Nan:2007-03-17-comp.protocols.dns.ops-lcc

From: The Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Subject: 2nd RFD: remove comp.protocols.dns.ops moderated (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.dns.ops, news.announce.newgroups,
 news.groups.proposals, comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 14:02:11 -0500
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                     remove comp.protocols.dns.ops

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) to remove the moderated
newsgroup comp.protocols.dns.ops.


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.proposals.

The full group removal procedure is documented here:

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


SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION:

A comment was received by e-mail from the original moderator of the
group (and also the proponent of its creation) that recommended the
group be removed.

The pointer posted to comp.protocols.dns.bind was not approved by the
moderator of that group, and that group has been removed from the
distribution for this RFD.


RATIONALE: remove comp.protocols.dns.ops

The last approved message was in January 1999.  The group had modest
traffic (about 5 threads per month) from its creation in September
1996 until June 1998.  After a 4 month interruption, an announcement
was made in November 1998 that the group was alive again.  The group
was active for another 3 months before its last approval.

Alternatives include:

(1) Assigning a new moderator.

(2) Converting the group to unmoderated status.  When the group was
created, it was styled as a renaming of the unmoderated
comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains (see History, below).  However, the
primary reason for the renaming appears to have been to create a
better namespace for comp.protocols.dns.bind and
comp.protocols.dns.std which were created at the same time.  The
moderation of comp.protocols.dns.ops appears to have been a secondary
consideration, simply because the other two groups were also being
moderated.

If the group is converted to an unmoderated status, it might be better
to use a different name (eg. comp.protocols.dns.misc).  ".ops" does
not have an obvious meaning.  In addition, users of news servers where
the group is configured as moderated will not see articles from
servers where the group is configured as unmoderated and vice versa.

(3) Remove the group.  Since the renaming of
comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains failed to occur (see History),  any
discussion could continue in that group, albeit with a poorly named
group.

Regardless of which alternative is chosen, there will be no effect on
comp.protocols.dns.bind and comp.protocols.dns.std.


HISTORY: 

The newsgroup comp.protocols.dns.ops was created in September 1996, as
part of the proposal that also created comp.protocols.dns.bind and
comp.protocols.dns.std.  During its active period from September 1996
to June 1998, it had roughly 5 approvals per month.  A four-month
interruption from July to October 1998, was followed by a three-month
revival from November 1998 to January 1999, when the final approval
occured.

The creation of comp.protocols.dns.ops was styled as renaming of
comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains (CPTID), however the renaming was never
executed (that is, CPTID was not rmgroup'ed).  This was probably
related to the fact that CPTID was part of the Inet distribution.

The group CPTID was created as part of the Inet distribution before
December 1987.  After comp.protocols.dns.ops was created, no rmgroup
control message was issued for CPTID, and it continued to appear among
the Inet groups in the checkgroups messages.  In October 2002, all
remaining Inet groups, including CPTID were incorporated in the
standard Big 8 distribution.  In the summer of 2006, roughly half the
former Inet groups were rmgroup'ed, based on their lack of traffic.
CPTID was not one of the removed groups because of its continued light
traffic, and remains in the Big 8 checkgroups list.


DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

  news.announce.newgroups
  news.groups.proposals
  comp.protocols.dns.ops
  comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains


CHARTER:

The newsgroup line is:

comp.protocols.dns.ops	DNS operations (where not BIND specific).

The charter (from the CFV):

Discussions of DNS operations, where neither the BIND implementation
or the protocols or standards are implicated, can take place here.  As
a replacement for the comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains newsgroup, we know
that we can expect ongoing discussions of domain charging policies and
other political issues, as well as misplaced discussions which
actually belong in a BIND-specific or standards-specific newsgroup.


PROPONENT: 

Jim Riley <jimrtex@pipeline.com>


CHANGE HISTORY: 

2007-03-05     1st RFD
2007-03-17     2nd RFD/LCC