For an introduction to this thread's chronological posts, please see the first post in the series, for the year 1981, with Message-ID <3c4a40c1$0$95686$892e7fe2@authen.puce.readfreenews.net>. The single most prominent aspect of the 1990 lists, to me as the compiler of these posts, is the increasing number of errors. The lists' poster, Gene Spafford, wrote in his farewell note that he stopped posting them for several months once essentially due to burnout; the months in question begin at the end of 1990, and the burnout is visible some months earlier. (The resulting gap between lists is arguably the longest thus far since 1982.) Obviously, if the flashiest events of 1990 were a bunch of typos, 1990 should have been a relatively quiet year as far as *substantive* changes in the list of newsgroups are concerned, and I think that to be true. The list didn't stop growing, nor did it grow especially fast, and with one exception the growth wasn't concentrated all that much in any one part of the Big 7. The exception, though, heralds the explosive growth still to come in the 1990s: this is the year in which a number of the comp.* sub-hierarchies devoted to specific systems took their first steps towards their current form, usually by way of "reorganizations" that created a whole bunch of groups at once. This is the only year for which I have a(n almost) full, chronologically organised, archive of news.announce.newgroups. Much of the material of this post is drawn from that archive, rather than from the lists of newsgroups, because I think it's worth using the archive I've got now; who knows what the future holds? I regret that I can't continue, in this or the subsequent posts, reporting on new FAQs. I don't consider the "List of Periodic Informational Postings" an especially reliable guide to the subject, at least not at such early dates, and there are far too many references to FAQs archived at Google from 1990 for me to go through them looking for actual documents. (About half the documents mentioned in the 1987 to 1989 posts came from the LPIP, the other half from such Google searches, with minimal overlap.) I intend for the final versions of the hierarchy-summaries to include notes on each group's FAQs, but I don't know if I'll ever do the final versions, and the hierarchy-summaries meant to appear along with the 1995 to ?2004 year-summaries as the third phase of this project will certainly not note FAQs systematically. Joe Bernstein Lists of Newsgroups Posted in 1990 GENE SPAFFORD "List of Active Newsgroups (Updated: 16 Feb 1990)" February 17, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 9736@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "List of Moderators (Updated: 16 Feb 1990)" February 17, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 9738@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies (Updated: 16 Feb 1990)" February 17, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 9735@medusa.cs.purdue.edu Supersedes headers indicate a previous posting run, with Message-IDs respectively of 9709, 9711, and 9708@medusa.cs.purdue.edu, but this is not archived, and may simply have been a swiftly-cancelled draft posting. The shakedown of news.announce.newgroups continued. I'm going to mention here a bunch of posts indicating ways in which it was not yet nan as we know it. Yes, this is how this post, despite having only seven list-posting runs to report on, will be bulked up; but have no fear, for this will only last into February of 1991, where my chronologically-organised archive of news.announce.newgroups gives out. MODERATOR: On January 4, Greg Woods posted an announcement that he would be on vacation from January 17 until February 3, and that Eliot Lear, best known hitherto as the head of the bionet.* hierarchy, would be filling in for him. On January 16, he announced that he would be gone for *three* weeks. He would not be heard from again in news.announce.newgroups, the group he had created. Eliot Lear, to my mind the great unsung hero of this phase of the Big 7's history, stayed on the job. GUIDELINES: Perhaps the most important sign of How Things Were is the CFD posted February 7 by David Stodolsky for a change in the Guidelines to allow STV voting. Stodolsky notes correctly that this would merely conform the Guidelines to existing practice. Also concerning the Guidelines, on February 15 Edward Vielmetti proposed a "mercy rule" by which proposals with overwhelmingly more YES than NO votes could close voting early. Neither of these proposals appears to have gone anywhere. The 2/3rds minimum for YES votes (the *only* proposed guideline change known to me to have proceeded from an nan proposal, via a vote, to enactment) was first included in the Guidelines in a revision dated February 16. In the discussion of comp.sys.alliant, one poster noted that he'd been unable to get the group created as an inet group "several years ago". Similarly a proposal for comp.sys.sun.386i indicated that mail to Erik Fair requesting an inet group had not been answered; this proposal appeared January 15 in nan. The same CFD relied on the old Guidelines statement that a thriving mailing list would be proof of interest, but Greg Woods inserted a moderator's note saying otherwise. CFDs: The CFD posted December 20, 1989 had only been a vague call for "subgroups", but the CFV for rec.arts.cinema posted January 22 contained a "CHARTER" that explicitly detailed criteria for moderation and specific types of posts that would not be approved. In another before-its-time touch, this group's proponent, votetaker, and moderator candidate were three different people. The roughly contemporary soc.religion.eastern proposal had an only slightly less detailed charter. Google has what is certainly an improperly approved article, but perhaps not a forged one, appearing February 16, constituting a flame (and cross-posted to alt.flame) in the form of a proposal, for news.groups.ficc. Considering that the first RFD I ever wrote was for a news.groups split, I find myself envious that this person managed (however illicitly) to make his official. CFVs (several paragraphs): A CFD for comp.sys.amiga.hardware appeared in nan on December 16, 1989. The CFV followed on January 1, with voting scheduled to end January 22. Clearly the concept of a Christmas break was not yet fully developed. On the other hand, as mentioned in the 1989 post, on January 2 the proponent for soc.culture.iranian cancelled the (highly irregular) vote, and on January 3 the proponent for rec.music.pfloyd not only did that, but posted a new CFD to re-initiate the process. On January 14, the votetaker and moderator candidate for talk.religion.pagan (moderated!) announced that from January 2 through the end of voting January 10, a network upgrade (ahem) had resulted in no votes being able to get through, and he was therefore *extending* the voting period from January 14 to January 20, and adding a new voting address. The group ultimately failed 141:49; some indication that this votetaker's approach was not especially disapproved may be inferred from the fact that John Gilmore was the only net.legend among the NO voters. A similar case: a CFV for comp.dcom.sys.cisco appeared on February 2 in which Lear added a moderator's note giving an incorrect address for the votetaker. He posted a correction February 5; the vote was allowed to proceed, and ultimately passed 221:35. *Again*: the votetaker for rec.models.misc was allowed to post on February 8 full partial results, showing that the group would fail unless people hurried up and voted, and a plea that people should do so. (It failed 73:6 anyway.) A proposal for a moderated group about Objectivism resulted in two simultaneous votes, one initiated February 2 (sci.philosophy.objectivism moderated), the other February 7 (talk.philosophy.objectivism unmoderated), with different votetakers. The logical culmination of this sequence of events was the CFV for rec.humor.objectivism posted February 8, with Lear's comment that it appeared "above my objections. Our newsgroup creation system does a good enough job undermining itself without messages like the following." I find no result reported for the talk.* or rec.* votes in nan through the end of April (note that the talk.* votetaker was also the apparent poster of the flame mentioned above); the sci.