Nan:2006-10-16-haskell-rfd

From: Jeffrey M. Vinocur <jeff@litech.org>
Subject: RFD: comp.lang.haskell
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, comp.lang.functional,
 alt.comp.lang.haskell
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:33:00 -0700

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                  unmoderated group comp.lang.haskell

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


NEWSGROUPS LINE: comp.lang.haskell

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


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 separate out this traffic into a dedicated group, and
to make it easier for new users to locate 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.





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 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.

To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to
news.groups.

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 as well.
 
If you would like to read or post in the proposed newsgroup, please make
a comment to that effect in this thread; the proponent will keep a list
of such positive posts with the relevant message ID (e.g., Barney Fife,
<4JGdnb60fsMzHA7ZnZ2dnUVZ_rWdnZ2d@sysmatrix.net>).  This 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
  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:

2006-10-16     1st RFD