🚀 go-pugleaf

Sylvain:  Last year, when can.rec.gardening was
proposed, I expressed amazement and chagrin at the slam
bang  speed with which it was done.

Several people castigated me for that.

Then the product of that process appeared...... zero
propagation.  It would therefore appear that the
process needs changing.

With that in view, I am going to post here, for
discussion "Newsgroup Creation in the us.* Hierarchy" .
 It is not perfect, but it works, and seems superior to
the Big 8 - 100 votes system.  

The charters seem complicated but they have proven
effective in keeping down the noise in various groups
and keeping threads more or less on topic.

If you think this proposal worth considering I will
edit the text to make it Canadian.

NOTE - The document below is posted on the web at 
http://www.usenetnews.us

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Original Creation Date: January 1998
First Amendment Date: November 2000


Newsgroup Creation in the us.* Hierarchy

These guidelines for newsgroup creation apply only to
the us.*
hierarchy, and supersede all previous editions of this
document.  These guidelines will remain in force until
such time as a committee is formed to assume
responsibility for the day-to-day affairs of the hierarchy.

The procedures outlined below are to be used to propose
the creation, removal, renaming, and/or reorganization
of us.* hierarchy newsgroups; for amending newsgroup
charters; for changing a newsgroup's moderation status;
and for making any other necessary changes to
newsgroups or their charters.

Introduction:

It is expected that, mainly, three types of newsgroups
will be created:

a) administrative/announce groups, which may or may
	not be moderated;
b) commercial groups, which will generally be
	moderated; and 
c) discussion groups, which will generally be
	unmoderated.

Topics for discussion or commercial groups should be
specifically related to the people of the United States
-- how they live, work, and play in their everyday
lives -- as well as to topics of concern to the nation
as a whole.  Topics related to any of the several
states of the Union or to regions and cities of the
United States which have their own hierarchies should
be proposed in the local administrative group(s) for
those states, regions, or cities.  Persons wishing to
establish international groups should use one of  the
existing international hierarchies, such as alt.*, one
of the Big 8 hierarchies, or one of the international
non-English hierarchies such as de.*.

Newsgroup Creation Procedures:

Proposals for new groups in the us.* hierarchy should
be posted to us.config and crossposted to any existing 
us.* hierarchy group(s) whose readers might have an 
interest in the proposal.  The us.* hierarchy
maintainer 
will post pointers to the proposal in related
newsgroups 
in other hierarchies if such practice is permitted
under 
their rules.  Such pointers shall contain a brief
description 
of the proposal and an invitation to interested parties
to 
join the discussions in us.config. Full RFDs from the 
us.* hierarchy may not be posted to newsgroups in other
hierarchies, but excerpts may be included in the
pointer 
to give readers of other groups an idea of what is
being 
proposed.

The acronym RFD stands for "Request for Discussion." 
New proposals shall be titled  "[RFD] Proposal  to
create <name of newsgroup>," and should include the 
following:

a) proposed name for the group;
b) a one-line description of the topic for the group;
c) a rationale as to why the group should be created;
d) a proposed charter for the group;
e) the name and email address of the proponent, and
f) the name and email address of the Newsgroup Host,
	if different from the proponent.

A sample RFD is posted in Appendix B.

The initial discussion period will be ten days, during 
which time the proponent may revise and re-post 
at any time based on any feedback received.   If 
after ten days, all revisions have been made and there 
are no serious objections to the group, the proponent 
should post the final product with the following
Subject 
line: [FINAL RFD] <name of newsgroup>, and the 
newgroup control message will be issued by the hierarchy
maintainer after a final week (7 days) has passed and
no 
major objections are heard. Thus, under normal 
conditions, it should take about three weeks to create
a 
new group in the us.* hierarchy.

If by some chance, there is controversy over a
proposal, 
the us.* hierarchy maintainer may extend the discussion 
period for not more than two additional seven-day 
periods so long as it appears that progress is being
made 
in resolving the issues in dispute. If at the end of
these 
extensions of time, the issues are still not resolved,
the 
hierarchy maintainer may decide the matter unilaterally 
according to what appears to be in the best interests
of 
the hierarchy, and said decision shall be final. 
Options 
include, but are not limited to:

1. Creating the group despite objections under
specified 
terms and conditions.

2. Not creating the group under any conditions.

3. Advising the parties to get together and resolve their
differences by email and bring a better proposal back to
us.config.