* vote failed 174:221. (The rec.* vote's result appeared in news.groups but not in nan; it was 115:109. This vote's taker later posted a query as to where the result of the talk.* vote had disappeared to.) A CFV posted January 15 for comp.text.tex gives some idea of the difficulties votetakers then faced. And the failing result post for rec.video.software posted on January 17 is a good example of how people were in fact coming to accept as not only necessary, but right, that they should observe the guidelines, although my comments in this post will continue to highlight the exceptions instead. RESULT POSTINGS: A vote result for comp.lang.cobol appeared in nan on January 1, in which the votetaker announced a 95:54 failure, and wrote (I quote): "Since the group failed, I will not waste bandwidth with posting the voters. I haven't checked for duplicates and other misses, but with the clear result, there's no need too. And, don't write to me get a list of voters, I will delete the mailboxes just when I've written this article." ! (Slightly more defensibly, another votetaker omitted posting the voter list after news.software.misc failed 62:12, as well; January 20. The voter list in the result for failed comp.sys.sun.intel, February 12, didn't indicate which way any given voter had voted.) END SELECTIVE REVIEW OF NAN Added: comp.specification, comp.sys.amiga.hardware, comp.sys.laptops, comp.sys.concurrent, news.lists.ps-maps, news.software.nn, rec.arts.startrek.info, rec.audio.high-end, rec.autos.driving, rec.sport.pro-wrestling, sci.virtual-worlds, soc.culture.british. Removed: comp.sys.masscomp. comp.protocols.iso.x400, comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway, and comp.security.announce were only partly listed on this List of Moderators, as described under June 1, 1988. Noteworthy addition to alt.*: alt.fan.dave_barry, the first alt.fan.* group listed. Summary for the Big 7: In comp.*, from 136 to 139 unmoderated groups, from 45 to 45 moderated groups, from 181 to 184 total. In misc.*, no change: 16 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 18 total. In news.*, from 10 to 11 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 6 moderated groups, from 15 to 17 total. In rec.*, from 86 to 88 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 7 moderated groups, from 91 to 95 total. In sci.*, from 28 to 28 unmoderated groups, from 3 to 4 moderated groups, from 31 to 32 total. In soc.*, from 28 to 29 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 6 moderated groups, from 34 to 35 total. In talk.*, no change: 13 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 13 total. 394 total (70 moderated, 324 unmoderated). Summary for inet: In comp.*, no change: 41 unmoderated groups, 5 moderated groups, 46 total. In news.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. In rec.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 1 moderated group, 2 total. In sci.*, no change: 3 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 3 total. In soc.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. 53 total (6 moderated, 47 unmoderated). Overall summary: In comp.*, from 177 to 180 unmoderated groups, from 50 to 50 moderated groups, from 227 to 230 total. In misc.*, no change: 16 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 18 total. In news.*, from 11 to 12 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 6 moderated groups, from 16 to 18 total. In rec.*, from 87 to 89 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 8 moderated groups, from 93 to 97 total. In sci.*, from 31 to 31 unmoderated groups, from 3 to 4 moderated groups, from 34 to 35 total. In soc.*, from 29 to 30 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 6 moderated groups, from 35 to 36 total. In talk.*, no change: 13 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 13 total. 447 total (76 moderated, 371 unmoderated). "List of Active Newsgroups (Updated: 17 Apr 1990)" April 17, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 10385@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "List of Moderators (Updated: 15 Apr 1990)" April 17, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 10387@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies (Updated: 15 Apr 1990)" April 17, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 10384@medusa.cs.purdue.edu With these lists, the number of official Big 7 groups passed 400. Again to the review of the nan archive: CFDs: The CFD for soc.culture.german on February 19 has a moderator's note saying that "On news.announce.newgroups, there will be but one call for discussion for any newsgroup." The first of the big comp.* reorgs was proposed on February 19 for comp.sys.mac.*; the proponent was an Apple employee. The CFD explicitly says that holding multiple votes in a single proposal violates the Guidelines, but that Gene Spafford and Greg Woods both approved of the idea anyway, and calls for discussion and a straw poll on whether this sort of thing should be allowed. (By modern standards, I don't see any violation.) The result appeared April 9, indicating that all votes had passed (the closest result being 324:113), but as of these lists, the results were not incorporated. They do appear on the next lists. When the CFD for a bodybuilding newsgroup resulted instead in a mailing list, Lear allowed an announcement to be posted on March 6. CFVs: On March 2, a reorg proposal also appeared for comp.sys.ibm.pc.* (though not from an IBM employee). This resulted in a CFV on April 12 in which nine newgroups, and three rmgroups, were to be voted on in *two* ballot items; moreover, one of the groups rmgrouped had only been created a month or so earlier (comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer). (In other words, this time we *do* have multiple violations of modern standards. Just like PCs in general, copying Macs but not getting it right...) The final CFV for soc.culture.polish on February 20 does not name the group in the subject line. The first CFV for comp.binaries.os2, February 27, noted that it was well over four weeks since the discussion began but that the votetaker had been "absent" for some time, after which an attempt to post a CFV February 20 had failed; he therefore thought the CFV was "contrary to the letter of the guidelines, but conforming to the spirit of the same". The votetaker for rec.arts.erotica apologised in his result posting, February 28, for having suggested a different name during the vote, but noted that the originally proposed name had been the more popular anyway. The vote result for sci.psychology.digest reported on what amounts to an STV vote on the name, March 8. The first CFV for the comp.sys.mac.* reorg, March 12, names no moderator for csm.announce. RESULTS: The result for comp.binaries.os2, March 26, indicates how many votes were received per domain, but does *not* list voters! The result was 203:31. The votetaker, while not listing voters, did have space to complain that the minimum number of votes required to create a group was far too low. The mind boggles. OTHER STUFF: An announcement of new alt.* groups appeared April 7. END SELECTIVE REVIEW OF NAN Added: comp.binaries.os2, comp.dcom.sys.cisco, comp.lang.functional, comp.periphs.scsi, comp.sys.alliant, comp.sys.apple2, comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer, comp.text.tex, rec.arts.cinema, rec.arts.dance, rec.arts.erotica, rec.food.recipes, rec.radio.noncomm, rec.sport.cricket, rec.windsurfing, sci.psychology.digest, soc.culture.french, soc.culture.german, soc.culture.iranian, soc.culture.pakistan, soc.culture.polish, soc.culture.vietnamese, soc.history, soc.religion.eastern. Removed: comp.sys.apple. The simultaneous proposals for soc.culture.french and soc.culture.german had the same proponent too, and to all intents and purposes the same charter. The moderator candidate for rec.arts.erotica made a slightly more detailed statement about keywords being added to posts in his result posting than he had in the CFV, but I don't see how either gets us to the yearslong paralysis of rae in recent times, supposedly due to charter requirements for some fearsome amount of work on keywords. The group passed 508:38, doing much better than most votes of the time (this is before routine multi-hundreds votes), and leaving me equally lost as regards the occasional accusations that this group passed on a stealth vote. Among the NO voters I recognise only Rich Salz and Gene Spafford as net.legends, though there are a few others from longtime moderators, and one which could conceivably have come from Mark Horton (no name is given). I recognise few of the voters on soc.history, and of these, *only* Todd McComb is familiar *from* the parts of the soc.history* hierarchy that I read. Evidently there were no hard feelings about the original soc.culture.iranian vote; ultimately there were only 30 NO voters on the second try by the same proponent. It also appears that the days of mass political voting on South Asian matters had yet to arrive; soc.culture.pakistan had only 71 NO voters, though predictably enough many of these have Hindu-looking names. comp.protocols.iso.x400, comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway, and comp.security.announce were only partly listed on this List of Moderators, as described under June 1, 1988. comp.dcom.telecom is added to the list of gatewayed Big 7 groups. comp.sys.apple remains on that list despite its removal. Noteworthy additions to alt.