spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (03/02/88)
Original-from: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
[Most recent change: 31 October 1987 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)]
How to Establish a New Newsgroup
One question that frequently appears on the Usenet has to do with how
newsgroups are created. Usually this occurs when someone believes they
have identified a topic that deserves a new group and they are not
aware of the conventions surrounding newsgroup establishment. The
purpose of this article is to help provide some background and
guidelines for users interested in establishing new groups.
Note that these guidelines are for new groups in the "regular" Usenet
-- conventions for new groups in the alternate hierarchies (such as
"alt" and "bionet") may be different and you should consult readers and
admins in those groups for information specific to those groups.
Background
----------
The Usenet is, for the most part, a loosely connected system governed
by consensus and momentum. There is no "central authority" that
actually runs the the network. In fact, it is not even possible to
precisely define what groups and sites consititute the network -- the
best we can do is provide a working definition: "The Usenet consists of
sites exchanging articles in the news.* groups." This informal
definition describes a collection of thousands of machines in over a
dozen countries on four continents; total potential readership is in
the hundreds of thousands. Total volume of all the newsgroups
regularly surpasses two megabytes of information flow per day in almost
three hundred newsgroups.
A few years ago, the network began to exhibit overload problems. These
overload problems include human overload as well as machine. Not only
are some machines straining to handle the ever-increasing communication
and storage needs of the network, but many (or most!) of the readers of
the network find themselves unable to organize and read the incredible
amounts of information available to them. Increasingly sophisticated
software and organization have helped both problems, but overload of
both kinds continues to be a problem. The creation of new newsgroups
can sometimes help the problem and but can also sometimes make it worse.
To help promote the constructive creation of new newsgroups, the
administrators of the Usenet backbone machines have formalized a set of
guidelines for the creation of new newsgroups. These are based on
historical precedent and perceived limitations.
(The "members of the backbone" are a de-facto advisory committee
for the Usenet, consisting of current and past administrators of
machines whose connectivity and load are seen as critical to the
functioning of the Usenet. This group includes authors of the
original A and B news software and users of the Usenet since its
inception. It includes programmers, researchers, professors,
consultants and end-users; their collective experience with Unix
and the Usenet can be measured in the hundreds of years.)
No one is forced to adhere to these guidelines, but action on Usenet
newsgroup creation or deletion that does not follow these guidelines
may be ignored by the backbone sites and the majority of Usenet sites
that usually follow the examples set by the backbone. It is thus in
the best interests of the proposed newsgroup to follow the guidelines.
Guidelines
----------
The following guidelines assume you have determined that you want a
newsgroup to be created. You may want this newsgroup to address a
topic of particular interest, or it might be to help subdivide an
existing newsgroup. Once you have decided you want a new newsgroup,
you should do the following:
1) Determine if a new newsgroup is actually needed. Look carefully
through the lists of active newsgroups and mailing lists to be sure
there is currently no existing forum for your topic. If there is such
a group or mailing list, try using it before attempting to create a new
group -- it might be just what you want.
2) Determine an appropriate name for your proposed newsgroup -- a name
should be informative, reasonably short, and in an appropriate
top-level hierarchy. Also determine if you want the newsgroup to be
moderated or not.
3) Post an article to the newsgroup "news.groups" describing your
proposed new group. Be sure to describe why you think the group is
needed and/or interesting, and what you think it should be named. Ask
for comments to be posted and for votes to be *MAILED* to you. Be sure
to cross-post your article to any newsgroups where there might be
interest, but set the "Followup-to" header so that responses only
go to the "news.groups" group.
4) Consider carefully all comments and objections, whether posted or
mailed. Answer objections and questions in a timely fashion. Change
the name or nature of the group, if needed, based on the comments of
others. Remember that the success of the group is based on the support
and participation of the other people on the network, so listen to
their advice and concerns.
5) Collect MAILED votes on the issue of the new newsgroup. The
threshold currently set as necessary for creating a new group is 100
more "yes" votes than "no" votes in a 30 day period.
a) If you get at least 100 more "yes" votes than "no" votes,
post an article to the news.groups newsgroup including the
totals and the list of account names of people voting.
b) If you fail to get at least 100 more "yes" votes than "no"
votes, consider starting a mailing list for your topic
instead of a new group, or else think about starting the
group as an "alt" group. If a group cannot get the support
of at least 100 people in one month's time, it does not
belong on the Usenet until such time as it gains sufficient
support.
c) If you are trying to get an exisiting mailing list upgraded
to a newsgroup, consider the current subscriber list as a
set of "yes" votes of equal number, but only if they have
already agreed that they want the list turned into a
newsgroup.
6) Send mail to "backbone@rutgers.edu" and ask that the group be
created. You can issue the control message yourself, but many sites
will ignore the group unless the control message originates from one of
the known backbone admins (usually one of: spaf@arthur.cs.purdue.edu,
mark@cbosgd.att.com, rick@uunet.uu.net, woods@hao.ucar.edu or
fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu). If the group is moderated, be sure to
include information about the moderator and submission addresses in
your mail message so that the appropriate postings and databases can be
updated. The group will likely be created at this time, but if the
members of the backbone list perceive that there are serious unanswered
questions about the group's creation, it may be postponed until those
questions are resolved.
Summary
-------
That's pretty much all you do to create a new newsgroup. You need to
establish that there is sufficient support to create the group, and that
there are no serious objections to its creation.
