This is a preliminary revision history of the guidelines for newsgroup creation in the Big Seven and Big Eight hierarchies. It's possible, thanks to things like Supersedes: headers, to verify in exquisite detail whether a collection of regularly posted posts is complete. I haven't done that. I've basically just taken what a few simple searches at Google gave me and downloaded the earliest example I could find of each last-changed or last-modified line. Then I've run diff -cw on each successive pair. The downloaded files, and the diffs, are all at There have been three major drafts of the guidelines, to the best of my knowledge: I've basically done this as a last-minute lark before getting my home net access cut off, and don't pretend to have researched the matter fully, but it doesn't *look* to me like there were any formally posted group creation guidelines until Gene Spafford's of October 31, 1987. In particular, if there were any, they weren't posted to {net|mod|news}.announce.newusers. So without further ado, on to the revision history. GENE SPAFFORD, author GENE SPAFFORD, reviser October 31, 1987 Sample Message-ID: <2177@arthur.cs.purdue.edu> This document explicitly appeals to the authority of the Backbone and involves the Backbone in newsgroup creation, but also includes a number of features of the modern system already. Here's its core process: --begin quote-- 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. --end quote-- The trusted sources for control messages named are Gene Spafford, Mark Horton, Rick Adams, Greg Woods, and Erik Fair, respectively. April 14, 1988 Sample Message-ID: <4016@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Expanded explanation that these are only guidelines. Discouraged proponents of groups to which there might be objections. Added more advice on naming in step 2. Removed suggestion that voting should happen in step 3. Made step 5 more tentative ("The threshold currently *suggested as* necessary...", emphasis mine). Added another address for Gene Spafford in step 6. GREG WOODS, author GREG WOODS, reviser May 14, 1989 Sample Message-ID: <6770@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> A completely new document. Claims that these guidelines should apply in all cases except for "extraordinary circumstances", a much stronger claim than in the previous document by Gene Spafford. This is, in essence, the current system, although there has been one more complete rewrite of the documentation, and many smaller revisions. Here it is in this early form. (I don't say "original form" because I have no doubt that there were earlier drafts, which may even have been posted, although not to news.announce.newusers.) ---begin quote--- 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. ---end quote--- September 3, 1989 Sample Message-ID: <7841@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> This is the revision that introduces news.announce.newgroups. Replaced posting to news.groups with posting to news.announce.newgroups, Followup-To: news.groups, in Discussion item 1. (The requirement that the CFD appear in nan was not, however, strictly enforced for a long time to come. It was rare for a *long* long time to cross-post CFDs between nan and news.groups.) Added option of multiple moderators in Discussion item 3. Replaced news.groups with news.announce.newgroups in Vote item 1. (No CFV in nan appears to have been a serious objection much earlier than no CFD there; while Greg Woods was moderator, he made a point of fishing CFVs from news.groups and reposting them, but thereafter nan posting became steadily more required. People frequently began votes by posting the CFV everywhere else and simultaneously posting another one to nan, in the hope that it would appear in the next semi-weekly or weekly posting run.) Added permission for posting of mass acks (without indications of which way people had voted) during the vote, in Vote item 3. (Note that the ban on partial vote results was also not strictly enforced for a long time.) Replaced news.groups with news.announce.newgroups in Result item 1. (I think, but am not sure, that Results followed a trajectory somewhere between that of CFDs and that of CFVs in their migration to nan.) Added detailed instructions for newgrouping to Result item 3. (Vote taker or vote taker's admin should send newgroup if possible, otherwise Greg Woods will. Either way, don't send a copy of the Result, and do write to Gene Spafford to get the group added to the List of Active Newsgroups.) GENE SPAFFORD, reviser October 10, 1989 Sample Message-ID: <8307@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Reduced minimum voting period from 30 to 21 days, in Vote item 2. November 6, 1989 Sample Message-ID: <8544@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Corrected spelling of "hierarchy". Reduced voting period from 30 to 21 days, in Result item 1. GREG WOODS, reviser February 16, 1990 Sample Message-ID: <9728@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Added the 2/3rds YES rule. July 19, 1990 Sample Message-ID: <11122@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Changed Discussion