*: alt.hackers; alt.cobol (showing that groups that failed Big 7 votes were already being created in alt.*). Summary for the Big 7: In comp.*, from 139 to 145 unmoderated groups, from 45 to 46 moderated groups, from 184 to 191 total. In misc.*, no change: 16 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 18 total. In news.*, no change: 11 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 17 total. In rec.*, from 88 to 92 unmoderated groups, from 7 to 10 moderated groups, from 95 to 102 total. In sci.*, from 28 to 28 unmoderated groups, from 4 to 5 moderated groups, from 32 to 33 total. In soc.*, from 29 to 36 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 7 moderated groups, from 35 to 43 total. In talk.*, no change: 13 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 13 total. 417 total (76 moderated, 341 unmoderated). Summary for inet: In comp.*, no change: 41 unmoderated groups, 5 moderated groups, 46 total. In news.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. In rec.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 1 moderated group, 2 total. In sci.*, no change: 3 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 3 total. In soc.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. 53 total (6 moderated, 47 unmoderated). Overall summary: In comp.*, from 180 to 186 unmoderated groups, from 50 to 51 moderated groups, from 230 to 237 total. In misc.*, no change: 16 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 18 total. In news.*, no change: 12 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 18 total. In rec.*, from 89 to 93 unmoderated groups, from 8 to 11 moderated groups, from 97 to 104 total. In sci.*, from 31 to 31 unmoderated groups, from 4 to 5 moderated groups, from 35 to 36 total. In soc.*, from 30 to 37 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 7 moderated groups, from 36 to 44 total. In talk.*, no change: 13 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 13 total. 470 total (82 moderated, 388 unmoderated). "List of Active Newsgroups (Updated: 19 Jul 1990)" July 20, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11129@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "List of Moderators (Updated: 19 Jul 1990)" July 20, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11131@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies (Updated: 19 Jul 1990)" July 20, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11128@medusa.cs.purdue.edu With these lists, the inet-included number of newsgroups passed 500, thanks mainly to the arrival of the comp.* reorgs (the comp.sys.mac and comp.sys.ibm.pc ones are shown this time). These lists contained a startling number of errors, leading to a new posting run just thirteen days later (the closest together for years in either direction) and to a public notice by Spafford even sooner. Also in this posting run appeared Greg Woods's final revision of the Guidelines. To my mind, this revision is where the split between the guidelines as understood by participants in the process and the written Guidelines began, or at least, where that split became a fact of life rather than a problem to be fixed. Not only does this revision not address a number of issues raised by the oddities mentioned above (it will be nearly a year before David Lawrence adds some ambiguous language concerning multiple groups on a single vote, for example), but through an editing error, this revision eliminated any written reference to the minimum length of the discussion period, which would not be restored until Russ Allbery's complete overhaul of the document in 1998. Anyway, the other changes actually made amounted to rulings against nitpickers (for example, requiring "valid" votes in order to pass a group). Despite their frequent tardiness or irrelevance, I will occasionally mention Guidelines revisions in the rest of this post and in the following ones, but please refer to my revision history of the Guidelines (and to the revision history of Russ Allbery's version which he posted as a followup) if you want more details. Continuing with the review of the news.announce.newgroups archive, considerably lengthened by the three-month gap between list postings: GUIDELINES: On April 24, Brad Templeton announced a new trial.* group, trial.rec.metalworking, referring to the trial.* hierarchy as "a new alternate method of creating USENET newsgroups" and providing some information about it. (I find a post dated April 18, to news.misc, in which he announced it and indicated that he had not yet sent the newgroup for the first trial.* group, trial.newgroups.) CFDs: The naive reader might assume that comp.lang.idl-pvwave represented a rare case of the Big 7 muscling in on inet topic space, since the inet group comp.lang.idl had existed for years by this time. Alas, as the May 14 CFD explains, this is just a case of two entirely different languages with the same acronym (comp.lang.Interface-Description-Language was inet, while comp.lang.Interactive-{Data|Display}-Language-pvwave was Big 7). The CFD for rec.arts.sf-creative, posted May 21, included a long, detailed, charter spelling out moderation policies and charter amendment procedures. The group did not proceed to a vote. In contrast, misc.jobs.contract, which handily passed *its* vote, offered in the CFV posted May 28 a fairly long "charter" with an explicit ban on resume postings. The lengthy CFD for comp.unix.shell.programmer posted June 4 includes a section titled "Rationale", but no section titled "Charter", and sort of spoils the effect by also including references! The group appears to have been folded into the comp.unix.* reorg after that, which demoted it to getting no more than one line in that proposal. Over the three months between lists, an increasing number of proposals came to have something of a minimum standard format, although this usually appeared in CFVs rather than in CFDs, in which the group's name, moderation status, and purpose would be presented one after the other. The exact sequence varied, and I use "purpose" intentionally vaguely - usually, that slot was filled by something we today would call a charter, and often it was even called "charter", but sometimes a rationale would show up instead. A passage from Chip Salzenberg's first CFD for the comp.unix.* reorg (posted June 29), a passage which remained essentially unchanged through the reorg's CFV and did result in the action here described, is worth quoting in full as an opening shot in the *.misc wars, and as suggesting the one-sidedness of the battle even this early: "[*] NOTE: If comp.unix.xenix.sco passes, then comp.unix.xenix will be renamed to comp.unix.xenix.misc, since its charter will have changed to cover only non-SCO versions of Xenix. I didn't want to make two changes based on one vote, but in this case I think it's necessary. Experience teaches that parent groups frequently draw inappropriate crossposting from their children. Peer groups are better insulated from each other." A revised proposal for comp.sources.msdos, comp.binaries.msdos, and comp.sources.os2 appeared in nan, with a References header *and* a Subject header beginning in "Re: ", on June 11. This may be the first 2nd {C|R}FD to appear in nan. Even at this late date, the proponent of rec.food.restaurants was promising to rmgroup the alt.