If you'd like more information about how to start a mailing list, send
mail to "backbone-request@rutgers.edu".
--
Gene Spafford
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafspaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (04/04/88)
Original-from: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
[Most recent change: 31 October 1987 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)]
How to Establish a New Newsgroup
One question that frequently appears on the Usenet has to do with how
newsgroups are created. Usually this occurs when someone believes they
have identified a topic that deserves a new group and they are not
aware of the conventions surrounding newsgroup establishment. The
purpose of this article is to help provide some background and
guidelines for users interested in establishing new groups.
Note that these guidelines are for new groups in the "regular" Usenet
-- conventions for new groups in the alternate hierarchies (such as
"alt" and "bionet") may be different and you should consult readers and
admins in those groups for information specific to those groups.
Background
----------
The Usenet is, for the most part, a loosely connected system governed
by consensus and momentum. There is no "central authority" that
actually runs the the network. In fact, it is not even possible to
precisely define what groups and sites consititute the network -- the
best we can do is provide a working definition: "The Usenet consists of
sites exchanging articles in the news.* groups." This informal
definition describes a collection of thousands of machines in over a
dozen countries on four continents; total potential readership is in
the hundreds of thousands. Total volume of all the newsgroups
regularly surpasses two megabytes of information flow per day in almost
three hundred newsgroups.
A few years ago, the network began to exhibit overload problems. These
overload problems include human overload as well as machine. Not only
are some machines straining to handle the ever-increasing communication
and storage needs of the network, but many (or most!) of the readers of
the network find themselves unable to organize and read the incredible
amounts of information available to them. Increasingly sophisticated
software and organization have helped both problems, but overload of
both kinds continues to be a problem. The creation of new newsgroups
can sometimes help the problem and but can also sometimes make it worse.
To help promote the constructive creation of new newsgroups, the
administrators of the Usenet backbone machines have formalized a set of
guidelines for the creation of new newsgroups. These are based on
historical precedent and perceived limitations.
(The "members of the backbone" are a de-facto advisory committee
for the Usenet, consisting of current and past administrators of
machines whose connectivity and load are seen as critical to the
functioning of the Usenet. This group includes authors of the
original A and B news software and users of the Usenet since its
inception. It includes programmers, researchers, professors,
consultants and end-users; their collective experience with Unix
and the Usenet can be measured in the hundreds of years.)
No one is forced to adhere to these guidelines, but action on Usenet
newsgroup creation or deletion that does not follow these guidelines
may be ignored by the backbone sites and the majority of Usenet sites
that usually follow the examples set by the backbone. It is thus in
the best interests of the proposed newsgroup to follow the guidelines.
Guidelines
----------
The following guidelines assume you have determined that you want a
newsgroup to be created. You may want this newsgroup to address a
topic of particular interest, or it might be to help subdivide an
existing newsgroup. Once you have decided you want a new newsgroup,
you should do the following:
1) Determine if a new newsgroup is actually needed. Look carefully
through the lists of active newsgroups and mailing lists to be sure
there is currently no existing forum for your topic. If there is such
a group or mailing list, try using it before attempting to create a new
group -- it might be just what you want.
2) Determine an appropriate name for your proposed newsgroup -- a name
should be informative, reasonably short, and in an appropriate
top-level hierarchy. Also determine if you want the newsgroup to be
moderated or not.
3) Post an article to the newsgroup "news.groups" describing your
proposed new group. Be sure to describe why you think the group is
needed and/or interesting, and what you think it should be named. Ask
for comments to be posted and for votes to be *MAILED* to you. Be sure
to cross-post your article to any newsgroups where there might be
interest, but set the "Followup-to" header so that responses only
go to the "news.groups" group.
4) Consider carefully all comments and objections, whether posted or
mailed. Answer objections and questions in a timely fashion. Change
the name or nature of the group, if needed, based on the comments of
others. Remember that the success of the group is based on the support
and participation of the other people on the network, so listen to
their advice and concerns.
5) Collect MAILED votes on the issue of the new newsgroup. The
threshold currently set as necessary for creating a new group is 100
more "yes" votes than "no" votes in a 30 day period.
a) If you get at least 100 more "yes" votes than "no" votes,
post an article to the news.groups newsgroup including the
totals and the list of account names of people voting.
b) If you fail to get at least 100 more "yes" votes than "no"
votes, consider starting a mailing list for your topic
instead of a new group, or else think about starting the
group as an "alt" group. If a group cannot get the support
of at least 100 people in one month's time, it does not
belong on the Usenet until such time as it gains sufficient
support.
c) If you are trying to get an exisiting mailing list upgraded
to a newsgroup, consider the current subscriber list as a
set of "yes" votes of equal number, but only if they have
already agreed that they want the list turned into a
newsgroup.
6) Send mail to "backbone@rutgers.edu" and ask that the group be
created. You can issue the control message yourself, but many sites
will ignore the group unless the control message originates from one of
the known backbone admins (usually one of: spaf@arthur.cs.purdue.edu,
mark@cbosgd.att.com, rick@uunet.uu.net, woods@hao.ucar.edu or
fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu). If the group is moderated, be sure to
include information about the moderator and submission addresses in
your mail message so that the appropriate postings and databases can be
updated. The group will likely be created at this time, but if the
members of the backbone list perceive that there are serious unanswered
questions about the group's creation, it may be postponed until those
questions are resolved.