item 2 to describe the voting period. (Undoubtedly an editing error; but there is now no minimum CFD period, and there will not be a minimum CFD/RFD period for the rest of the life of this document.) Specified that the 5 day waiting period begins with the Result posting in news.announce.newgroups, in Result item 2. Specified that there must be 100 more *valid* YES votes than NO votes, in Result item 3. ELIOT LEAR, reviser September 6, 1990 Sample Message-ID: <11576@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Removed Discussion item 2. Added requirement that all addresses receiving votes count both YES and NO votes to Vote item 1. (I'm fairly certain this wasn't enforced for some time yet; having separate YES and NO vote addresses was common although not the norm.) Added maximum vote length of 31 days to Vote item 2. DAVID LAWRENCE, reviser May 19, 1991 Sample Message-ID: <14708@ector.cs.purdue.edu> This is a fairly major revision. Replaced "call for discussion" with "request for discussion" in Discussion item 1 and Vote item 1. Changed submission address for nan in Discussion item 1. (This must have changed before too, but I didn't catch it. Sorry.) Added paragraph saying RFDs should be cross-posted to all groups, including nan, not multi-posted, to Discussion item 1. Added Discussion item 3 (the old item 3 had been item 2 since Sept. 6, 1990) offering group-advice to help proponents with the process. Added Vote item 7, which either banned multi-group CFVs or multi-group ballot items (what it says is "A vote should be run only for a single group proposal."). Revised Result item 3, removing all the material on newgroup messages, and replaced that material with Result item 4, saying that the nan moderator will send the newgroup and that vote takers for moderated groups should e-mail both Gene Spafford and David Lawrence with the submission address. Added Result item 5, adding a six-month cooling off period for failed proposals. GENE SPAFFORD, reviser September 2, 1991 Sample Message-ID: <15999@ector.cs.purdue.edu> Changed "may be counted" to "will be counted" in Vote items 2 and 4. November 30, 1991 Sample Message-ID: diff found no changes outside the headers, nor any new headers. September 23, 1992 Sample Message-ID: Changed tale-related addresses significantly in Discussion items 1 and 3, and Result item 4. Corrected "names of the vote[r]s" in Result item 1. DAVID LAWRENCE, reviser September 17, 1993 Sample Message-ID: Added retrospective credit to Gene Spafford in the extra headers. Added note promising major changes soon. Changed nan submission address slightly, in Discussion item 1. Stated that use of UVV is "strongly advocated for all newsgroup proposals", giving Ron Dippold as contact, in a preface to Vote. Removed Gene Spafford as someone to write to when a moderated group is created, in Result item 4. November 30, 1993 Sample Message-ID: Removed note promising major changes soon. February 17, 1994 Sample Message-ID: Revised preface to Vote, saying the UVV "currently handle vote gathering and counting for all newsgroup proposals". November 2, 1994 Sample Message-ID: Changed Ron Dippold's address slightly in preface to Vote. January 18, 1995 Sample Message-ID: Changed "USENET" to "Usenet" in preface. Added group-mentors in preface to Discussion. Removed Ron Dippold's name, and changed UVV contact address significantly, in preface to Vote. Changed tale's address slightly in Result item 4. October 27, 1995 Sample Message-ID: Added reference to humanities.* in preface. Changed UVV contact address significantly in preface to Vote. November 11, 1995 Sample Message-ID: Added summary of changes. Rewrapped. (This should have been ignored by diff -cw, that's what I thought the -w option *did*, but I see that this is not so. Ah well. I'm not going to hand-compare, so the rest of this is according to tale's summary.) Changed group-mentors address significantly in preface to Discussion. Noted that the six-month waiting period does not apply to invalidated or cancelled "polls" in Result item 5. December 19, 1996 Sample Message-ID: Removed summary of changes. Added requirement that RFDs be formatted according to the "How to Format and Submit" document to Discussion item 1. Added "ADDITIONAL REFERENCES" section pointing to that document and also "How to Write a Good Newsgroup Proposal", the Newsgroup Creation Companion, and "What Is Usenet?". January 31, 1997 Sample Message-ID: Changed nan submission and group-advice addresses significantly in Discussion items 1 and 3. Corrected a typo in ADDITIONAL REFERENCES. RUSS ALLBERY, author RUSS ALLBERY, reviser June 29, 1998 Sample Message-ID: I'm quite certain that I don't have the entire revision history of this document, given that I have only eight versions and we are now on "revision 0.35", but here's an account of what I do have. This is, of course, the existing (though officially unofficial) process. As stated in the June 29, 1998 draft: ---begin quote--- GENERAL RULE 1. Only postings to news.announce.newgroups authorized by the n.a.n moderator are considered official in this process. All time limits and deadlines will be based