Nan:2007-06-12-comp.sys.mac.announce-mva

From: The Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Subject: Moderator Vacancy Announcement: comp.sys.mac.announce
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, comp.sys.mac.misc,
 news.groups.proposals, comp.sys.mac.apps, comp.sys.mac.announce
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:50:45 -0500
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

                 Moderation Vacancy Announcement (MVA)
                         comp.sys.mac.announce

This is a formal Moderator Vacancy Announcement (MVA), initiated after the
moderator of the above-listed moderated newsgroup has been found to be 
absent.  The goal of this process is to find a new moderator for the group.


DISCUSSION:

Gregory Weston suggested that the group be removed, and that most
product developers prefer topic-specific groups rather than a general
announcement group such as comp.sys.mac.announce.  If a new moderator
is assigned, the group should be advertised to potential users,
particularly in the development community.

Kathy Morgan indicated her willingness to moderate the newsgroup, to
be hosted by Brian Edmonds on his Robomod site.  She also agreed that
Gregory Weston's traffic analysis may be correct.

It should be noted that announcements are often cross-posted among
moderated *.announce groups and more-specific unmoderated newsgroups,
with followups set to either "poster" (the person making the
announcement) or the unmoderated newsgroup.

My recommendation is that the moderatorship be transferred to Kathy
Morgan.  If after some time, it is determined that the lack of
activity is due to a lack of submissions, rather than lack of someone
willing to approve submissions, the group may be removed.


HISTORY: 

The newsgroup comp.sys.mac.announce was created as part of a
re-organization of the comp.sys.mac (CSM) hierarchy in March 1990 that
created CSM.announce, CSM.apps, CSM.comm, CSM.games, CSM.system, and
CSM.wanted, and renamed comp.sys.mac to CSM.misc.

The comp.sys.mac hierarchy had its origin with the creation of the
unmoderated net.micro.mac in November 1984, and the moderated
mod.computers.mac in October 1985.  mod.computers.mac was renamed to
mod.mac in March 1986.  During the Great Renaming, net.micro.mac was
renamed to comp.sys.mac and mod.mac was renamed to
comp.sys.mac.digest.

Three groups, CSM.hypercard, CSM.hardware, and CSM.programmer were
added in October 1987, March 1988, and October 1989, respectively.
Frustration with the piecemeal addition of newsgroups led to the
invention of the multi-group re-organization that resulted in creation
of 7 groups, including CSM.announce in March 1990.

Additional hierarchy changes include:

CSM.datatbases created in January 1992.
CSM.advocacy created in September 1992.
CSM.oop.macapp3 and CSM.oop.misc created in November 1992.
CSM.oop.tcl in April 1993.
CSM.portables created in April 1993.
CSM.scitech created in May 1993.
CSM.graphics created in November 1993.
CSM.programmer.codewarrior created in August 1994.
CSM.programmer (CSMP) split into CSMP.help, CSMP.info, CSMP.misc,
   and CSMP.tools in November 1994.
CSM.hardware (CSMH) split into CSMH.misc, CSMH.storage, and
   CSMH.video, and CSM.printing in April 1995.
CSM.games (CSMG) split into CSMG.action, CSMG.adventure,
   CSMG.announce, CSMG.flight-sim, CSMG.marketplace, CSMG.misc, and
   CSMG.strategic in May 1995.
CSM.programmer.games created in October 1995.
CSM.oop.powerplant in March 1996.

>From the time of its creation in March 1990 until late 1995,
comp.sys.mac.announce had roughly 5 to 10 approved articles per month.
Beginning in late 1995, approvals became increasingly infrequent, with
only a total of 5 approvals from 1998 to 2000.  The last approval was
in March 2000.


PROCEDURE: 

The Big-8 Management Board has determined that the above listed newsgroup 
needs a new moderator, and has decided to proceed with a Moderator Vacancy
Announcement.  This process is documented here:

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

In short, the Board plans to either appoint a new moderator, unmoderate 
the newsgroup, or remove the newsgroup entirely. 

The followup header of this post has been set to news.groups.proposals. 
To discuss the issues affecting the group, to propose a new moderator, or
to provide information regarding the current moderator, please respond to
this thread in news.groups.proposals.  If you are interested in the
continued existence of this newsgroup, please also indicate that interest
in the news.groups.proposals.  If you would like to volunteer to moderate
this newsgroup, please post your credentials in response to this message.

For more information on the Big-8 Management Board, please see:

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


CHARTER:

The newsgroup line is:

comp.sys.mac.announce	Important notices for Macintosh users.

The charter (extracted from the CFV):

Designed to be a low-volume, high-content group for distribution of
information, regular postings (like the "where to find...", and
"introduction to comp.sys.mac" documents, postings like virus alerts
and other forms of information (product announcements? press
releases?) to be determined.


PROPONENT: 

Jim Riley <jimrtex@pipeline.com>


DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

  news.announce.newgroups
  news.groups.proposals
  comp.sys.mac.announce
  comp.sys.mac.misc
  comp.sys.mac.apps

The proponent will also post pointers to:

  comp.sys.mac.comm
  comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc
  comp.sys.mac.hardware.storage
  comp.sys.mac.hardware.video
  comp.sys.mac.portables
  comp.sys.mac.printing
  comp.sys.mac.programmer.help
  comp.sys.mac.programmer.misc
  comp.sys.mac.system


CHANGE HISTORY: 

2007-04-27     1st RFD
2007-06-12     Moderator Vacancy Announcement