Summary
-------
That's pretty much all you do to create a new newsgroup. You need to
establish that there is sufficient support to create the group, and that
there are no serious objections to its creation.
If you'd like more information about how to start a mailing list, send
mail to "backbone-request@rutgers.edu".
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafspaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (06/01/88)
Original-from: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
[Most recent change: 14 April 1988 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)]
How to Establish a New Newsgroup
One question that frequently appears on the Usenet has to do with how
newsgroups are created. Usually this occurs when someone believes they
have identified a topic that deserves a new group and they are not
aware of the conventions surrounding newsgroup establishment. The
purpose of this article is to help provide some background and
guidelines for users interested in establishing new groups.
Note that these guidelines are for new groups in the "regular" Usenet
-- conventions for new groups in the alternate hierarchies (such as
"alt" and "bionet") may be different and you should consult readers and
admins in those groups for information specific to those groups. Also
note that these are general *guidelines* -- there is no guarantee that
any site will ever issue or honor a "newgroup" request for any group,
even if all these guidelines are followed. In particular, problems of
legality, volume and taste may keep some groups from being created in
the regular newsgroup hierarchy at many (or most) sites, no matter what
the perceived support; in general, such groups can be created in the
alternate distributions without any such trouble.
Background
----------
The Usenet is, for the most part, a loosely connected system governed
by consensus and momentum. There is no "central authority" that
actually runs the the network. In fact, it is not even possible to
precisely define what groups and sites consititute the network -- the
best we can do is provide a working definition: "The Usenet consists of
sites exchanging articles in the news.* groups." This informal
definition describes a collection of thousands of machines in over a
dozen countries on four continents; total potential readership is in
the hundreds of thousands. Total volume of all the newsgroups
regularly surpasses two megabytes of information flow per day in almost
three hundred newsgroups.
A few years ago, the network began to exhibit overload problems. These
overload problems include human overload as well as machine. Not only
are some machines straining to handle the ever-increasing communication
and storage needs of the network, but many (or most!) of the readers of
the network find themselves unable to organize and read the incredible
amounts of information available to them. Increasingly sophisticated
software and organization have helped both problems, but overload of
both kinds continues to be a problem. The creation of new newsgroups
can sometimes help the problem and but can also sometimes make it worse.
To help promote the constructive creation of new newsgroups, the
administrators of the Usenet backbone machines have formalized a set of
guidelines for the creation of new newsgroups. These are based on
historical precedent and perceived limitations.
(The "members of the backbone" are a de-facto advisory committee
for the Usenet, consisting of current and past administrators of
machines whose connectivity and load are seen as critical to the
functioning of the Usenet. This group includes authors of the
original A and B news software and users of the Usenet since its
inception. It includes programmers, researchers, professors,
consultants and end-users; their collective experience with Unix
and the Usenet can be measured in the hundreds of years.)
No one is forced to adhere to these guidelines, but action on Usenet
newsgroup creation or deletion that does not follow these guidelines
may be ignored by the backbone sites and the majority of Usenet sites
that usually follow the examples set by the backbone. It is thus in
the best interests of the proposed newsgroup to follow the guidelines.
Guidelines
----------
The following guidelines assume you have determined that you want a
newsgroup to be created. You may want this newsgroup to address a
topic of particular interest, or it might be to help subdivide an
existing newsgroup. Once you have decided you want a new newsgroup,
you should do the following:
1) Determine if a new newsgroup is actually needed. Look carefully
through the lists of active newsgroups and mailing lists to be sure
there is currently no existing forum for your topic. If there is such
a group or mailing list, try using it before attempting to create a new
group -- it might be just what you want. Also determine if there are
potential objections to the creation of the group based on common sense,
good taste, or possible legal difficulties -- such groups are best
left as mailing lists or semi-private hierarchies.
2) Determine an appropriate name for your proposed newsgroup -- a name
should be informative, reasonably short, and in an appropriate
top-level hierarchy. The name should directly describe the purpose and
content of the proposed group, to aid new readers in selecting it.
Also determine if you want the newsgroup to be moderated or not.
3) Post an article to the newsgroup "news.groups" describing your
proposed new group. Be sure to describe why you think the group is
needed and/or interesting, and what you think it should be named. Ask
for comments to be posted and discussed. Be sure to cross-post your
article to any newsgroups where there might be interest, but set the
"Followup-to" header so that responses only go to the "news.groups"
group.
4) Consider carefully all comments and objections, whether posted or
mailed. Answer objections and questions in a timely fashion. Change
the name or nature of the group, if needed, based on the comments of
others. Remember that the success of the group is based on the support
and participation of the other people on the network, so listen to
their advice and concerns.
5) Collect MAILED votes on the issue of the new newsgroup. The
threshold currently set as necessary to suggest creating a new group is
100 more "yes" votes than "no" votes in a 30 day period.
a) If you get at least 100 more "yes" votes than "no" votes,
post an article to the news.groups newsgroup including the
totals and the list of account names of people voting.
b) If you fail to get at least 100 more "yes" votes than "no"
votes, consider starting a mailing list for your topic
instead of a new group, or else think about starting the
group as an "alt" group. If a group cannot get the support
of at least 100 people in one month's time, it does not
belong on the Usenet until such time as it gains sufficient
support.
c) If you are trying to get an exisiting mailing list upgraded
to a newsgroup, consider the current subscriber list as a
set of "yes" votes of equal number, but only if they have
already agreed that they want the list turned into a
newsgroup.