* group if the Big 7 one passed, not only in his June 24 CFD but continuing through three CFVs. Does this indicate obstinacy on his part, or was there actually a time when rmgrouping worked in alt.* ? CFVs: The votetaker for comp.org.sug was the acting executive director of the Sun User Group, according to his .sig in the result posted April 17. A CFV for rec.boats.paddlers appeared April 22. On April 27, Lear (not the votetaker) posted a correction of the name to rec.boats.paddle, along with complete voting instructions. Similarly, soc.culture.african.american had only a single nan CFV, in March; the CFD and the result posting named it with the name we know, but the CFV had the name soc.culture.african-american, and the result posted May 1 mentioned the change. Lear added the following note to the result posted May 14 for rec.music.country{.|-}western: "[This newsgroup's name was changed midstream to handle the magical 14 character limit. This is the second time this has happened in two weeks. Henceforth, I'll be warning vote takers before I approve their messages to news.announce.newgroups.-eliot]" Lear had approved and posted a CFD for comp.sys.atari.st.tech on April 22, but nevertheless added a note to the CFV, May 14, saying "I did not receive a call for discussion for this group". With the 2nd CFV May 21 he added an apology. Said second CFV also included "revised" voting instructions "with less-strict wording", according to the votetaker. The first CFV for misc.jobs.contract appeared May 28 with a note from Lear indicating that it should have appeared May 18; it specified a voting period from May 19 to June 18. The result posted June 23 reiterated this; the group passed anyway, 472:24. In sharp contrast, the result for rec.arts.animation states (with no note from Lear) that while voting began April 30, the nan CFV did not appear until May 22, and the votetaker had therefore extended the voting period from its original close of June 1 to June 12! (It was a close vote, too, 164:48.) The passing result for comp.std.c++ posted June 11 included a note from Lear saying that the vote had violated the Guidelines by taking more than a month. While the group didn't appear on these lists, it did appear on the August 2 correction lists. RESULTS: On May 7, the proponent for the renaming of comp.sys.apple announced in news.announce.newgroups that the rmgroup would happen in five days. On May 21, the votetaker for rec.boats.paddle announced its passage (with a subject line reading, ahem, see above, "REC.BOAT.PADDLE PASSES..."!), and said he'd send out a "create newsgroup message today", although the five-day waiting period was by this time long established. On June 4, a post appeared reporting the results of the 5-day waiting period for rec.arts.theatre (four added YES votes, with no effect on the outcome). This was the first such post to appear in nan. sci.geo.fluids got what may be a record low number of NO votes (at least under the Woods guidelines), only six according to the June 4 result posting. Richard Miller was one of the six. OTHER STUFF: Announcements of mailing lists continued to appear: April 20, June 18 (from Dimitri Vulis, by the way). Also, on May 14, Lear approved an announcement of an alt.* group at least superficially unrelated to any Big 7 proposal, alt.evil. And on June 29, of all strange things, Erik Fair posted an announcement of two new inet groups, ostensibly *before* newgrouping them! The .sig of the proponent for misc.forsale.computers (CFD May 4) calls him the maintainer of the Frequently Asked Questions for csip, presumably the comp.sys.ibm.pc whose removal was then being voted on. This is interesting to me as providing a date by which single-newsgroup FAQs were well enough known and regarded to be mentioned thus. On April 30 appeared the first of the posts whose subject lines would eventually stabilise at "Current Status of Votes on Newsgroups". This was the first of several nan-specific periodic postings, theoretically weekly, and it survived until late in 2000, although there was a long gap in 1997 at least; it has, of course, now been superseded by a daily post from the UVV. END SELECTIVE REVIEW OF NAN Added: comp.lang.idl-pvwave, comp.org.sug, comp.os.msdos.apps, comp.os.msdos.misc, comp.os.msdos.programmer, comp.os.os2.apps, comp.os.os2.misc, comp.os.os2.programmer, comp.protocols.time.ntp (inet), comp.robotics, comp.sys.amiga.games, comp.sys.atari.st.tech, comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware, comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware, comp.sys.mac.announce, comp.sys.mac.apps, comp.sys.mac.comm, comp.sys.mac.games, comp.sys.mac.misc, comp.sys.mac.system, comp.sys.mac.wanted, comp.windows.x.motif (inet), misc.education, misc.forsale.computers, misc.jobs.contract, rec.arts.animation, rec.arts.theatre, rec.boats.paddle, rec.fitness, rec.martial-arts, rec.music.country.western, rec.running, sci.geo.fluids, soc.culture.african.american, talk.environment. Removed: comp.os.os2, comp.sys.ibm.pc, comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer, comp.sys.mac. The CFD for comp.sys.amiga.games posted July 2 by Kent Paul Dolan is pretty funny. The group had been created but apparently not according to the Guidelines; note however that it appears on these lists. The July 17 CFV is also pretty funny. comp.protocols.iso.x400, comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway, and comp.security.announce were only partly listed on this List of Moderators, as described under June 1, 1988. The newsgroup alt.society.cu-digest was similarly partly listed on this List of Moderators under the name comp.society.cu-digest; since it didn't appear on the List of Active Newsgroups, I don't count it below or list it above. comp.protocols.time.ntp and comp.windows.x.motif were also thus partly listed on this List of Moderators, and were listed as moderated in the Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies post, although in fact they were unmoderated groups; I count them, therefore, as moderated below. comp.os.vms and sci.physics.fusion are added to the list of gatewayed Big 7 newsgroups. comp.sys.apple2 replaces comp.sys.apple on that list, as it had replaced it on the main list in the previous posting. By the date of this posting run, the following trial.* groups are attested as existing: trial.newgroups (after April 18, probably before April 24, certainly before May 7); trial.rec.metalworking (by April 24); trial.test (by May 7); trial.misc.legal.software (by May 19). Noteworthy additions to alt.*: alt.folklore.urban; alt.tv.prisoner and alt.tv.twin-peaks, starting that sub-hierarchy. Also alt.fan.mike-jittlov, the *second* alt.fan.* group, and, still more portentously, the second alt.sex.* group, alt.sex.pictures! From here to infinity... Summary for the Big 7: In comp.*, from 145 to 161 unmoderated groups, from 46 to 47 moderated groups, from 191 to 208 total. In misc.*, from 16 to 19 unmoderated groups, from 2 to 2 moderated groups, from 18 to 21 total. In news.*, no change: 11 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 17 total. In rec.*, from 92 to 99 unmoderated groups, from 10 to 10 moderated groups, from 102 to 109 total. In sci.*, from 28 to 29 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 5 moderated groups, from 33 to 34 total. In soc.*, from 36 to 37 unmoderated groups, from 7 to 7 moderated groups, from 43 to 44 total. In talk.*, from 13 to 14 unmoderated groups, from 0 to 0 moderated groups, from 13 to 14 total. 447 total (77 moderated, 370 unmoderated). Summary for inet: In comp.*, from 41 to 41 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 7 moderated groups, from 46 to 48 total. In news.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. In rec.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 1 moderated group, 2 total. In sci.*, no change: 3 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 3 total. In soc.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. 55 total (8 moderated, 47 unmoderated). Overall summary: In comp.*, from 186 to 202 unmoderated groups, from 51 to 54 moderated groups, from 237 to 256 total. In misc.*, from 16 to 19 unmoderated groups, from 2 to 2 moderated groups, from 18 to 21 total. In news.