Nan:2008-06-18-sci.energy.biofuel-rfd
From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
From: "shrike@cyberspace.org" <shrike@cyberspace.org>
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,alt.energy.renewable,sci.environment,alt.auto.mercedes
Subject: RFD: sci.energy.biofuel.* hierarchy (REVISED)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:58:58 EDT
Message-ID: <7759dc08-84b1-45d4-9dff-39e0e60b773f@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated groups:
sci.energy.biofuel.engr
sci.energy.biofuel.chem
sci.energy.biofuel.advocacy
sci.energy.biofuel.agriculture
This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation
of the unmoderated Usenet newsgroup hierarchy, sci.energy.biofuel
NEWSGROUPS LINE: sci.energy.biofuel.*
sci.energy.biofuel.* Biodiesel SVO PPO WVO Ethanol Biomass energy
sci.energy.biofuel.engr Biofuel engines, refineries, and systems
sci.energy.biofuel.chem Biodiesel SVO PPO WVO Ethanol Chemistry
sci.energy.biofuel.advocacy Awareness, clubs, coops, meetings
sci.energy.biofuel.agriculture agricultural techniques law etc.
RATIONALE: sci.energy.biofuel.*
There are dozens of web forums already in place for various
biofuel enthusiast groups. However industry experience tends
to be sprinkled haphazardly among them with detailed discussions
of practical engineering and sciences rarely covered in depth.
Usenet, being the great grandfather of Internet forums provides
an opportunity to consolidate much of this intellectual
infrastructure and enthusiasm into a common location.
Because many of these boards tend to be scoped to a particular
fuel or technology, they also tend to deny themselves access to
enthusiasts and professionals working on other biofuel types.
The common interests of fuel independence and environmentalism
can be better served by organizing these forums in terms of
common discipline rather than common goal.
Posts containing technical and social arguments for the
creation of this hierarchy in its entirety will be posted
subsequently to news.groups.proposals. Please direct inquiries
to those documents as they may answer more narrowly scoped
questions regarding why all of these groups should be
created.
TRAFFIC ANALYSIS:
There are many biofuel related posts in alt.energy.renewable
and various automobile enthusiast groups. Responses have
been limited IMHO largely due to the fact that most biofuel
posts are in non-usenet forums. It is worth speculating that
much of the post traffic for this hierarchy is expected to
develop from web forum users looking for a greater knowledge
base.
Applicable Google Statistics:
13M pages matching: biodiesel
746K pages matching: Ethanol fuel
250K pages matching: SVO fuel
220K pages matching: PPO fuel
51K pages matching Elsbett
A basic search consisting of Googling the fuel type and the
word "forum" and clicking a few results from the first page
without recursion reveals the following:
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc > 250K posts biodiesel only
http://www.biodieselnow.com/forums > 50K Posts biodiesel only.
http://www.make-biodiesel.info ~1K Posts biodiesel only.
http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk > 50K posts svo/ppo/biodiesel
http://www.frybrid.com > 50K posts, SVO/PPO
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info < 100 posts fuel cycle
http://e85vehicles.com > 10K posts, ethanol only
http://www.biofueldebate.com > 200 posts ethanol/biodiesel
To summarize the rationale, all of these enthusiasts have the
common goal of using and manufacturing sustainable renewable
fuels. Organization based on technology rather than discipline
causes poor discussion depth by excluding peer review from
users of other fuel types. The requested hierarchy is designed
to correct that inefficiency.
CHARTERS:
sci.energy.biofuel.engr is an unmoderated newsgroup which will serve
as a forum for discussing engineering for the application and
manufacturing of: Biodiesel, SVO, (Straight Vegetable Oil) PPO, (Pure
Plant Oil) WVO, (Waste Vegetable Oil) ethanol and other biomass
fuels. Core topics are likely to include engine design and
modification, refining and filtration systems, thermodynamics related
to biomass combustion.
sci.energy.biofuel.chem is an unmoderated newsgroup which will serve
as a forum for discussing biofuel chemistry related topics. These
subjects are likely to include biodiesel and ethanol manufacturing,
related biochem techniques for improving yields and rendering
efficiency.
sci.energy.biofuel.advocacy is an unmoderated newsgroup which will
serve as a forum for discussing biofuel advocacy. This will include
announcements for new distributors and outlets for biofuels,
announcements for the creation of regional cooperatives or biofuel
clubs, support for legislation or litigation relevant to consumer
rights as they apply to biofuels.
sci.energy.biofuel.agriculture is an unmoderated newsgroup which will
serve as a forum for discussing supply side issues for biofuels.
Subjects are expected to include agricultural techniques and materials
for maximizing effective yields of fuel crops, as well as laws,
tariffs, and subsidies affecting producers of biofuel source crops.
Posting of advertising and/or promotional material of any kind to
sci.energy.biofuel.* is explicitly prohibited. Posting of binaries
is not permitted, with the exception of small binary components in
otherwise non-binary postings, such as PGP signatures or X-Face
headers. Posts must be readable as plain text. HTML, RTF and
similarly formatted messages are prohibited.
PROCEDURE:
For more information on the newsgroup creation process, please see:
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:creation
Those who wish to influence the development of this RFD and its final
resolution should subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate
in the relevant threads in that newsgroup. This is both a courtesy
to groups in which discussion of creating a new group is off-topic
as well as the best method of making sure that one's comments or
criticisms are heard.
All discussion of active proposals should be posted to
news.groups.proposals. To this end, the 'Followup-To' header of
this RFD has been set to this group.
If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, the
discussion may be crossposted to those groups, but care must be
taken to ensure that all discussion appears in news.groups.proposals
as well.
We urge those who would like to read or post in the proposed newsgroup
to make a comment to that effect in this thread; we ask proponents to
keep a list of such positive posts with the relevant message ID
(e.g., Barney Fife, <4JGdnb60fsMzHA7ZnZ2dnUVZ_rWdn...@sysmatrix.net>).
Such lists of positive feedback for the proposal may constitute good
evidence that the group will be well-used if it is created.
DISTRIBUTION:
This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
alt.energy.renewable
sci.environment
alt.auto.mercedes
PROPONENT:
BioFuelRFD@yahoo.com
