Nan:2006-10-23-haskell-lcc

From: board@big-8.org (The Big-8 Management Board)
Subject: 2nd RFD: comp.lang.haskell (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, comp.lang.functional,
 alt.comp.lang.haskell
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:03:56 -0700

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                           comp.lang.haskell

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the
unmoderated Usenet newsgroup, comp.lang.haskell.


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.

The full group creation procedure is documented here:

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



NEWSGROUPS LINE: comp.lang.haskell

comp.lang.haskell	Haskell concepts, implementation, and use.


SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION:

A moderate amount of discussion in news.groups and comp.lang.functional
showed primarily support for the new group, mixed with concerns about
whether the quantity of traffic required a new group and concerns that
separating out this traffic from comp.lang.functional could be disruptive
to the community there.  It is not known what response, if any, took place
on the Haskell mailing lists.  A few people expressed interest in having
a gateway between the new group and one of the existing Haskell mailing
lists.

    IN FAVOR:

        Aaron Denney <wnoise@ofb.net>
        Ivan Jager <aij+nospam@andrew.cmu.edu>
        Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org>
        Mark T.B. Carroll <Mark.Carroll@Aetion.com>
        Martin X. Moleski, SJ <moleski@canisius.edu>
        mike.klaas@gmail.com <mike.klaas@gmail.com>
        Pekka Karjalainen <pkarjala@paju.oulu.fi>

    LEANING TOWARDS IN FAVOR:

        Hans Aberg <haberg@math.su.se>
        Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho <antti-juhani@kaijanaho.fi>

    SKEPTICAL:

        Aatu Koskensilta <aatu.koskensilta@xortec.fi>
        Steve Bonine <spb@pobox.com>

    AGAINST:

        James Graves <ansible@typhoon.xnet.com>
        Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>
        <nobrowser@gmail.com>

    PROBABLY HAVE AN OPINION BUT DID NOT STATE IT CLEARLY:

        2Rowdy <Harry131313@gmail.com>
        Doug Freyburger <dfreybur@yahoo.com>


RATIONALE: comp.lang.haskell

Discussion of Haskell is currently fragmented through Usenet.  It is
the only major functional programming language without a dedicated Big
8 group, and thus has become the topic of a substantial portion of the
traffic in comp.lang.functional.  The main purposes of this group,
therefore, are to consolidate this traffic into a dedicated group, and to
facilitate finding Haskell-related discussion.

This group has been the subject of periodic discussion for several years,
most notably in 2001 when a straw poll showed general support but not
enough interest, numerically, to warrant proposal under the old Big 8
group creation system (see <9j6ufp$fil$3@marduk.litech.org> and the
accompanying thread for details).


TRAFFIC ANALYSIS:

This analysis is limited by the Google Groups interface.  However, in the
past year, at least 280 distinct threads (a fifth of the total number
of threads for that time) in comp.lang.functional include discussion of
Haskell.  The number of posts per thread is unknown, as is the number of
relevant posts that do not contain the word "haskell" (a not infrequent
occurrence, as the distinct syntax is enough to make Haskell code easily
recognizable without specific identification).

There is additionally some traffic scattered through other parts of
the comp.lang.* hierarchy as well as in alt.comp.lang.haskell.  It is
unknown what fraction of the active mailing list community responsible for
generating the traffic in fa.haskell would be interested in using a Big 8
newsgroups instead or in addition.


CHARTER:

The comp.lang.haskell unmoderated newsgroup is for the discussion of the
programming language Haskell, including but not limited to:

    * conceptual and mathematical foundations
    * interpreter and compiler development
    * libraries
    * learning Haskell
    * programming in Haskell
    * implementation-specific issues
    * comparison to other programming languages (within reason)

Cryptographic signatures and small source code snippets are permitted, but
spam and other binary posts are prohibited.

Students seeking help on school work should be handled on a case-by-case
basis.  In general, thoughtful questions by students showing a true desire
to learn may be appropriate for discussion, but blatant attempts to have
newsgroup participants complete assignments are likely to be ignored at
best, and possibly reported to the relevant institution.





DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

  news.announce.newgroups
  news.groups
  comp.lang.functional
  alt.comp.lang.haskell

The proponent will also post pointers to:

  http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Mailing_lists


PROPONENT:

Jeffrey M. Vinocur <jeff@litech.org>


CHANGE HISTORY:

2006-10-23     2nd RFD
2006-10-16     1st RFD