lacsap@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pascal Chesnais) (04/26/91)
Given the increased volume of people saying "let's split comp.sys.next"
it may be a good idea for ALL to read the guidelines for starting
a new newsgroup (which is what splitting of this newsgroup means).
These guidelines are important to follow since the people who
decide which newsgroups are carried usuaully require evidence that
the guidelines are followed.
Please do not reply to me, or post a follow up to this newsgroup
about this message. Really the only thing that should follow is
a CALL FOR DISCUSSION by the person who is *volunteering* to see
this *whole* process through. That is to say from the call for
discussion, to a vote, and to notifying people of the results
of that vote. This newsgroup should not be the place for the
discussion since people will be pissed one way or another about
what is posted, and will flame eternally about it.
I am sorry if I sound inflexible, but such meta-discussions
usually amplify the volume problem rather than address the
cause of the volume we see. I still would like to see someone
volunteer to do the welcome to comp.sys.next that explains
the netiquette...
pasc
The below article is from news.announce.newusers, which every
user is encouraged to read.
-----
Original-from: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
[Most recent change: 06 Sep 1990 by lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot Lear)]
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 hierarchy. 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 hierarchies. The
part of the namespace affected is comp, news, sci, misc, soc, talk, rec,
which are the most widely-distributed areas of the USENET hierarchy.
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@turbo.bio.net".
2) 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. If two addresses are used for a vote, the reply
address must process and accept both yes and no votes OR reject
them both.
2) The voting period should last for at least 21 days and no more than 31
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 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. The tally should include
a statement of which way each voter voted so that the results can be
verified.
2) AFTER the vote result is posted, there will be a 5 day waiting period,
beginning when the voting results actually appear in
news.announce.newgroups, 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 valid YES/create votes are received
than NO/don't create AND at least 2/3 of the total number of valid votes
received are in favor of creation, a newgroup control message may be sent
out. If the 100 vote margin or 2/3 percentage 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.
--
Pascal Chesnais, Research Specialist, Electronic Publishing Group
Media Laboratory, E15-351, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, Ma, 02139 (617) 253-0311
email: lacsap@plethora.media.mit.edu (NeXT)madler@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Mark Adler) (04/27/91)
No matter what, splitting will likely double the traffic on comp.sys.next, so I humbly request that a) all discussions have "split comp.sys.next" or "splitting the newsgroup" or somesuch in the subject line to make it easy to junk, and b) to create as few new subjects along that line as possible, so that a single kill will get as many as possible. Thank you fer your support. Mark Adler madler@Pooh.caltech.edu