Nan:2007-02-07-news.news-service-providers-rfd2
From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
From: Nigel Sixsmith <n6smith@gmail.com> Subject: 2nd RFD: news.news-service-providers moderated Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, news.groups.proposals, news.software.readers, alt.binaries.news-server-comparison Followup-To: news.groups.proposals Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 08:55:46 -0600 Organization: http://www.big-8.org/ REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) moderated group news.news-service-providers This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the moderated Usenet newsgroup, news.news-service-providers. NEWSGROUPS LINE: news.news-service-providers news.news-service-providers Servers and services. (Moderated) RATIONALE: news.news-service-providers The current name space for the un-moderated discussion of news servers and news services is carried in the alt.binaries hierarchy (alt.binaries. news-server-comparison). This is not the correct placement for such a newsgroup as not all news servers carry alt.binaries. Proper name space and placement will allow a wider Usenet audience to be addressed. Many news servers provided a limited or much reduced retention period for groups in the alt,binary hierarchy compared to those in the Big 8 groups. The current group is not moderated. The new group being moderated would ensure a 'noise' free' group where the topic of news service can be discussed freely and without disruption from flame wars and excessive off-topic cross posting from other, unrelated groups. CHARTER: news.news-service-providers will consist of discussion of all aspects of news services and news servers provided by both commercial and non commercial news providers. Acceptable on topic discussion would include as examples; a) Types of services available. b) Comparisons of costs of Services and different service plans provided by commercial NSPs. c) Comparisons between completion / retention /reliability of different commercial/non commercial NSPs. d) Announcements of new or updates services by commercial/non commercial NSPs. e) Types of issues or problems specific commercial/non commercial NSPs may be having. f) Technical aspects of news services being provided by commercial/non commercial NSPs. g) Help and advice for those new to Usenet and the kind of services provided by commercial/non commercial NSPs. h) Suggestions as to how current types and levels of services provided by commercial/non commercial NSPs, could be improved upon. i) Current status of news servers, transit servers, network issues, outages, maintenance and all other network related matters to the storage and propagation of news in relation to NSP's and the services they provide would be deemed on-topic. j) Information on and discussion of different types of News Clients and announcements of new or updated News Clients which can take advantage of the different/new/old services offered by commercial/non commercial NSPs. k) Information, help and advice for those new to Usenet in regards to which News Clients to use and how to configure them to work best with their NSP l) Friendly banter and off topic posts would be considered by the moderators and appraised for acceptance based on content and not on who posted the article in question with the intention of making the new group a welcoming and friendly place for both long terms users of Usenet as well as those new to Usenet. MODERATION POLICY: news.news-service-providers Moderation to initially be done via robo-moderation with the intention of using such a form of moderation for the lifetime of the group, to help keep the group free from the majority of 'noise' that proved so disruptive in the original alt.binaries.news-servers-comparison group. If robo-moderation proves unsuccessful at removing the majority of the 'noise from the group then, after discussions with group regulars and other interested parties, additional human moderation will be considered and implemented as and when needed. It is hoped this second step will not need to be taken. It may be that a combination of both robot and human moderation is needed to ensure the inclusion of 'friendly banter' without such posts cluttering up the group. This should to be discussed and considered in depth and if needed, human moderators will need to be found to fulfil this stipulation if such is agreed upon. Likewise, robo-moderation will need to be fully discussed and methods decided upon if that method of moderation is agreed to be needed in this group too. MODERATOR INFO: news.news-service-providers Moderator: <no@address.invalid> Moderators are currently being sought. Article Submissions: Administrative Contact: 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_rWdnZ2d@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.binaries.news-server-comparison news.groups news.software.readers PROPONENT: Nigel Sixsmith <n6smith@gmail.com> CHANGE HISTORY: 2006-01-17 1st RFD (Draft) 2006-01-19 1st RFD 2006-02-07 2nd RFD