Nan:2007-09-26-news.announce.newusers-rfd

From: Jon Bell <jtbell@presby.edu>
Subject: RFD: remove news.announce.newusers moderated
Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers, news.announce.newgroups,
 news.newusers.questions, news.groups.proposals
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:00:01 -0500
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                     remove news.announce.newusers

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) to remove the moderated
newsgroup news.announce.newusers.


RATIONALE: remove news.announce.newusers

The last approved postings in news.announce.newusers (NAN) were in May
2006, due to a server crash or operating-system upgrade which stopped the
software that had been posting them automatically.  As the maintainer of
that software, I accept responsibility and apologize for this lapse in
service.  I plan to resuscitate those postings, get them approved for
news.answers, and arrange for them to be posted via the news.answers FAQ
server, on behalf of the news.newusers.questions (NNQ) Moderation Board.

Before I do this, we (the NNQ Moderation Board) think a decision should be
made as to whether NAN needs to exist any longer as a separate group from
NNQ.  On the one hand, NNQ receives very little traffic nowadays, so that
introductory Usenet FAQs will be as easily visible there as in NAN.  On
the other hand, Usenet documentation and custom has traditionally advised
newcomers to look in NAN for basic introductory information, and that
advice would no longer be valid.

If it is decided that NAN is to be removed, we will post the former NAN
FAQs and similar new postings to NNQ and news.answers instead.

If it is decided that NAN should continue to exist, the NNQ Moderation
Board is willing to moderate it on a similar basis to news.answers.  That
is, after gaining pre-approval from the NNQ Moderation Board and from the
news.answers moderators, posters would be responsible for posting the
articles themselves, via the news.answers FAQ server or some other means.
All postings would be crossposted to NNQ, NAN and news.answers.

If someone else volunteers to moderate NAN according to a different scheme
that is acceptable to the Big-8 Management Board, the NNQ Moderation Board
will turn over NAN to them.


HISTORY:

The newsgroup news.announce.newusers was created in the mid 1980s, as
part of the "Great Renaming."  Its purpose is to carry
periodically-reposted informational articles for newcomers to newsgroups.
In 2001, the previous moderator, Mark Moraes, passed control of the group
to the NNQ Moderation Board.


CHARTER:

The newsgroup line is:

  news.announce.newusers  Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated)

I cannot find an official charter for this group.


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)
  news.announce.newusers (moderated)
  news.newusers.questions (moderated)


PROPONENT: 

Jon Bell <jtbell@presby.edu>


CHANGE HISTORY: 

2007-09-26     1st RFD