*, no change: 12 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 18 total. In rec.*, from 93 to 100 unmoderated groups, from 11 to 11 moderated groups, from 104 to 111 total. In sci.*, from 31 to 32 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 5 moderated groups, from 36 to 37 total. In soc.*, from 37 to 38 unmoderated groups, from 7 to 7 moderated groups, from 44 to 45 total. In talk.*, from 13 to 14 unmoderated groups, from 0 to 0 moderated groups, from 13 to 14 total. 502 total (85 moderated, 417 unmoderated). "List of Active Newsgroups (Updated: 1 Aug 1990)" August 2, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11269@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "List of Moderators (Updated: 1 Aug 1990)" August 2, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11273@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies (Updated: 31 Jul 1990)" August 2, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11270@medusa.cs.purdue.edu This is mainly a clean-up posting run though it also reports two new Big 7 groups (I didn't try to count the groups in other hierarchies!). There isn't much to report from nan, obviously, but here's what I can offer: Lear reported the existence of an FTP archive of nan on July 21. Note that as far as I can see, this archive was *not* available to David Lawrence when he created *his* nan archive somewhat later. As of posting date, it reached from January 16, 1990 forward. A CFD for biz.entrepreneur appeared July 22, with a note from Lear saying he wasn't sure what biz.* policies were but would post it anyway as "a newgroup request". Lear noted in the CFV for comp.sys.novell posted July 17 that the vote violated the Guidelines since there had been no CFD in nan (true as best I can see, but the CFV did have appended to it the December 21, 1989! CFD for comp.sys.netware), and since trial.comp.sys.novell already existed. This vote did not result in a group added to the lists. In the July 22 CFV for comp.sys.amiga.video (note that this is running simultaneously with a CFV for comp.sys.amiga.games), Lear noted the lack of a nan CFD, but did not refer to this as a violation of the Guidelines. The group nevertheless didn't appear on any 1990 lists. There is an explicit 2nd CFD for the comp.unix.* reorg dated July 22. I see no further reference to the ban on 2nd CFDs that had been stated February 19. The CFV for the comp.unix.* reorg appeared July 28, only six days after the final CFD. It's worth noting that neither CFD, nor this CFV, contains anything resembling a charter for any of the resulting groups. Added: comp.std.c++, misc.fitness, rec.arts.disney. Removed: rec.fitness. (This is the one error in the July 17 lists that I didn't mention above.) Unmoderated in place: comp.protocols.time.ntp (inet), comp.windows.x.motif (inet). These are both merely error-corrections, though. comp.protocols.iso.x400, comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway, and comp.security.announce were only partly listed on this List of Moderators, as described under June 1, 1988. No additional trial.* groups are attested by the date of this posting run; the list of attested groups remains trial.misc.legal.software, trial.newgroups, trial.rec.metalworking, and trial.test. Noteworthy addition to alt.*: alt.censorship. This suggested to me, when I'd gotten that far, that perhaps alt.sex.pictures had been another mistake on Spafford's part, but if so, it hadn't been removed by this time. It *had* been joined by a third alt.sex.* group, alt.sex.bestiality; there was also a third alt.fan.* group, alt.fan.monty-python, and *two* more alt.tv.* groups (muppets and simpsons). This posting run also includes a post by Andrew Partan, last modified by Mark Linimon, describing "Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies", with Message-ID <11272@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>. I had not known of this series of posts until doing a search on "inet", of all things, late in my work on these year summaries; I'm not going to try even a cursory treatment of them here, but will note that they were maintained by Partan until September, 1991, then by Spafford until November, 1991, and then posted without changes until July, 1992. Summary for the Big 7: In comp.*, from 161 to 162 unmoderated groups, from 47 to 47 moderated groups, from 208 to 209 total. In misc.*, from 19 to 20 unmoderated groups, from 2 to 2 moderated groups, from 21 to 22 total. In news.*, no change: 11 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 17 total. In rec.*, no net change: 99 unmoderated groups, 10 moderated groups, 109 total. In sci.*, no change: 29 unmoderated groups, 5 moderated groups, 34 total. In soc.*, no change: 37 unmoderated groups, 7 moderated groups, 44 total. In talk.*, no change: 14 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 14 total. 449 total (77 moderated, 372 unmoderated). Summary for inet: In comp.*, from 41 to 43 unmoderated groups, from 7 to 5 moderated groups, from 48 to 48 total. In news.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. In rec.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 1 moderated group, 2 total. In sci.*, no change: 3 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 3 total. In soc.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. 55 total (6 moderated, 49 unmoderated). Overall summary: In comp.*, from 202 to 205 unmoderated groups, from 54 to 52 moderated groups, from 256 to 257 total. In misc.*, from 19 to 20 unmoderated groups, from 2 to 2 moderated groups, from 21 to 22 total. In news.*, no change: 12 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 18 total. In rec.*, no net change: 100 unmoderated groups, 11 moderated groups, 111 total. In sci.*, no change: 32 unmoderated groups, 5 moderated groups, 37 total. In soc.*, no change: 38 unmoderated groups, 7 moderated groups, 45 total. In talk.*, no change: 14 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 14 total. 502 total (85 moderated, 417 unmoderated). It's probably worth mentioning that I broke off my work here for several months, which will probably mean the omission of items from the selective review of news.announce.newgroups that I would have caught had I continued straight through. Sorry. "List of Active Newsgroups" September 6, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11582@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "List of Moderators" September 6, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11586@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies" September 6, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11583@medusa.cs.purdue.edu This posting run included Eliot Lear's only revision of the Guidelines. (The next one, eight months later, will be by David Lawrence.) In it, Lear did explicitly require voting periods to end within 31 days (presumably in response to the rec.arts.animation travesty mentioned above under the July list; compare the August 5 "second" CFV for rec.sport.tennis). He set up complex rules limiting the addresses votetakers could use to collect votes; they ban, in particular, anything similar to the 2nd CFV for sci.engr, posted September 4, which has separate *votetakers* for YESes and NOes! He also got rid of the duplicative paragraph that had erased the minimum length of the discussion period, but did not restore the erased rule. Continuing with the review of the news.announce.newgroups archive: CFDs: At this time, the minimum standard format mentioned under the July lists appeared somewhat more rigidly in several proposals, whose "CHARTER" sections had three sub-sections, "Name", "Purpose", and "Moderation"; the "Purpose" section in each case really means charter, not rationale. (See comp.ai.philosophy, rec.food.restaurants, and soc.culture.europe.central. For similar structures in which "Charter" replaces "Purpose" and there is no overall title for the section, see for example rec.pets.dogs.) I have the strong impression that this modicum of standardisation resulted from proponents copying each other to make their work easier at least as much as from outside advice or pressure on them. This would make of this more of a fad or trend than a genuine norm in the making. But at any rate it's a step on the road to formal documents in which charters are clearly defined. The proponent and