on the Date headers of those posts. THE DISCUSSION 2. A proposal officially begins with the posting of a Request for Discussion (RFD) in news.announce.newgroups. A valid RFD must contain a rationale for the proposal, charters for all newsgroups which would be created or changed, and moderator information sections for all created or changed groups that are proposed to be moderated. The RFD must be crossposted to news.groups, should be crossposted to groups likely to be affected by the proposal, and may be crossposted to other related newsgroups. Crossposts to poorly propagated or regional newsgroups may be disallowed at the discretion of the n.a.n moderator. Proposals will only be posted or crossposted to moderated groups with the explicit permission of the moderators of those groups. The total length of the Newsgroups header in the RFD (and CFV) must not exceed 200 characters, including "Newsgroups: ". Followups will be set to news.groups only. The RFD, after it has been posted, may be redistributed freely. 3. A proposal must consist of one or more of the following changes to Big Eight newsgroups: Creation of a new newsgroup, removal of a newsgroup (by subsumption into an existing group), change in the moderation status of a newsgroup, or renaming of a newsgroup. No other types of proposals will be accepted, nor will proposals whose intent is to create, change, or remove newsgroups outside the Big Eight. 4. All proposed group names must be within the Big Eight hierarchies. A group name is made up of name components separated by '.'; each component must consist solely of lowercase letters, digits, '+', and '-', must contain at least one non-digit, and must be no more than fourteen characters long. 5. A proposal may include multiple changes if they are closely related, but each individual change (as defined in point 3) will be voted on separately. The n.a.n moderator may require closely-related proposals to be combined or a bundling of unrelated proposals to be separated. 6. A proposal that is substantially similar to a previous failed proposal may not be made until at least six months after the close of vote on the last such failed proposal. 7. A proposal that significantly affects the same groups as a previous successful proposal may not be made until at least three months after the implementation (point 27) of the last such successful proposal. 8. Two proposals with overlapping purposes, newsgroup names, or effects may not proceed at the same time. Precedence is normally given to the first group to present a formal proposal, but repeat proposals under point 6 above may be handled differently at the discretion of the n.a.n moderator (to prevent monopolization of a proposal). 9. Proposals that unmoderate or change the moderators of an actively moderated group against the desires of the moderators will be rejected. 10. Proposals may be rejected by the n.a.n moderator in the extremely rare circumstance that the proposal would be opposed by the vast majority of news administrators or have a sufficiently deleterious effect on the Big Eight as a whole as to make it dangerously unworkable or extremely ill-advised (for example, a proposal for a newsgroup where the the act of posting on charter would be nigh universally illegal). 11. All discussion of active proposals should be posted to news.groups. If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, it may be crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken to ensure that all discussion appears in news.groups. 12. Additional RFDs for a proposal may be posted as needed, as the proposal changes in response to discussion. An additional RFD is needed if there have been major changes to the proposal or if 60 days have passed since the previous RFD. Examples of major changes include any change to a group's name or moderation status or a significant alteration to the charter. Examples of minor changes not requiring an additional RFD include the addition or removal of a proponent or tidying up some wording in the rationale or charter. 13. The discussion period must be a minimum of 21 days. If a proposal remains in the RFD phase for more than four months, the proposal may be suspended and a competing proposal allowed to go forward. THE VOTE 14. Success or failure of a proposal will be determined by the results of a general interest poll conducted by a member of the Usenet Volunteer Votetakers (UVV). Before the poll begins, the proponent must submit a Proponent Questionnaire (PQ) to the UVV. The votetaker will post a CFV (Call for Votes) based on the PQ, generally to the same newsgroups to which the RFD was posted. Every proposed change from the list in point 3 above will be voted on separately and will pass or fail independently. 15. The first CFV may be posted between 10 and 60 days after the latest RFD for the proposal. At least 21 days must have elapsed between the first RFD and the first CFV. 16. The voting period will last 21 days. The votetaker will post a second CFV near the middle of that period. Only votes that arrive at the votetaker's machine prior to the close of voting will be considered valid. 