Responsibilities of proponents

Who is this FAQ for?

• It is a draft of a form letter to be sent to all proponents whose RFDs have been published in news.announce.newgroups.

Isn't a FAQ supposed to be Question-and-Answer?

• Yes, of course. But to save space in this mini-FAQ, the questions have been left out, leaving just the answers to send to the proponent.

The Text Itself

Dear Proponent,

The Big-8 Management Board has published your RFD in news.announce.newgroups.

You must follow the discussion of the RFD in news.groups.proposals and answer 
all reasonable questions about your proposal.

Unless you take an active part in the discussion, we will presume that you
have abandoned your proposal.  We will then remove your RFD from our 
active queue.

We do not expect you to respond to nonsense.  If a question has already 
been asked and answered, you may remain silent or give a pointer to where 
your answer may be found.

When you prepare subsequent versions of the RFD, please take care to 
preserve the format used in the n.a.n. version.  

Please do not use Google groups to submit a new version of the RFD; Google 
groups mangles e-mail addresses on purpose.  Your subsequent versions must 
contain all necessary contact information, keep the same format, and be in 
plain text.

When you think it is time to publish a new edition of an RFD, submit it to 
news.announce.newgroups as you did with the first edition.

When you think that your RFD is as good as it is going to get and are 
ready to submit a final edition for the Board to vote on, change the RFD 
to fit the format of a "Last Call for Comments."  If the Board agrees that 
the RFD is ready to be voted on, the Board will publish the final RFD/LCC 
under its own name.

We're very grateful for your participation in the newsgroup creation 
process for the Big-8 and wish you all success in the discussion of your 
newsgroup idea.

The Big-Eight Management Board consists of the following members:

      Alexander Bartolich, Co-Chair
      Marty Moleski, Co-Chair
      Dave Sill, Vice-Chair
      James Farrar
      Kathy Morgan
      Helge Nereid
      Jeremy Nixon
      Thomas Lee
      Paul Schleck
      Tim Skirvin

The moderators of news.announce.newgroups only publish posts
that are consistent with the policies set by the Board.

The board will be following the discussion in news.groups.proposals.  
Some of us may, from time to time, make comments either in our own 
name or on behalf of the board to clarify what the policies and 
procedures are.  Here, too, it may take some time for you to learn 
how to distinguish the personal input of the board members from 
clarification of official policy.

Proponents and their supporters need to work on attracting other
Usenet-savvy participants in two different phases of the process:

1. During the RFD: the more people whom you can persuade to 
make a Usenet post about their interest in the proposed group,
the better the chances are that there will be a group of
people ready, willing, and able to use the group if it
is created.  Seeing this kind of support is very valuable
in allaying fears that the group would not be well-used
if it were created.

2. After the RFD: the proponent and participants of the
group need to use all available means to make the group
known to its target audience: web pages, notes and/or
FAQs to aid newbies, use of signature files to draw
attention to the existence of the group, respectful
non-spam advertising in other forums, correspondence
with NSPs to persuade them to carry the group, etc.

If there is anything we can do to help you understand 
and benefit from the process, please let us know.  
Volunteers known as "Group Mentors" are also willing 
to provide advice and counsel for you and your 
supporters.

                        Big-8 Management Board
                        board@big-8.org
			
			Group Mentors
			mentors@lists.big-8.org