votetaker for rec.sport.tennis, apologising for confusion about the voting period in the abovementioned August 5 "second" (actually third) CFV, mentioned that he was new to Usenet. The September 4 CFV for soc.culture.europe.central (for which I have no CFDs archived) includes a charter inviting posts "in any Central European language" and adding "Please include a brief abstract in English." CFVs: The second CFV for soc.culture.nepal, which did pass, appeared two days before the close of voting, but the third CFV for rec.food.restaurants, which also passed, cut things even closer: yes, *one* day! Perhaps the reason for such tardy CFVs is indicated by the vote totals: 133:16 and 148:39 respectively. In the August 13 "Current Status of Votes on Newsgroups", Lear listed among the groups "pending creation" comp.sources.apple2, with the note "(vote is ending as I post this message)" ?! My archive includes an August 27 mass ack for rec.games.mud, for which I have no previous CFV. There is no note from Lear objecting, so presumably my archive is incomplete. Well, maybe. I also have no posts at *all* about sci.engr prior to the September 4 2nd CFV and mass ack mentioned above, but again, there's no visible objection from Lear. (I do note a July 14 CFD for talk.engineering.education, for whatever that's worth.) RESULTS: In the comp.unix.* reorg result posted August 20, the vote to create comp.unix.xenix.sco (and thereby force renaming of comp.unix.xenix without a vote) came closest to failing, with the vote 207:83, but did not fail. Among the 83 NO voters, I recognise only Gregory Woodbury as someone prominent in news.groups, although an address without a name, listed as voting NO on the whole proposal, looks to me like Steve Bellovin's. Shame on us. In the rec.sport.tennis result posted August 27, the proponent/votetaker/newbie left the vote counting to Eliot Lear, who reported a 119:23 loss without checking for duplicates, and, given the problems with the vote, "strongly suggest"ed another try in six months. (The six-month waiting period will first appear in the Guidelines in May of 1991.) Edward Vielmetti posted a passing result for comp.text.sgml on September 4, but the group would not appear on an official list until January; I don't know yet why not. (See the 1991 post for more on the exciting adventures of comp.text.sgml.) END SELECTIVE REVIEW OF NAN Added: comp.org.eff.news (inet), comp.org.eff.talk (inet), comp.sources.apple2, comp.unix.admin, comp.unix.internals, comp.unix.large, comp.unix.misc, comp.unix.msdos, comp.unix.programmer, comp.unix.shell, comp.unix.sysv286, comp.unix.sysv386, comp.unix.xenix.misc, comp.unix.xenix.sco, comp.windows.x.announce, rec.food.restaurants, soc.culture.nepal. Removed: comp.ai.digest, comp.unix.i386, comp.unix.microport, comp.unix.wizards, comp.unix.xenix. This is not the famous relatively recent removal of comp.unix.wizards; the reorg renamed *this* edition of cuw to comp.unix.internals. As will emerge below, this removal also became fairly famous in its own right. While the comp.org.eff.* groups weren't announced prior to creation, Erik Fair did confirm that one of them was legit in answer to a question, shortly after their creation. comp.protocols.iso.x400, comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway, comp.security.announce, and (beginning now) comp.org.eff.news were only partly listed on this List of Moderators, as described under June 1, 1988. Despite its name, comp.windows.x.announce was not listed on any List of Moderators in 1990; this posting run is the only time in 1990 it was listed as a Big 7 group. soc.roots is added to the list of gatewayed Big 7 groups. comp.unix.wizards remains on that list despite its removal. No additional trial.* groups are attested by the date of this posting run; the attested hierarchy remains trial.misc.legal.software, trial.newgroups, trial.rec.metalworking, and trial.test. However, as of October 2, trial.soc.culture.czechoslovak was described as "established", so the odds are good that it had been created by this date despite the lack of direct evidence of this. Noteworthy addition to alt.*: alt.startrek.creative; although Spafford lacked a description line, this looks like alt.censorship doing its job. Also note alt.games.galactic-bloodshed, which besides violating the 14-character limit (in the next list it was shown as alt.games.gb, sigh) was the first alt.games.* group to be listed (nor had there previously been an overall alt.games group). Finally, Spafford backed up the rec.food.restaurants proponent by removing alt.restaurants from his lists beginning with this posting run. I don't suppose this is actually a surprising datum, but the CFD for COMP.SYS.IBM.RISC6000 (sic), posted September 4, mentions a bit.listserv.* group, thus providing a terminus ante quem for that hierarchy's existence. Summary for the Big 7: In comp.*, from 162 to 170 unmoderated groups, from 47 to 47 moderated groups, from 209 to 217 total. In misc.*, no change: 20 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 22 total. In news.*, no change: 11 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 17 total. In rec.*, from 99 to 100 unmoderated groups, from 10 to 10 moderated groups, from 109 to 110 total. In sci.*, no change: 29 unmoderated groups, 5 moderated groups, 34 total. In soc.*, from 37 to 38 unmoderated groups, from 7 to 7 moderated groups, from 44 to 45 total. In talk.*, no change: 14 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 14 total. 459 total (77 moderated, 382 unmoderated). Summary for inet: In comp.*, from 43 to 44 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 6 moderated groups, from 48 to 50 total. In news.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. In rec.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 1 moderated group, 2 total. In sci.*, no change: 3 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 3 total. In soc.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. 57 total (7 moderated, 50 unmoderated). Overall summary: In comp.*, from 205 to 214 unmoderated groups, from 52 to 53 moderated groups, from 257 to 267 total. In misc.*, no change: 20 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 22 total. In news.*, no change: 12 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 18 total. In rec.*, from 100 to 101 unmoderated groups, from 11 to 11 moderated groups, from 111 to 112 total. In sci.*, no change: 32 unmoderated groups, 5 moderated groups, 37 total. In soc.*, from 38 to 39 unmoderated groups, from 7 to 7 moderated groups, from 45 to 46 total. In talk.*, no change: 14 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 14 total. 516 total (84 moderated, 432 unmoderated). "List of Active Newsgroups" October 5, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11947@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "List of Moderators" October 5, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11951@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies" October 5, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 11948@medusa.cs.purdue.edu The news.announce.newgroups archive is relatively thin at this time, thinner I think than actual newsgroup creation activity warranted. For example, I have a ten-day gap from September 14 to 24, which is difficult to believe just from the "Current Status" posts, to say nothing of the well-known stereotypes of September. I don't know whether the gaps result from my not retrieving posts from Google, Google's not making them available, or Lear's not approving them in the first place; at least the original archivers are relatively unlikely to be the source of the problem, since Google has two different sources for the entirety of 1990. Anyway, continuing to review what I *do* have: GUIDELINES: The CFV for talk.politics.drugs appeared in nan September 14 with a note from Lear saying he'd received no CFD for it. Apparently the handling of comp.benchmarks involved at least one nan rejection. Eliot Lear posted an explanation of his moderation policies to news.groups on September 12 (message-ID ), interesting in its own right, but also because the reply by the comp.benchmarks proponent, and Lear's answer, indicated that the problem involved was the very same minimum discussion period that had been mistakenly deleted from the written Guidelines a few