4. Declare a cooling off period if emotions are running 
high, anywhere from 10 to 30 days, during which time 
all parties are asked not to discuss the proposal at all.

The hierarchy maintainer may conduct straw polls to 
aid in the decision-making process.

Newsgroup Names and Short Descriptions:

Every RFD must contain what is called a 'Newsgroups line',
which consists of two parts -- the newsgroup name and a
short, one line, description of the purpose of the group.

Newsgroup names are comprised of a series of 
components  separated by periods. Each component to 
the right narrows the topic indicated by the rest of
the 
name to the left.  For example, us.foo.bar (three
levels) 
and us.foo.bar.baz (four levels) would be for more 
specific subtopics of those discussed in us.foo (two
levels).   
Each component should be brief and highly descriptive 
to avoid confusing or misleading readers as to the 
purpose of the group.

Name components have traditionally been limited to 
14 characters each due to software limitations.  This
is 
no longer true.  This means that long words can be 
used in newsgroup names rather than abbreviations.  
It does not mean, however, that long words should be 
used as a matter of course.  A range of between 15-20
characters per component should be sufficient to meet
most needs.

Name components should be made up of lowercase 
letters (a-z), digits (0-9), the plus sign (+), and
dash or
hyphen (-).  A component must begin with a letter or 
digit, and may not consist entirely of digits.  A
hyphen (-) 
may be used for indicating space between words, and a 
plus sign (+) to indicate "and."  Do not use separate 
components where a hyphen may be more appropriate:
us.misc.family-radio is a better group name than 
us.misc.family.radio.

The first step in naming your group is to decide which 
top-level hierarchy you want to use.  A good way to 
start is to examine existing groups and charters to see
if 
any are similar to what you want to propose.  If not, 
take a good hard look at 'Top-Level Hierarchies within 
the us.* Hierarchy', and select your top-level there.  

Since the top-level hierarchies already contain two
components, your task is to choose the word(s) that
will 
make up the third and (possibly) fourth levels of the
 newsgroup name.  It is expected that most groups will 
contain only three components,  and that fourth level 
components will be reserved mainly for providing finer 
separation of the topic or as a place for growth.  The 
ideal is to convey the most meaning possible in the 
smallest amount of space.

After you've decided on the newsgroup name, you'll 
need to write a short description.  There is a firm
rule 
that the newsgroup name followed by one or more 
8-character tabs followed by the description should 
all fit on a single line of 79 or less characters.  The 
description should include a terminating period.  
There is also a rule that the description should not 
begin until after the 24th space on the newsgroups
line. So the longer your newsgroup name, the less 
space you will have for the description. and vice 
versa.  The trick is to balance the two so that each  
makes a maximum contribution to understanding 
the purpose of the group.  A chart in Appendix  A 
indicates the amount of space left for the description 
depending on the length of the newsgroup name.

If the group is to be moderated, a space should follow
the period in the description, followed by
"(Moderated)" - 
without the quotes, but with the parentheses.  This 
'moderation flag' is not counted toward the
79-character 
limit of the newsgroups line.
:
Please resist the temptation to name your group after a
particular person or specific  news event.  These kinds
of groups tend to be short-lived; there is usually a
flurry 
of activity for several months and then traffic dies
down 
as posters run out of things to say.  It is better, in
such 
cases, to name the group after the activity for which a 
person is known or after a particular type of news
event.  
This broadens the scope of the newsgroup to cover more 
than one particular person or news event, and ensures 
a longer life for the group.

The Rationale

In the rationale, please state the purpose of your
group, 
why you think it should be in the us.* hierarchy, and 
what kind of traffic you expect. Do a Google search to
see 
if your topic is being discussed elsewhere in Usenet.
If 
so, identify the groups.  If any of these groups have  
similar names or charters to your proposal, be sure to 
make appropriate distinctions so that people won't get 
confused.

