Nan:2007-07-10-anti-fascism-rfd

From: Jim Riley <jimrtex@pipeline.com>
Subject: RFD: remove *.anti-fascism.*
Newsgroups: misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics,
 misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce, news.announce.newgroups,
 soc.politics.anti-fascism, news.groups.proposals
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:41:37 -0500
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
               remove misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce
               remove misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics
                    remove soc.politics.anti-fascism

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) to remove *.anti-fascism.*.


RATIONALE: remove *.anti-fascism.*

Note: Though three groups are included in this RFD, there is no reason
that all three need share the same disposition.

Throughout this RFD, the three groups will be referred to by the
following shortened names:

misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce as MAAF.announce
misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics as MAAF.tactics
soc.politics.anti-fascism as soc.politics.AF

The last approvals were in late 2000: MAAF.announce, December 2000;
MAAF.tactics, October 2000; and soc.politics.AF, October 2000.

There were relatively few approvals during the period of active
moderation, MAAF.announce, 39 approvals; MAAF.tactics, 10; and
soc.politics.AF, 15.

There are three possible dispositions of the groups:

(1) Removal;

(2) Assignment of new moderator(s).

(3) Conversion to unmoderated status.

Because of the subject matter of the group, unmoderated status is
unlikely to be successful.  In addition, it is not suitable for the
announcement group MAAF.announce.

If the groups are assigned new moderators, there is no reason that the
moderators be the same.  Each group has its own focus.  Again, because
of the subject matter, robomoderation is unlikely to be suitable.


HISTORY:

The three *.anti-facism.* groups were created in March 1998 after a
RFD discussion period that lasted 19 months.  However, after the
newgroup control messages were sent, it was slightly more than a year
before the first approvals were made by the moderator.

Approvals were sporadic, with months lapsing between approvals. Google
has a total of 63 articles, with almost 2/3rds (40) in the first 5
months of approvals (March 1999 to July 1999), and 1/4th (16) in the
last year (2000).  The last approvals in MAAF.tactics and
soc.politics.AF were in October 2000; the last approval in
MAAF.announce was in December 2000.


CHARTER: misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce

The newsgroup line is:

|misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce	Announcing anti-fascist activities.

The charter (from the CFV):

Misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce moderated is intended as a focus
for announcements of real-time anti-fascist activities.


CHARTER: misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics

The newsgroup line is:

|misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics	Planning anti-fascist activities.

The charter (from the CFV):

Misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics moderated is intended as the
anti-fascist time/space antipode of soc.politics.anti-fascism.  It is
for discussions and debates of real-time anti-fascist activities (NB:
the triple plural)


CHARTER: soc.politics.anti-fascism

The newsgroup line is:

|soc.politics.anti-fascism	The politics of fighting fascism.

The charter (from the CFV):

Soc.politics.anti-fascism is intended as a moderated forum for the
debate and discussion of anti-fascism and artistic/aesthetic,
economic, ethical, historical, legal, philosophical, political,
psychological, and sociological topics related to it. These
discussions should logically include errors that different
anti-fascist tendencies made in defining "fascism" itself.

It is not a "dial-a-demo" group nor a focus for discussions
specifically designed to develop anti-fascist activism.


PROCEDURE: 

The full group removal procedure is documented here:

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

Those who wish to comment on this request to remove this newsgroup should
subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate in the relevant threads 
in that newsgroup.

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

All discussion of active proposals should be posted to news.groups.proposals.

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.


DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

  news.announce.newgroups (moderated)
  news.groups.proposals (moderated)
  misc.activism.anti-fascism.announce (moderated)
  misc.activism.anti-fascism.tactics (moderated)
  soc.politics.anti-fascism (moderated)

The proponent will also post pointers to:

  misc.activism.progressive (moderated)


PROPONENT: 

Jim Riley <jimrtex@pipeline.com>


CHANGE HISTORY: 

2007-07-10     1st RFD