6) Send mail to "backbone@rutgers.edu" and ask that the group be
created. You can issue the control message yourself, but many sites
will ignore the group unless the control message originates from one of
the known backbone admins (usually one of: news or spaf@cs.purdue.edu,
mark@stargate.com, rick@uunet.uu.net, woods@ncar.ucar.edu or
fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu). If the group is moderated, be sure to
include information about the moderator and submission addresses in
your mail message so that the appropriate postings and databases can be
updated. The group will likely be created at this time, but if the
members of the backbone list perceive that there are serious unanswered
questions about the group's creation, it may be postponed until those
questions are resolved.
Summary
-------
That's pretty much all you do to create a new newsgroup. You need to
establish that there is sufficient support to create the group, and that
there are no serious objections to its creation.
If you'd like more information about how to start a mailing list, send
mail to "backbone-request@rutgers.edu".
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafspaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (05/15/89)
Original-from: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
[Most recent change: 14 May 1989 by Greg Woods]
GUIDELINES FOR USENET GROUP CREATION
REQUIREMENTS FOR GROUP CREATION:
These are guidelines that have been generally agreed upon across
USENET as appropriate for following in the creating of new newsgroups in
the "standard" USENET newsgroup heirarchy. They are NOT intended as
guidelines for setting USENET policy other than group creations, and they
are not intended to apply to "alternate" or local news heirarchies. The
part of the namespace affected is comp, news, sci, misc, soc, talk, rec,
which are the most widely-distributed areas of the USENET heirarchy.
Any group creation request which follows these guidelines to a
successful result should be honored, and any request which fails to
follow these procedures or to obtain a successful result from doing so
should be dropped, except under extraordinary circumstances. The
reason these are called guidelines and not absolute rules is that it is
not possible to predict in advance what "extraordinary circumstances"
are or how they might arise.
It should be pointed out here that, as always, the decision whether or not
to create a newsgroup on a given machine rests with the administrator of that
machine. These guidelines are intended merely as an aid in making those
decisions.
The Discussion
1) A call for discussion on creation of a new newsgroup should be posted
to news.groups, and also to any other groups or mailing lists at all
related to the proposed topic if desired. The Followup-to: header should be
set so that the actual discussion takes place only in news.groups
2) The discussion period should last for at least two weeks (14 days),
and no more than 30 days.
3) The name and charter of the proposed group and whether it will be moderated
or unmoderated (and if the former, who the moderator will be) should be
determined during the discussion period. If there is no general consensus
on these points among the proponents of a new group at the end of 30 days
of discussion, the discussion should be taken offline (into mail instead of
news.groups) and the proponents should iron out the details among themselves.
Once that is done, a new, more specific proposal may be made, going back
to step 1) above.
The Vote
1) AFTER the discussion period, if it has been determined that a new group is
really desired, a name and charter are agreed upon, and it has been
determined whether the group will be moderated and if so who will
moderate it, a call for votes may be posted to news.groups and any
other groups or mailing lists that the original call for discussion
might have been posted to. There should be minimal delay between the
end of the discussion period and the issuing of a call for votes.
The call for votes should include clear instructions for how to cast
a vote. It must be as clearly explained and as easy to do to cast a
vote for creation as against it, and vice versa. It is explicitly
permitted to set up two separate addresses to mail yes and no votes
to provided that they are on the same machine, to set up an address
different than that the article was posted from to mail votes to, or
to just accept replies to the call for votes article, as long as it
is clearly and explicitly stated in the call for votes article how
to cast a vote.
2) The voting period should last for at least 30 days, no matter what the
preliminary results of the vote are. The exact date that the voting period
will end should be stated in the call for votes. Only votes that arrive
on the vote-taker's machine prior to this date may be counted.
3) A couple of repeats of the call for votes may be posted during the vote,
provided that they contain similar clear, unbiased instructions for
casting a vote as the original, and provided that it is really a repeat
of the call for votes on the SAME proposal (see #5 below). Partial vote
results should NOT be included; only a statement of the specific new
group proposal, that a vote is in progress on it, and how to cast a vote.
4) ONLY votes MAILED to the vote-taker will count. Votes posted to the net
for any reason (including inability to get mail to the vote-taker) and
proxy votes (such as having a mailing list maintainer claim a vote for
each member of the list) may not be counted.
5) Votes may not be transferred to other, similar proposals. A vote shall
count only for the EXACT proposal that it is a response to. In particular,
a vote for or against a newsgroup under one name shall NOT be counted as
a vote for or against a newsgroup with a different name or charter,
a different moderated/unmoderated status or (if moderated) a different
moderator.
6) Votes MUST be explicit; they should be of the form "I vote for the
group foo.bar as proposed" or "I vote against the group foo.bar
as proposed". The wording doesn't have to be exact, it just needs to
be unambiguous. In particular, statements of the form "I would vote
for this group if..." should be considered comments only and not
counted as votes.
The Result
1) At the completion of the 30 day voting period, the vote taker must post
the vote tally and the E-mail addresses and (if available) names of the
votes received to news.groups and any other groups or mailing lists to
which the original call for votes was posted.
2) AFTER the vote result is posted, there will be a 5 day waiting period
during which the net will have a chance to correct any errors in
the voter list or the voting procedure.
