Nan:2006-12-04-b8mb-update

From: The Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Subject: [B8MB] State of Affairs, 04 Dec 2006
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:51:53 -0600
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

This is an official announcement from the Big-8 Management Board.

Upcoming Vacation Break
-----------------------

In the proud tradition of Big-8 managers since the dawn of time, the Big-8
Management Board will be taking a break for the upcoming holidays.  From
December 20th to January 10th, we will not begin any new votes; while new
RFDs may be submitted during this time, they will not be voted upon until
the break is over.  Our response times may also be noticably slower, and
several members have indicated that they will not read or participate in
news.groups for the duration.

Also note that there may be no December status report.  


Recent Actions
--------------

Excitingly, this month's actions have been biased towards actually creating
groups, rather than just removing old ones.  A list of actions in the last
month (excluding those groups listed in last month's report):

        - Created four new groups: comp.sys.laptops.thinkpad, 
          news.groups.proposals, rec.motorcycles.victory, and 
          soc.support.stroke.

        - Removed misc.education.multimedia and comp.unix.unixware.announce.

There is currently one active proposal to create a new group, and six to
remove empty ones.  A proposal to replace the moderator of rec.aviation.
stories is also expected shortly.


Board Membership
----------------

As described on November 7th, three new Board members have been added to
the B8MB: Doug McLaren, Kathy Morgan, and Jeremy Nixon.  They have been
integrated into the team very well, and we are all happy to work with
them.  Thank you again to all applicants!  

Additional support is still needed for both the official Board committees
(see below), and also for less official pursuits (such as FAQ creation) and 
other work that nobody has thought of yet.  


Usenet Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) Session
---------------------------------------

From Tim Skirvin <skirv@big-8.org>:

  I will be hosting a Birds-of-a-Feather session regarding Usenet and the
  Big-8 at the LISA conference in Washington DC on December 6th at 7pm.
  If you are interested, please attend; and if you can't come but are in
  the area and want to discuss anything Usenet related, drop me a mail.


news.groups.proposals
---------------------

The moderated newsgroup news.groups.proposals was created on 14 Nov 2006.
All "official" discussion of active proposals should take place in this
group; general policy discussion and "unofficial" proposal discussion can
(and should) still take place in news.groups.  For more information on the
group, please see its homepage at:

  http://www.big-8.org/~ngp/

If your provider has not yet picked up the group, feel free to read and
post from news.killfile.org, either directly via NNTP or through the web
interface at:

  http://news.killfile.org/?group=news.groups.proposals


Call For Proposals
------------------

The Board would like to once again officially encourage users to propose
new, interesting groups throughout the Big-8 hierarchies.  The Board and
the newly-reformed Group Mentors would be happy to help you refine your
ideas into an RFD; and if your proposal appears to have a good shot at
creating a well-named, well-used group, we are probably willing to give
your idea a chance.  Be creative!  Extra points go to proposals that
promise to bring entirely new users to Usenet.
 

Volunteer Committees
--------------------

Our monthly reminder - the B8MB is attempting to put together several
volunteer organizations to handle individual aspects of the new group
creation system.  These groups are not currently fully populated, but they
have fairly clear (if general) goals.  And most importantly, they have
mailing lists, so it's possible to start getting them organized.

Please, if you are interested in helping out the Big-8, or Usenet as a
whole, please volunteer for one (or more) of these groups!  And if you
would like to help shape the future of the groups, and have the time to
help coordinate them, please contact the listed Coordinator.


  Usenet Volunteer Pollsters
  ==========================

  Coordinator    Tim Skirvin + Jonathan Kamens
  Mailing List   http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/uvp/
  Description    http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=workgroups:polltakers


  Usenet Volunteer Moderators
  ===========================

  Coordinator    Jonathan Kamens
  Mailing List   http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/uvm/
  Description    http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=workgroups:moderators


  Group Mentors
  =============

  Coordinator    Tim Skirvin
  Mailing List   http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/group-mentors/
  Description    http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=workgroups:mentors


  Deadwood Groups Task Force
  ==========================

  Coordinator    Dave Sill
  Mailing List   http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/deadwood/
  Description    http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=workgroups:deadgroups


                                - The Big-8 Management Board
-- 
http://www.big-8.org/                           Big-8 Management Board