months earlier. CFDs: A CFD posted September 11 suggested comp.graphics.visualization and comp.graphics.visualization.moderated, as a single proposal. (Only the unmoderated group was actually voted on, and eventually created.) A CFD posted September 14 offered rec.picture.misc and rec.picture.d (but as we all know, neither was created; an October 15 notice said nobody had stepped forward to moderate the misc group). One of the first groups ever rmgrouped had been net.auto.vw (previously net.vwrabbit). There had been occasional stirrings to replace it since that time, but I still can't resist noting the CFD for rec.auto.vw posted October 1. The CFD for comp.text.dwb posted October 1 had subject line "new group". CFVs: The CFV for rec.arts.fine posted October 1 has "rec.arts.art" in its subject line. RESULTS: The passing result for sci.engr appeared September 11; on September 14, the first CFD for sci.engr.chem came out. Somewhat less precipitously, also September 14 appeared a CFD to rename comp.unix.internals (renamed from comp.unix.wizards via a result posted August 20) to comp.unix.esoterica; this effort (whose proponent had been the proponent for the previous renaming too) eventually resulted in the simultaneous existence of both comp.unix.internals and comp.unix.wizards, by what process I still don't know. OTHER STUFF: alt.tennis was announced by the feckless newbie proponent for rec.sport.tennis, on September 24. On October 1, Chuq Von Rospach, the moderator of comp.sys.mac.announce, announced his retirement in favour of Werner Uhrig and others *on nan*. Another mailing list announcement October 1. END SELECTIVE REVIEW OF NAN Added: comp.ai.philosophy, comp.lang.objective-c, rec.games.mud, rec.pyrotechnics, sci.engr. Removed by demotion to inet: comp.windows.x.announce. (This is the first time since March 1988, when sci.psychology was promoted, that a group moved between inet and the Big 7, and yes, the movement was in the wrong direction. The group had only been listed as a Big 7 group in one list set, and I strongly suspect that listing was a mistake, and this change does not reflect any real event.) comp.org.eff.news, comp.protocols.iso.x400, comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway, and comp.security.announce were only partly listed on this List of Moderators, as described under June 1, 1988. The unidirectional gateway previously shown for comp.text on the list of gatewayed Big 7 groups is now shown as pointing to comp.text.tex, some six months after the latter group's creation. comp.unix.internals replaces comp.unix.wizards on that list, as it had replaced it on the main list in the previous posting. As noted above, trial.soc.culture.czechoslovak is first attested in a post dated October 2 that describes it as "established"; it was thus probably the fifth trial.* group. Noteworthy additions to alt.*: alt.lang.cfutures and alt.lang.intercal, the first in their sub-hierarchy; alt.flame.spelling, the first alt.flame.* subgroup; alt.sex.pictures.d, the first fourth-level group in alt.*. Summary for the Big 7: In comp.*, from 170 to 171 unmoderated groups, from 47 to 47 moderated groups, from 217 to 218 total. In misc.*, no change: 20 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 22 total. In news.*, no change: 11 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 17 total. In rec.*, from 100 to 102 unmoderated groups, from 10 to 10 moderated groups, from 110 to 112 total. In sci.*, from 29 to 30 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 5 moderated groups, from 34 to 35 total. In soc.*, no change: 38 unmoderated groups, 7 moderated groups, 45 total. In talk.*, no change: 14 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 14 total. 463 total (77 moderated, 386 unmoderated). Summary for inet: In comp.*, from 44 to 45 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 6 moderated groups, from 50 to 51 total. In news.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. In rec.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 1 moderated group, 2 total. In sci.*, no change: 3 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 3 total. In soc.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. 58 total (7 moderated, 51 unmoderated). Overall summary: In comp.*, from 214 to 216 unmoderated groups, from 53 to 53 moderated groups, from 267 to 269 total. In misc.*, no change: 20 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 22 total. In news.*, no change: 12 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 18 total. In rec.*, from 101 to 103 unmoderated groups, from 11 to 11 moderated groups, from 112 to 114 total. In sci.*, from 32 to 33 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 5 moderated groups, from 37 to 38 total. In soc.*, no change: 39 unmoderated groups, 7 moderated groups, 46 total. In talk.*, no change: 14 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 14 total. 521 total (84 moderated, 437 unmoderated). "List of Active Newsgroups" November 8, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 12402@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "List of Moderators" November 8, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 12406@medusa.cs.purdue.edu "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies" November 8, 1990 news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Message-ID: 12403@medusa.cs.purdue.edu Continuing with the review of the news.announce.newgroups archive: GUIDELINES: In reporting the failure of soc.culture.europe.central October 8, the proponent suggested trial.soc.culture.czechoslovak, saying "The trial hierarchy is now widely distributed." He posted from a British site, and the hierarchy had only been announced in late April. (I mention this result as an October 2 post above. That's when it appeared in news.groups; the October 8 post is the nan copy, hence appears here.) The CFD for rec.sport.snowboarding posted October 15 notes that "Some news sites erroneously carry this group because it was once created without following the standard procedure, and then quickly removed." The proposal ultimately failed 121:87. A post not posted to nan but worth calling your attention to as regards the Guidelines is a new manifesto for inet posted October 10 by Erik Fair (<45512@apple.Apple.COM>). It makes much more sense of the inet groups created or not than his previous 1987 one had: basically, it provides no basis whatever for predicting whether an inet group will be created, or for that matter removed. CFDs: A proposal for a "re-org" of rec.sport.football appeared October 8, the first non-comp.* example of a 1990s reorg. A 2nd CFD for the football reorg appeared one week later, 'stating that none of the groups will be moderated (I was suppose to state this "obvious given" :) originally, but forgot. Sorry).' But comp.* kept up its lead: Kent Paul Dolan's fourth total, and first in news.*, CFD for the comp.sys.amiga reorg appeared November 5. This extremely long document includes detailed discussions, approximating charters, of each group proposed *or already existing* in the sub-hierarchy, the closest thing thus far to a reorg with charters, but also explicitly redefining the charters of existing groups that wouldn't be voted on; it promised that "formal charters" would be forthcoming. This CFD is also notable for explaining the choice of "advocacy" over "influence", and "marketplace" over "market", in naming new types of group. Less successful in the Darwinian sense was its proposal of a newsgroup "monitor", approximating what us.