3) AFTER the waiting period, and if there were no serious objections that might
invalidate the vote, and if 100 more YES/create votes are received
than NO/don't create, a newgroup control message may be sent out.
If the 100 vote margin is not met, the group should not be created.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafspaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (06/20/89)
Original-from: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
[Most recent change: 14 May 1989 by Greg Woods]
GUIDELINES FOR USENET GROUP CREATION
REQUIREMENTS FOR GROUP CREATION:
These are guidelines that have been generally agreed upon across
USENET as appropriate for following in the creating of new newsgroups in
the "standard" USENET newsgroup heirarchy. They are NOT intended as
guidelines for setting USENET policy other than group creations, and they
are not intended to apply to "alternate" or local news heirarchies. The
part of the namespace affected is comp, news, sci, misc, soc, talk, rec,
which are the most widely-distributed areas of the USENET heirarchy.
Any group creation request which follows these guidelines to a
successful result should be honored, and any request which fails to
follow these procedures or to obtain a successful result from doing so
should be dropped, except under extraordinary circumstances. The
reason these are called guidelines and not absolute rules is that it is
not possible to predict in advance what "extraordinary circumstances"
are or how they might arise.
It should be pointed out here that, as always, the decision whether or not
to create a newsgroup on a given machine rests with the administrator of that
machine. These guidelines are intended merely as an aid in making those
decisions.
The Discussion
1) A call for discussion on creation of a new newsgroup should be posted
to news.groups, and also to any other groups or mailing lists at all
related to the proposed topic if desired. The Followup-to: header should be
set so that the actual discussion takes place only in news.groups
2) The discussion period should last for at least two weeks (14 days),
and no more than 30 days.
3) The name and charter of the proposed group and whether it will be moderated
or unmoderated (and if the former, who the moderator will be) should be
determined during the discussion period. If there is no general consensus
on these points among the proponents of a new group at the end of 30 days
of discussion, the discussion should be taken offline (into mail instead of
news.groups) and the proponents should iron out the details among themselves.
Once that is done, a new, more specific proposal may be made, going back
to step 1) above.
The Vote
1) AFTER the discussion period, if it has been determined that a new group is
really desired, a name and charter are agreed upon, and it has been
determined whether the group will be moderated and if so who will
moderate it, a call for votes may be posted to news.groups and any
other groups or mailing lists that the original call for discussion
might have been posted to. There should be minimal delay between the
end of the discussion period and the issuing of a call for votes.
The call for votes should include clear instructions for how to cast
a vote. It must be as clearly explained and as easy to do to cast a
vote for creation as against it, and vice versa. It is explicitly
permitted to set up two separate addresses to mail yes and no votes
to provided that they are on the same machine, to set up an address
different than that the article was posted from to mail votes to, or
to just accept replies to the call for votes article, as long as it
is clearly and explicitly stated in the call for votes article how
to cast a vote.
2) The voting period should last for at least 30 days, no matter what the
preliminary results of the vote are. The exact date that the voting period
will end should be stated in the call for votes. Only votes that arrive
on the vote-taker's machine prior to this date may be counted.
3) A couple of repeats of the call for votes may be posted during the vote,
provided that they contain similar clear, unbiased instructions for
casting a vote as the original, and provided that it is really a repeat
of the call for votes on the SAME proposal (see #5 below). Partial vote
results should NOT be included; only a statement of the specific new
group proposal, that a vote is in progress on it, and how to cast a vote.
4) ONLY votes MAILED to the vote-taker will count. Votes posted to the net
for any reason (including inability to get mail to the vote-taker) and
proxy votes (such as having a mailing list maintainer claim a vote for
each member of the list) may not be counted.
5) Votes may not be transferred to other, similar proposals. A vote shall
count only for the EXACT proposal that it is a response to. In particular,
a vote for or against a newsgroup under one name shall NOT be counted as
a vote for or against a newsgroup with a different name or charter,
a different moderated/unmoderated status or (if moderated) a different
moderator.
6) Votes MUST be explicit; they should be of the form "I vote for the
group foo.bar as proposed" or "I vote against the group foo.bar
as proposed". The wording doesn't have to be exact, it just needs to
be unambiguous. In particular, statements of the form "I would vote
for this group if..." should be considered comments only and not
counted as votes.
The Result
1) At the completion of the 30 day voting period, the vote taker must post
the vote tally and the E-mail addresses and (if available) names of the
votes received to news.groups and any other groups or mailing lists to
which the original call for votes was posted.
2) AFTER the vote result is posted, there will be a 5 day waiting period
during which the net will have a chance to correct any errors in
the voter list or the voting procedure.
3) AFTER the waiting period, and if there were no serious objections that might
invalidate the vote, and if 100 more YES/create votes are received
than NO/don't create, a newgroup control message may be sent out.
If the 100 vote margin is not met, the group should not be created.
