From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 12:27:27 -0500 From: Erik Schoenfelder schoenfr@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de Subject: creating a newsgroup [was Re: Gnots] Topicbox-Message-UUID: ff3bf7e8-eac7-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Message-ID: <19940204172727.mM1qBHQzppskiZsM_0-_zJYlql6h188CSG7SXFxC87s@z> Hi! > There was a post about creating comp.os.plan9. What happened? Steve> ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.groups/How_to_Create_a_New_Usenet_Newsgroup Steve> In general, somebody needs to draft up a Request For Comments, Steve> including a proposed charter of the new newsgroup and make it Steve> available. Then, if there's any interest out in net land, Steve> have a vote. If I get it right, no RFC (Request For Comments) is needed (or helpful). Here is very rough the guideline (no warranty): The first step is a RFD (Request For Discussion) to the moderated group news.announce.newgroups with the desired name and charter of the group. The discussion period takes at least 30 days. Then it is possible to post a CFV (Call For Votes) again with (a possibly new) charter and instruction how to cast a vote. The voting takes between 21 and 31 days. Then the results are posted and after a 5 days waiting period 100 or more YES votes are needed and a 2/3 majority over the NO votes are neccessary to create the group. The complete ``How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup'' is appended. Erik -- Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!nic.hookup.net!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!not-for-mail From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.groups,news.admin.misc,news.announce.newgroups,news.answers Subject: How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup Supersedes: Followup-To: news.newusers.questions Date: 1 Feb 1994 19:12:36 -0500 Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA, USA Lines: 157 Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net Expires: 3 Apr 94 12:12:34 GMT Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net Summary: creating new groups in comp, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, or talk Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu news.announce.newusers:397 news.groups:37212 news.admin.misc:7804 news.announce.newgroups:1811 news.answers:14803 Archive-name: creating-newsgroups/part1 Original-author: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) Comment: enhanced & edited until 5/93 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) Last-change: 30 Nov 1993 by tale@uunet.uu.net 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 request 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. The 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 newgroups@uunet.uu.net. The article should be cross-posted among the newsgroups, including news.announce.newgroups, rather than posted as separate articles. Note that standard behaviour for posting software is to not present the articles in any groups when cross-posted to a moderated group; the moderator will handle that for you. 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. 3) Group advocates seeking help in choosing a name to suit the proposed charter, or looking for any other guidance in the creation procedure, can send a message to group-advice@uunet.uu.net; a few seasoned news administrators are available through this address. The Vote Currently, the use of the Usenet Volunteer Votetakers (UVV) is strongly advocated for all newsgroup proposals. Ron Dippold co-ordinates this group. Contact him to arrange the handling of the vote. The mechanics of vote will be handled in accord with the paragraphs below. 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 request 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 will 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) will 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. 7) A vote should be run only for a single group proposal. Attempts to create multiple groups should be handled by running multiple parallel votes rather than one vote to create all of the groups. 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 voters 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. 4) The newgroup message will be sent by the news.announce.newgroups moderator at the end of the waiting period of a successful vote. If the new group is moderated, the vote-taker should send a message during the waiting period to David C. Lawrence with both the moderator's contact address and the group's submission address. 5) A proposal which has failed under point (3) above should not again be brought up for discussion until at least six months have passed from the close of the vote. This limitation does not apply to proposals which never went to vote.