* hosts currently do, for csa.introduction. This proposal ultimately passed in all its parts, mostly by votes around 800:50, though .advocacy got more like 600:200; Dolan reported these numbers as within 10% of the highest vote totals to date. The proponent for comp.sys.arm, in a CFD posted October 15, explicitly disclaims any commercial interest in the relevant system. CFVs: The CFV to rename comp.unix.internals posted October 24 by a third-party votetaker had the following procedure: Put the name you want (cu.internals, .wizards, or .esoterica) in the Subject line of your vote. If more than 1/3 of the total votes are for comp.unix.internals, nothing happens. Otherwise, the votes for .wizards and .esoterica are treated as the set of valid votes, and the winning name must meet both the 2/3rds and the +100 criteria against the losing name. (If .internals had received 100 votes, .wizards 296, and .esoterica 589, for example, there would have been no renaming.) By the by, the CFV was posted three times, after which Lear posted an apology for sending it twice (?). I don't have the result posting; ultimately, cu.internals survived but cu.wizards reappeared. The first CFV for the rec.sport.football reorg, posted October 30, instructs voters to put YES or NO in the subject header; there is no suggestion that the three changes could be voted on separately. I don't have the result posting, nor, interestingly enough, is it listed in either of the long lists of vote results posted in 1991-1992, so I can't tell whether split votes were submitted or counted, but in the event, all three changes were enacted. If there was a CFD for soc.culture.lebanon in nan, I missed it when building my archive, but there's no moderator's note on the lack of a prior CFD in the CFV posted November 5. I also seem to be missing a first CFV, circa October 28 (probably October 30 posting run), for comp.research.japan. Both groups passed. RESULTS: The proponents for comp.lang.clos, reporting its passage November 5, indicated that they would send the newgroup themselves. OTHER STUFF: I find the CFD for comp.japan.research posted October 8 intriguing for its forthright assumption that people interested in academic research into computer science would look for information about it on Usenet. How times have changed... An alt.* group was announced prior to newgrouping October 30. (Isn't that *excessively* polite for alt.*, even in those days? Worse still, November 5 there was either a CFD for an alt.* group, or a request for a newgroup, I'm not sure which. What on earth was wrong with alt.config?) END SELECTIVE REVIEW OF NAN Added: comp.benchmarks, comp.graphics.visualization, comp.org.uniforum, comp.windows.ms.programmer, comp.windows.open-look, rec.pets.dogs, soc.culture.bangladesh. Removed: comp.org.usrgroup. comp.org.eff.news, comp.protocols.iso.x400, comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway, and comp.security.announce were only partly listed on this List of Moderators, as described under June 1, 1988. On the list of gatewayed Big 7 newsgroups, new unidirectional gateways are shown for comp.lang.c++ and comp.emacs, in addition to the existing unidirectional gateways (from the same listserver) and (for comp.emacs) full gateway already shown. No additional trial.* groups are attested as of this posting run; the attested hierarchy thus remains trial.misc.legal.software, trial.newgroups, trial.rec.metalworking, trial.soc.culture.czechoslovak, and trial.test. Noteworthy additions to alt.*: alt.books.technical and alt.humor.oracle (before whose wisdom all bow down), beginning those sub-hierarchies, and alt.drugs.usenet, the first sub-group in *its* sub-hierarchy (with a good description line, too); alt.desert-shield, showing alt.* taking over the rapid-response role in Usenet (and, of course, also showing it doing so with bad namespace moves). Summary for the Big 7: In comp.*, from 171 to 175 unmoderated groups, from 47 to 47 moderated groups, from 218 to 222 total. In misc.*, no change: 20 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 22 total. In news.*, no change: 11 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 17 total. In rec.*, from 102 to 103 unmoderated groups, from 10 to 10 moderated groups, from 112 to 113 total. In sci.*, no change: 30 unmoderated groups, 5 moderated groups, 35 total. In soc.*, from 38 to 39 unmoderated groups, from 7 to 7 moderated groups, from 45 to 46 total. In talk.*, no change: 14 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 14 total. 469 total (77 moderated, 392 unmoderated). Summary for inet: In comp.*, no change: 45 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 51 total. In news.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. In rec.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 1 moderated group, 2 total. In sci.*, no change: 3 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 3 total. In soc.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. 58 total (7 moderated, 51 unmoderated). Overall summary: In comp.*, from 216 to 220 unmoderated groups, from 53 to 53 moderated groups, from 269 to 273 total. In misc.*, no change: 20 unmoderated groups, 2 moderated groups, 22 total. In news.*, no change: 12 unmoderated groups, 6 moderated groups, 18 total. In rec.*, from 103 to 104 unmoderated groups, from 11 to 11 moderated groups, from 114 to 115 total. In sci.*, no change: 33 unmoderated groups, 5 moderated groups, 38 total. In soc.*, from 39 to 40 unmoderated groups, from 7 to 7 moderated groups, from 46 to 47 total. In talk.*, no change: 14 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 14 total. 527 total (84 moderated, 443 unmoderated). This is the last newsgroup list/moderator list set known to me posted in 1990. This is also the date of the last "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies" of the year. It includes 106 alt.* groups (up from 51 at year-end 1989), eighteen bionet.* groups (down from twenty), fifteen biz.* groups (up from eleven), 155 clari.* groups (up from 125), 25 gnu.* groups (up from twenty), 58 inet groups (up from 53), two ddn.* groups (unchanged), seven pubnet.* groups (unchanged), five unix-pc.* groups (unchanged), five u3b.* groups (unchanged), and twelve vmsnet.* groups (up from eight), for a total of 408 (up from 307). I should, however, note that later that year, Lear initiated a second set of approximately weekly periodic postings of his own. The first appeared November 26; beginning with the second, dated December 3, these postings bore the subject line "recently created newsgroups". Meanwhile, his original periodic posting, "Current Status of Votes on Newsgroups", continued to appear under that subject line. I haven't mined these postings thoroughly for this phase of my work on this chronology, but they are a useful source, particularly in the long stretch of the 1990s when they appeared much more frequently than the full lists. Annual summary: IN THE BIG SEVEN: In comp.*, from 136 to 175 unmoderated groups, from 45 to 47 moderated groups, from 181 to 222 total. In misc.*, from 16 to 20 unmoderated groups, from 2 to 2 moderated groups, from 18 to 22 total. In news.*, from 10 to 11 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 6 moderated groups, from 15 to 17 total. In rec.*, from 86 to 103 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 10 moderated groups, from 91 to 113 total. In sci.*, from 28 to 30 unmoderated groups, from 3 to 5 moderated groups, from 31 to 35 total. In soc.*, from 28 to 39 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 7 moderated groups, from 34 to 46 total. In talk.*, from 13 to 14 unmoderated groups, from 0 to 0 moderated groups, from 13 to 14 total. Total, from 317 to 392 unmoderated groups, from 66 to 77 moderated groups, from 383 to 469 total. IN INET: In comp.*, from 41 to 45 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 6 moderated groups, from 46 to 51 total. In news.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. In rec.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 1 moderated group, 2 total. In sci.*, no change: 3 unmoderated groups, 0 moderated groups, 3 total. In soc.*, no change: 1 unmoderated group, 0 moderated groups, 1 total. Total, from 47 to 51 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 7 moderated groups, from 53 to 58 total. OVER ALL: In comp.*, from 177 to 220 unmoderated groups, from 50 to 53 moderated groups, from 227 to 273 total. In misc.*, from 16 to 20 unmoderated groups, from 2 to 2 moderated groups, from 18 to 22 total. In news.*, from 11 to 12 unmoderated groups, from 5 to 6 moderated groups, from 16 to 18 total. In rec.*, from 87 to 104 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 11 moderated groups, from 93 to 115 total. In sci.*, from 31 to 33 unmoderated groups, from 3 to 5 moderated groups, from 34 to 38 total. In soc.*, from 29 to 40 unmoderated groups, from 6 to 7 moderated groups, from 35 to 47 total. In talk.*, from 13 to 14 unmoderated groups, from 0 to 0 moderated groups, from 13 to 14 total. Total, from 364 to 443 unmoderated groups, from 72 to 84 moderated groups, from 436 to 527 total.