The newgroup message may be sent by the vote-taker (if able to do so)
or by the system administrator on the vote-taker's machine. If this
option is not available, then the vote-taker may send mail to
"newgroup@ncar.ucar.edu" saying that a successful vote has been run
and requesting that a newgroup message be sent. DO NOT send the vote
results; we can look those up in news.groups if we haven't seen them
there already. In any case, please send mail to Gene Spafford
(spaf@purdue.edu) informing him of a successful vote, so he can add the
new group to the official list of groups which he maintains.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafspaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (07/22/89)
Original-from: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
[Most recent change: 14 May 1989 by Greg Woods]
GUIDELINES FOR USENET GROUP CREATION
REQUIREMENTS FOR GROUP CREATION:
These are guidelines that have been generally agreed upon across
USENET as appropriate for following in the creating of new newsgroups in
the "standard" USENET newsgroup heirarchy. They are NOT intended as
guidelines for setting USENET policy other than group creations, and they
are not intended to apply to "alternate" or local news heirarchies. The
part of the namespace affected is comp, news, sci, misc, soc, talk, rec,
which are the most widely-distributed areas of the USENET heirarchy.
Any group creation request which follows these guidelines to a
successful result should be honored, and any request which fails to
follow these procedures or to obtain a successful result from doing so
should be dropped, except under extraordinary circumstances. The
reason these are called guidelines and not absolute rules is that it is
not possible to predict in advance what "extraordinary circumstances"
are or how they might arise.
It should be pointed out here that, as always, the decision whether or not
to create a newsgroup on a given machine rests with the administrator of that
machine. These guidelines are intended merely as an aid in making those
decisions.
The Discussion
1) A call for discussion on creation of a new newsgroup should be posted
to news.groups, and also to any other groups or mailing lists at all
related to the proposed topic if desired. The Followup-to: header should be
set so that the actual discussion takes place only in news.groups
2) The discussion period should last for at least two weeks (14 days),
and no more than 30 days.
3) The name and charter of the proposed group and whether it will be moderated
or unmoderated (and if the former, who the moderator will be) should be
determined during the discussion period. If there is no general consensus
on these points among the proponents of a new group at the end of 30 days
of discussion, the discussion should be taken offline (into mail instead of
news.groups) and the proponents should iron out the details among themselves.
Once that is done, a new, more specific proposal may be made, going back
to step 1) above.
The Vote
1) AFTER the discussion period, if it has been determined that a new group is
really desired, a name and charter are agreed upon, and it has been
determined whether the group will be moderated and if so who will
moderate it, a call for votes may be posted to news.groups and any
other groups or mailing lists that the original call for discussion
might have been posted to. There should be minimal delay between the
end of the discussion period and the issuing of a call for votes.
The call for votes should include clear instructions for how to cast
a vote. It must be as clearly explained and as easy to do to cast a
vote for creation as against it, and vice versa. It is explicitly
permitted to set up two separate addresses to mail yes and no votes
to provided that they are on the same machine, to set up an address
different than that the article was posted from to mail votes to, or
to just accept replies to the call for votes article, as long as it
is clearly and explicitly stated in the call for votes article how
to cast a vote.
2) The voting period should last for at least 30 days, no matter what the
preliminary results of the vote are. The exact date that the voting period
will end should be stated in the call for votes. Only votes that arrive
on the vote-taker's machine prior to this date may be counted.
3) A couple of repeats of the call for votes may be posted during the vote,
provided that they contain similar clear, unbiased instructions for
casting a vote as the original, and provided that it is really a repeat
of the call for votes on the SAME proposal (see #5 below). Partial vote
results should NOT be included; only a statement of the specific new
group proposal, that a vote is in progress on it, and how to cast a vote.
4) ONLY votes MAILED to the vote-taker will count. Votes posted to the net
for any reason (including inability to get mail to the vote-taker) and
proxy votes (such as having a mailing list maintainer claim a vote for
each member of the list) may not be counted.
5) Votes may not be transferred to other, similar proposals. A vote shall
count only for the EXACT proposal that it is a response to. In particular,
a vote for or against a newsgroup under one name shall NOT be counted as
a vote for or against a newsgroup with a different name or charter,
a different moderated/unmoderated status or (if moderated) a different
moderator.
6) Votes MUST be explicit; they should be of the form "I vote for the
group foo.bar as proposed" or "I vote against the group foo.bar
as proposed". The wording doesn't have to be exact, it just needs to
be unambiguous. In particular, statements of the form "I would vote
for this group if..." should be considered comments only and not
counted as votes.
The Result
1) At the completion of the 30 day voting period, the vote taker must post
the vote tally and the E-mail addresses and (if available) names of the
votes received to news.groups and any other groups or mailing lists to
which the original call for votes was posted.
2) AFTER the vote result is posted, there will be a 5 day waiting period
during which the net will have a chance to correct any errors in
the voter list or the voting procedure.
3) AFTER the waiting period, and if there were no serious objections that might
invalidate the vote, and if 100 more YES/create votes are received
than NO/don't create, a newgroup control message may be sent out.
If the 100 vote margin is not met, the group should not be created.
The newgroup message may be sent by the vote-taker (if able to do so)
or by the system administrator on the vote-taker's machine. If this
option is not available, then the vote-taker may send mail to
"newgroup@ncar.ucar.edu" saying that a successful vote has been run
and requesting that a newgroup message be sent. DO NOT send the vote
results; we can look those up in news.groups if we haven't seen them
there already. In any case, please send mail to Gene Spafford
(spaf@purdue.edu) informing him of a successful vote, so he can add the
new group to the official list of groups which he maintains.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafspaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (09/04/89)
Original-from: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
[Most recent change: 3 Sep 1989 by woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)]
GUIDELINES FOR USENET GROUP CREATION
REQUIREMENTS FOR GROUP CREATION:
These are guidelines that have been generally agreed upon across
USENET as appropriate for following in the creating of new newsgroups in
the "standard" USENET newsgroup heirarchy. They are NOT intended as
guidelines for setting USENET policy other than group creations, and they
are not intended to apply to "alternate" or local news heirarchies. The
part of the namespace affected is comp, news, sci, misc, soc, talk, rec,
which are the most widely-distributed areas of the USENET heirarchy.
