unanimous"? Does he speak for UU? Should his proposal have been discussed and resolved within UU? Should UU malign ugc? Does Evan make Araldo and Robin look pretty good? Has the time come to "spin off" a group from UU? Might any of the following names be appropriate? Acerbics Acrimonious Antagonistics Autonomous Caustics Clamorous Frantics Garrulous Hypocritics Ignominious Polemics Querulous Sardonics Seditious Vitriolics Vociferous ______________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 19 Sep 88 11:56:35 EDT From: Mike Borza <maccs!nusip> Just thought I'd drop a line to tell you I'm interested in such a group. ______________________________________________________________________________ ****************************************************************************** The tally so far: (not counting myself) In favour of a new group - 9 Against a new group - 0 Objections to the procedure - 1 Objections to the objection - 1 Objections to me - 1 Thanks to all who responded. DISCLAIMER: Any resemblence between myself and any present or past member of the /usr/group/cdn board of directors, living or dead, is purely coincidental. -- Evan Leibovitch, SA of System Telly, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario evan@telly.UUCP (PENDING: evan@telly.on.ca) / {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!telly!evan Don't worry - Be happy.