Request: A Copy of "Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion" Document
Carol Koster
Dear News.Groups Readers,
I am looking for the most recent copy of "Usenet Newsgroup Creation
Companion". My server does not show it being carried on
news.announce.newusers, news.groups or news.answers as it's reputed to be.
I do not WWW browse. Is there someone I can E-mail to to request a copy
or can the most recent copy be E-mailed to me? Thank you for any
information or referral.
Rebecca McQuitty
[ posted and mailed ]
From: rdip...@happy.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.announce.newusers,news.answers
Subject: Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion
Date: 23 Mar 1995 22:23:54 GMT
Archive-name: usenet/creating-newsgroups/helper
Last-modified: 1995/03/21
Version: 1.09
The Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion
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Posted once a month - Comments to rdip...@qualcomm.com welcome!
So you want to create a newsgroup...
Wallace Sayre said, "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter
form of politics, because the stakes are so low." He didn't know Usenet:
welcome to the next level.
[ If you're more interested in the voting side than the creation side, a
good guide for the interested party or voter is the User's Guide to the
Changing USENET, maintained by sta...@skyking.oce.orst.edu (John
Stanley). ]
1. What This is All About
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Usenet is a loosely knit anarchy - there is no controlling body which
forces any site on the net to choose which newsgroups they can carry.
Sites can create or remove groups at will - however, they can't expect
that everyone else will honor their decisions. Obviously, this can be
rather chaotic, so in time a set of customs has evolved to ease the
confusion and keep the creation of new groups to a point just below
critical mass.
Here's how it works: there is a general agreement among Usenet news
administrators that groups in the "big seven" (comp., misc., news., rec.,
sci., soc., talk.) hierarchies will only be honored at their sites if the
group passes the "official" voting procedures defined in the Guidelines.
Anyone can create a group if they figure out the correct message format
to do so, but it will only be carried on a minuscule number of sites, and
anyone posting to the group may be greeted with messages claiming that
the group is bogus.
The Guidelines, which you should read if you want to create a group, can
be found in the periodic posting "How to Create a New Usenet Group" in
news.announce.newusers, or ftp to ftp.uu.net, go to the directory
usenet/news.announce.newgroups and get the file "New_Usenet_Groups". If you
don't read this file and the group vote is canceled due to
irregularities, you have only yourself to blame.
But the Guidelines aren't the whole story. Another set of customs has
sprung up around newsgroup votings - mostly because there has been an
unfortunate number of sleazy tactics used in past group creation
attempts. As with Caesar's wife, a vote must be beyond reproach. If you
even accidentally violate one of these customs, you may find yourself
with a botched vote, a lot of wasted time, and a massive flamewar. The
purpose of this document is to help you through this potential minefield.
This is _not_ in any way an official document, it has no force of law -
rather it helps you with the informal conventions which have evolved over
the years.
Quick Glossary
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CFV Call for votes. See the Guidelines.
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions list - many groups have a FAQ
periodically posted to answer common questions.
Flame A heated attack in a message. Like fires, they spread.
Flamefest A general message war containing lots of flames.
News admin News administrator. Someone in charge of keeping Usenet
news running at a site. These are the people you have to
convince to carry your group.
Proponent The person who is the driving force behind the vote.
Generally the person who does the RFD and the work involved
in setting up the CFV.
RFD Request for discussion. See the Guidelines.
Votetaker The person who actually posts the CFVs and counts votes.
Usually not the proponent.
Quick Overview
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Q: What's the general voting process?
A: There are five main stages. You _really_ should read the Guidelines
if you actually decide to go through with it, but this is a quick
summary.
1) Discussion of the idea. If your proposal directly affects an
existing group you might want to "test the waters" first to see if
there is interest.
2) RFD (Request for Discussion). The proponent (you) posts an RFD to
all interested groups plus news.announce.newgroups and news.groups.
If you don't include n.a.n, it's not an official RFD.
3) Discussion in news.groups. People react to the RFD, express
support, express loathing, or perhaps offer suggestions. If you
significantly change your RFD based on discussion in this group, you
should issue a second (or more) RFD as in step 2.