Any group creation request which follows these guidelines to a
successful result should be honored, and any request which fails to
follow these procedures or to obtain a successful result from doing so
should be dropped, except under extraordinary circumstances. The
reason these are called guidelines and not absolute rules is that it is
not possible to predict in advance what "extraordinary circumstances"
are or how they might arise.
It should be pointed out here that, as always, the decision whether or not
to create a newsgroup on a given machine rests with the administrator of that
machine. These guidelines are intended merely as an aid in making those
decisions.
The Discussion
1) A call for discussion on creation of a new newsgroup should be posted
to news.announce.newgroups, and also to any other groups or mailing lists
at all related to the proposed topic if desired. This group is moderated,
and The Followup-to: header will be set so that the actual discussion takes
place only in news.groups. Users on sites which have difficulty posting
to moderated groups may mail submissions intended for news.announce.newgroups
to "announce-newgroups@ncar.ucar.edu".
2) The discussion period should last for at least two weeks (14 days),
and no more than 30 days.
3) The name and charter of the proposed group and whether it will be moderated
or unmoderated (and if the former, who the moderator(s) will be) should be
determined during the discussion period. If there is no general agreement
on these points among the proponents of a new group at the end of 30 days
of discussion, the discussion should be taken offline (into mail instead of
news.groups) and the proponents should iron out the details among themselves.
Once that is done, a new, more specific proposal may be made, going back
to step 1) above.
The Vote
1) AFTER the discussion period, if it has been determined that a new group is
really desired, a name and charter are agreed upon, and it has been
determined whether the group will be moderated and if so who will
moderate it, a call for votes may be posted to news.announce.newgroups and
any other groups or mailing lists that the original call for discussion
might have been posted to. There should be minimal delay between the
end of the discussion period and the issuing of a call for votes.
The call for votes should include clear instructions for how to cast
a vote. It must be as clearly explained and as easy to do to cast a
vote for creation as against it, and vice versa. It is explicitly
permitted to set up two separate addresses to mail yes and no votes
to provided that they are on the same machine, to set up an address
different than that the article was posted from to mail votes to, or
to just accept replies to the call for votes article, as long as it
is clearly and explicitly stated in the call for votes article how
to cast a vote.
2) The voting period should last for at least 30 days, no matter what the
preliminary results of the vote are. The exact date that the voting period
will end should be stated in the call for votes. Only votes that arrive
on the vote-taker's machine prior to this date may be counted.
3) A couple of repeats of the call for votes may be posted during the vote,
provided that they contain similar clear, unbiased instructions for
casting a vote as the original, and provided that it is really a repeat
of the call for votes on the SAME proposal (see #5 below). Partial vote
results should NOT be included; only a statement of the specific new
group proposal, that a vote is in progress on it, and how to cast a vote.
It is permitted to post a "mass acknowledgement" in which all the names
of those from whom votes have been received are posted, as long as no
indication is made of which way anybody voted until the voting period
is officially over.
4) ONLY votes MAILED to the vote-taker will count. Votes posted to the net
for any reason (including inability to get mail to the vote-taker) and
proxy votes (such as having a mailing list maintainer claim a vote for
each member of the list) may not be counted.
5) Votes may not be transferred to other, similar proposals. A vote shall
count only for the EXACT proposal that it is a response to. In particular,
a vote for or against a newsgroup under one name shall NOT be counted as
a vote for or against a newsgroup with a different name or charter,
a different moderated/unmoderated status or (if moderated) a different
moderator or set of moderators.
6) Votes MUST be explicit; they should be of the form "I vote for the
group foo.bar as proposed" or "I vote against the group foo.bar
as proposed". The wording doesn't have to be exact, it just needs to
be unambiguous. In particular, statements of the form "I would vote
for this group if..." should be considered comments only and not
counted as votes.
The Result
1) At the completion of the 30 day voting period, the vote taker must post
the vote tally and the E-mail addresses and (if available) names of the
votes received to news.announce.newgroups and any other groups or mailing
lists to which the original call for votes was posted.
2) AFTER the vote result is posted, there will be a 5 day waiting period
during which the net will have a chance to correct any errors in
the voter list or the voting procedure.
3) AFTER the waiting period, and if there were no serious objections that might
invalidate the vote, and if 100 more YES/create votes are received
than NO/don't create, a newgroup control message may be sent out.
If the 100 vote margin is not met, the group should not be created.
The newgroup message may be sent by the vote-taker (if able to do so)
or by the system administrator on the vote-taker's machine. If this
option is not available, then the vote-taker should send mail to
"newgroup@ncar.ucar.edu" saying that a successful vote has been run
and requesting that a newgroup message be sent. DO NOT send the vote
results; we can look those up in news.announce.newgroups if we haven't seen
them there already. In any case, please send mail to Gene Spafford
(spaf@purdue.edu) informing him of a successful vote, so he can add the
new group to the official list of groups which he maintains.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafspaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) (10/17/89)
Original-from: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
[Most recent change: 10 Oct 1989 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)]
GUIDELINES FOR USENET GROUP CREATION
REQUIREMENTS FOR GROUP CREATION:
These are guidelines that have been generally agreed upon across
USENET as appropriate for following in the creating of new newsgroups in
the "standard" USENET newsgroup heirarchy. They are NOT intended as
guidelines for setting USENET policy other than group creations, and they
are not intended to apply to "alternate" or local news heirarchies. The
part of the namespace affected is comp, news, sci, misc, soc, talk, rec,
which are the most widely-distributed areas of the USENET heirarchy.