17. The votetaker may reject votes not cast precisely according to the instructions in the CFV. 18. Only one vote per person is permitted. If multiple votes are received from a single account, only the last vote will be counted, even if the account is used by more than one person. Multiple votes which are, in the judgement of the votetaker, attempts to bypass these restrictions may all be rejected. 19. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid. Votes from nonexistent accounts are not valid. Votes mailed by WWW/HTML/CGI forms are considered proxy votes and are not valid. The precise definition of anonymous is at the discretion of the votetaker but should not be interpreted as requiring all voters to use their real name; votes from well-established pseudonyms should be accepted. 20. The explicit voting instructions in the CFV may not be distributed, in whole or in part, to any forum, by anyone except the votetaker. People wishing to vote should be referred to the CFV posted in news.announce.newgroups or told to contact the votetaker for a copy. Violations may result in invalidation of votes by the votetaker or long-term suspension of the proposal by the n.a.n moderator. 21. Whether or not the CFV may be sent to mailing lists is at the discretion of the votetaker, and if done should only be done by the votetaker directly. 22. The validity of any given vote is determined by the votetaker. Votes may be disqualified for violation of the above points or for any other actions seriously detrimental to the integrity of the vote, at the discretion of the votetaker. The decision of the votetaker may be appealed to the n.a.n moderator. The decision of the n.a.n moderator is final. THE RESULT 23. After the completion of the vote, the votetaker will tally the result and post it to the same newsgroups to which the votetaker posted the CFV. The posted result will contain the name, a form of the e-mail address, and the vote of everyone who voted except for those people who subsequently cancelled their vote. 24. For every separate vote in the proposal, the vote will be considered to have passed if and only if it received at least 100 more YES than NO votes and received at least twice as many YES as NO votes. 25. After the result posting, there will be a five day period when any objections to the vote may be raised in news.groups. The n.a.n moderator should also be informed (at newgroups-request@isc.org) of any objections or inaccuracies that could change the outcome. 26. At the conclusion of this waiting period, the n.a.n moderator will either validate the results or will put the proposal on hold while objections are considered. The final determination of whether a vote has passed or failed will be made by the n.a.n moderator; the n.a.n moderator may also call for a revote or take other appropriate action to deal with severely flawed votes. 27. All portions of the proposal that passed will be implemented by control messages issued by the n.a.n moderator. Control messages are sent at 10:30am US Eastern time, Monday through Thursday. Ordinarily, control messages implementing the portions of a proposal which passed will be sent at the first such time at least five days (120 hours) after the posting of the result. Delays may be caused by unresolved objections from point 25, major holidays, to allow initial setup of moderation, or for transition periods (for example, removal of an existing group may be delayed until creation of its replacement has had time to propagate). ---end quote--- July 18, 1998 Sample Message-ID: Expanded preface (not quoted above), notably giving pointers to "the FAQs" and to group-mentors (with address). March 14, 1999 Sample Message-ID: This is "revision 0.29". Added a couple of extra headers. Added paragraph on the document's status to preface. Replaces "Followups" with "The Followup-To header" in item 2, and adds a reference to item 11 there. Changed "at least one non-digit" to "at least one letter [a-z]" in item 4. Clarified wording of item 24. Removed .sig. March 28, 1999 Sample Message-ID: This is "revision 0.31". Removed a typo in item 10. Changed "four months" to "120 days" in item 13, and added a sentence saying proposals are "considered withdrawn" 120 days after their last RFD if a PQ wasn't submitted within 60 days of their last RFD. February 5, 2000 Sample Message-ID: This is "revision 0.32". Changed the limit on namespace components from 14 characters to 20 in item 4. November 27, 2000 Sample Message-ID: This is "revision 0.33". Replaced the sentence "Votes from nonexistent accounts are not valid." in item 19 with a new item 19 saying that munged addresses may not vote and that votes whose acks bounce will not be counted. (Ah. I'd been wondering just when that happened.) The rest of the old item 19 became item 20, and subsequent items were re-numbered accordingly. June 9, 2001 Sample Message-ID: This is "revision 0.34". Added a sentence to item 5 saying that its previously-final sentence did not apply to proposals already posted as RFDs, and pointing to item 8. November 2, 2001 Sample Message-ID: This is "revision 0.35". Further clarified the second sentence in item 5.