The charter

The charter should elaborate on the purpose of the 
group given in the short description and set forth specific
guidelines for prospective posters. The guidelines
should 
include statements as to what will be considered
on-topic 
and off-topic for the group, how to handle special 
situations that may be unique to  the group, and 
reminders as to what is generally accepted newsgroup 
posting behavior.  This should be followed by a
statement that the us.* hierarchy posting guidelines are
incorporated by reference into the charter, and the us.*
hierarchy may take action to enforce the charter and the
guidelines.

The Newsgroup Host

When your group is first created, there will be no
traffic 
at all.  Then slowly, one by one, people will stop by. 
introduce themselves, and start asking questions about 
the group.  It is important that someone be there on a
regular basis to answer the questions and encourage 
people to post.  Newsgroup proponentss are therefore 
expected to 'host' their own groups or to appoint a 
trusted person to the job.  

Newsgroup Hosts are expected to:

a) greet new posters and help them get adjusted to the 
	group,
b) encourage posters to stay on-topic in the group,
c) publicize the group in their .sig file to attract
	new posters,
d) monitor the group for unwelcome posts such as spam,
	binaries, and excessive crossposting.

They may also, if they choose, write a FAQ for the
group 
or  encourage others to do so, set up a website for the
group; add a link to the group on an existing website, 
and do whatever else seems reasonable to build and
maintain a healthy newsgroup.

Newsgroup hosts are not expected to play netcop, and 
are specifically requested not to issue any 3rd party
cancels  or get involved in any long, drawn out 
arguments with offensive posters.  Serious problems 
should be reported to the us.* hierarchy
administration, 
which will take appropriate action whenever possible. 
Abuse reports should be sent to usreport@usenetnews.us
until such time as a net-abuse group has been set up
for 
the hierarchy.

If a Newsgroup Host resigns, s/he may recommend his/her
successor, or the us.* hierarchy administration may
call for nominations from the group.  If there is more
than 
one contender for the job, a vote will be taken within
the 
group by the us.* hierarchy administration.

Six-month Trial

New group charters shall remain in full force and
effect 
for six  months, during which time proposals for 
amendment will not be entertained.  At the end of the 
six-month trial period, proposals for amendment may be 
made by any regular poster to the group,  the Newsgroup 
Host, or the us.* hierarchy administration.  Such 
proposals must be made by RFD, as outlined in these
guidelines,  the discussion shall be crossposted
between 
the newsgroup and us.config, and the decision shall be 
made by consensus in us.config.

If a newsgroup appears to be in very serious trouble, a
Call For Discussion may be made by the Newsgroup Host 
or the us.* hierarchy administration. The notice shall
be 
crossposted between the group and us.config, and titled 
"[CFD] Formal Review of <name of newsgroup>. 
The discussion period  shall be at least ten days, and
shall 
focus on such topics as:

a) quality and quantity of traffic;
b) if the group is properly placed within the hierarchy;
c) if there is a need for changes in the charter to
	take account of new conditions;
d) if the Host is having any problems that need to be 
	resolved;
e) if conditions are such that the group needs to be 
	moderated;
f)  if conditions are such that the group should be 
	removed.

If at the end of ten days, no problems have been
identified or the problems identified have been 
satisfactorily resolved, the newsgroup will remain 
as is without change.  But if major changes
are needed, a new RFD must be posted for full
discussion in us.config and the affected group, the 
procedures in this document must be followed, 
and a new control message will be issued seven
days after the posting of a new charter for the 
group.

Amendments:

These guidelines may not be amended by the 
us.* hierarchy maintainer without full RFD discussion
in 
us.config.   Any person directly connected with the 
us.* hierarchy may post an RFD suggesting amendments 
to these guidelines.  The procedure to be followed will 
be the same as for a new group proposal -- ten days' 
discussion, possibly extended, followed by a decision
by 
consensus in us.config (hopefully) without the need for
conducting any votes.  Once the hierarchy committee 
is formed, the committee is free to propose its own 
guidelines for newsgroup creation or to make selective 
amendments to this document.

Appendix A: Short-line description chart in fixed pitch font.

   Name       Tab       Maximum for
  Length      To                Description
 1 to 23       24       55 (25-79)
24 to 31      32                47 (33-79)
32 to 39      40                39 (41-79)
40 to 47      48                31 (49-79)
                         
Note: The length of the description includes the final period.

sample charters and RFDs trimmed to save bandidth