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*** 1,163 ****
  From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
  Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.groups,news.admin
! Subject: How to Create a New Newsgroup (Updated: 14 April 1988)
! Message-ID: <4016@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
! Date: 9 May 88 04:36:22 GMT
! Expires: 18 Jun 88 04:36:21 GMT
  Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
! Lines: 152
  Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU
! Supersedes: <3723@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
  
  
  
- 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,
--- 1,128 ----
  From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
  Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.groups,news.admin
! Subject: How to Create a New Newsgroup (Updated: 14 May 1989)
! Message-ID: <6770@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
! Date: 15 May 89 04:05:34 GMT
! Expires: 13 Aug 89 04:05:33 GMT
! Followup-To: news.announce.newusers
  Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
! Lines: 117
  Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU
! Supersedes: <6769@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
  
  
+ 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,