Any group creation request which follows these guidelines to a
successful result should be honored, and any request which fails to
follow these procedures or to obtain a successful result from doing so
should be dropped, except under extraordinary circumstances. The
reason these are called guidelines and not absolute rules is that it is
not possible to predict in advance what "extraordinary circumstances"
are or how they might arise.
It should be pointed out here that, as always, the decision whether or not
to create a newsgroup on a given machine rests with the administrator of that
machine. These guidelines are intended merely as an aid in making those
decisions.
The Discussion
1) A call for discussion on creation of a new newsgroup should be posted
to news.announce.newgroups, and also to any other groups or mailing lists
at all related to the proposed topic if desired. This group is moderated,
and The Followup-to: header will be set so that the actual discussion takes
place only in news.groups. Users on sites which have difficulty posting
to moderated groups may mail submissions intended for news.announce.newgroups
to "announce-newgroups@ncar.ucar.edu".
2) The discussion period should last for at least two weeks (14 days),
and no more than 30 days.
3) The name and charter of the proposed group and whether it will be moderated
or unmoderated (and if the former, who the moderator(s) will be) should be
determined during the discussion period. If there is no general agreement
on these points among the proponents of a new group at the end of 30 days
of discussion, the discussion should be taken offline (into mail instead of
news.groups) and the proponents should iron out the details among themselves.
Once that is done, a new, more specific proposal may be made, going back
to step 1) above.
The Vote
1) AFTER the discussion period, if it has been determined that a new group is
really desired, a name and charter are agreed upon, and it has been
determined whether the group will be moderated and if so who will
moderate it, a call for votes may be posted to news.announce.newgroups and
any other groups or mailing lists that the original call for discussion
might have been posted to. There should be minimal delay between the
end of the discussion period and the issuing of a call for votes.
The call for votes should include clear instructions for how to cast
a vote. It must be as clearly explained and as easy to do to cast a
vote for creation as against it, and vice versa. It is explicitly
permitted to set up two separate addresses to mail yes and no votes
to provided that they are on the same machine, to set up an address
different than that the article was posted from to mail votes to, or
to just accept replies to the call for votes article, as long as it
is clearly and explicitly stated in the call for votes article how
to cast a vote.
2) The voting period should last for at least 21 days, no matter what the
preliminary results of the vote are. The exact date that the voting period
will end should be stated in the call for votes. Only votes that arrive
on the vote-taker's machine prior to this date may be counted.
3) A couple of repeats of the call for votes may be posted during the vote,
provided that they contain similar clear, unbiased instructions for
casting a vote as the original, and provided that it is really a repeat
of the call for votes on the SAME proposal (see #5 below). Partial vote
results should NOT be included; only a statement of the specific new
group proposal, that a vote is in progress on it, and how to cast a vote.
It is permitted to post a "mass acknowledgement" in which all the names
of those from whom votes have been received are posted, as long as no
indication is made of which way anybody voted until the voting period
is officially over.
4) ONLY votes MAILED to the vote-taker will count. Votes posted to the net
for any reason (including inability to get mail to the vote-taker) and
proxy votes (such as having a mailing list maintainer claim a vote for
each member of the list) may not be counted.
5) Votes may not be transferred to other, similar proposals. A vote shall
count only for the EXACT proposal that it is a response to. In particular,
a vote for or against a newsgroup under one name shall NOT be counted as
a vote for or against a newsgroup with a different name or charter,
a different moderated/unmoderated status or (if moderated) a different
moderator or set of moderators.
6) Votes MUST be explicit; they should be of the form "I vote for the
group foo.bar as proposed" or "I vote against the group foo.bar
as proposed". The wording doesn't have to be exact, it just needs to
be unambiguous. In particular, statements of the form "I would vote
for this group if..." should be considered comments only and not
counted as votes.
The Result
1) At the completion of the 30 day voting period, the vote taker must post
the vote tally and the E-mail addresses and (if available) names of the
votes received to news.announce.newgroups and any other groups or mailing
lists to which the original call for votes was posted.
2) AFTER the vote result is posted, there will be a 5 day waiting period
during which the net will have a chance to correct any errors in
the voter list or the voting procedure.
3) AFTER the waiting period, and if there were no serious objections that might
invalidate the vote, and if 100 more YES/create votes are received
than NO/don't create, a newgroup control message may be sent out.
If the 100 vote margin is not met, the group should not be created.
The newgroup message may be sent by the vote-taker (if able to do so)
or by the system administrator on the vote-taker's machine. If this
option is not available, then the vote-taker should send mail to
"newgroup@ncar.ucar.edu" saying that a successful vote has been run
and requesting that a newgroup message be sent. DO NOT send the vote
results; we can look those up in news.announce.newgroups if we haven't seen
them there already. In any case, please send mail to Gene Spafford
(spaf@purdue.edu) informing him of a successful vote, so he can add the
new group to the official list of groups which he maintains.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf