Nan:2007-03-23-news.groups.proposals-lcc

Subject: 2nd RFD: moderation policy change, news.groups.proposals (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)
From: The Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:13:38 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <nan.20070323191337$7ab2@killfile.org>

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                 moderated group news.groups.proposals

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for a change in the
moderation policy of the Usenet newsgroup, news.groups.proposals.


PROCEDURE:

The B8MB plans to begin voting on this proposal after five days.  Please
offer any final discussion or comments before the end of this waiting
period.  Voting may take up to one week (7 days); a result will be posted
following the end of the voting period.

All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.proposals.

The full group creation procedure is documented here:

  http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:proposals


SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION:

The appropriate location of pre-RFD discussions was a topic in
news.groups.  It was observed that when such an idea for a new group
affects existing groups, the participants of those groups should be
involved.  Other aspects that were discussed included the fact that
people who opposed moderated newsgroups would be excluded from a pre-RFD
discussion held in news.groups.proposals.

During the discussion in news.group.proposals, it was suggested that
pre-RFD discussion would harm the focus of n.g.p and belonged in its own
group.  Such a change to the moderation policy would also complicate the
decision-making process for moderators.  However, the n.g.p moderators
feel there will not be sufficient pre-RFD discussion to support a
separate newsgroup. This does complicate the decision-making process for
moderators, but if pre-RFD discussion does not appear to be leading
towards an RFD, the moderators can terminate the thread.

The suggestion was offered that when a submission was received
suggesting a new group that the moderators post an administrative notice
to that effect in n.g.p, but not approve further submissions on the
topic.  If necessary, the n.g.p moderators will discuss this option, but
there is an issue with publishing information about specific rejected
submissions.

In support of the proposed change, it was pointed out that it provides
another choice for individuals who have ideas for new groups and does
not force them to pick that option.


RATIONALE:

The newsgroup news.groups.proposals was created 18 Nov 2006.  The
moderation policy includes the provision that "All substantive
modifications to the moderation policy will go through an RFD/LCC process
before implementation."

The purpose of this RFD is to change the moderation policy to allow
discussion of proposed groups before an official RFD is published.


CHARTER:

The current charter reads:

  Discussions should pertain to specific active proposals to create,
  remove, or modify newsgroups in the Big-8 newsgroup hierarchies
  (comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, and talk).

The change proposed in this RFD is to remove the words "specific active"
from the above text.  No other changes are requested.


DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

  news.announce.newgroups
  news.groups.proposals
  news.groups
  news.admin.announce
  news.admin.hierarchies


PROPONENT:

Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com>

Co-Proponent: news.groups.proposals Moderation Team <ngp-mods@lists.big-8.org>


CHANGE HISTORY:

2007-03-15      1st RFD
2007-03-23      2nd RFD/LCC