4) Voting. Contact uvv-c...@amdahl.com regarding having do the
actual drudgery of voting for you. The vote should usually start
around 30 days after the first RFD, and no earlier than 21 days after.
The votetaker will handle the official CFVs (Call for Votes). The
voting will run 22 to 30 days, usually 22.
5) Results. After the voting has ended, the votetaker compiles the
results and posts them to the net. If the group passes it will be
newgrouped after five days, though it may take a while to get to some
sites. If the group fails, it can't be voted on for six months.
General Suggestions
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Q: Why so sanctimonious?
A: Because the politics can be so vicious. You can ignore all of this,
but in a controversial group proposal, say involving politics,
culture, or Star Trek, there are people just waiting for you to
breathe wrong so they can call for a vote invalidation. You don't
have to satisfy me, you have to satisfy them. These "rules" already
exist. Read this now and you could save yourself a lot of hassle in
the long run.
Q: What's the best way to find out how to propose a group and run a vote?
A: Read the guidelines as above, read this document, read news.groups for
a few months - you're guaranteed at least one enlightening flamefest.
You'll also see plenty of RFDs and CFVs, and see the reaction to them.
Q: If I don't violate any of the "official" rules, how can my vote be
invalidated?
A: Remember, this is all by agreement between system administrators. Any
news admin can declare that they will not be carrying a group for any
reason. If it's a respected admin, others may join. This can
snowball to where you have an "official" group that nobody carries.
And if the news.announce.newgroups moderator(s) decide you violated
the spirit of the rules, you're dead in the water.
Q: What's the best policy in order to avoid any minefields?
A: Full honesty, full disclosure, adherence to the rule and spirit of the
Guidelines. If you're going to do something, such as send the CFV to
a mailing list, _say so_ in your CFV! It's amazing how much pain
something like this can avoid.
Q: This document doesn't tell me what I need to know!
A: group-...@uunet.uu.net is a mailing list of administrators who can
help you on the tough questions, if neither this or news.groups helps.
Thinking about a Group Vote
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Q: Do I really want to do this?
A: That depends - it's a lot of effort, even with some help from
programs. It's a lot of time - initial discussion, a month for RFD, a
month for CFV, some time for results and creation. All told, from two
to three months of your time.
Q: Is this going to be a lot of work?
A: Going through the entire RFD, CFV, and voting process can take quite a
bit of time. You've got to meet all your deadlines, face the endless
bickering on news.groups, and thrash out some sort of compromise with
all the highly opinionated people who have their own ideas about how
the group charter should look. Don't go into it lightly.
Q: What are some alternatives?
A: Consider a mailing list. This can be set up instantly, and has the
advantages of being fairly focused and having a smaller number of
people out to cause chaos.
Q: What about reorganizing existing groups instead of just creating a
group for a new subject?
A: This is hairy - it's a whole level of magnitude above just creating a
new group. There is only one standard reason for splitting or
reorganizing an existing set of groups - overwhelming traffic. This
usually means about 200 messages a day, which can make it tough even
for someone using a good newsreader.
Alternative: try getting people to use keywords in subjects, such as
U7 for Ultima VII in a games group. If most people are considerate
this way, killfiles can easily kill or select desired articles. Not
having a newsreader with killfile capability is not generally viewed
with sympathy.
Who's going to take charge? You really shouldn't take on the
responsibilities of a reorganization unless you've fully handled at
least one group vote.
If you _really_ want to consider splitting, thoroughly discuss the
possible split on the affected groups before even thinking about an
RFD. Work out what you think the new groups should be. You want
enough of a split to divide up the traffic, but you don't want too
many new groups, and you don't want the subject matter of groups to
overlap. Do you need to remove any existing groups? Because of the
complex nature of reorganizations, this should be worked out in
advance. Then do the RFD if there's a consensus for it.
If one group is especially opposed to the reorganization, or there is
lots of opposition to one group, leave it out, unless you want to get
a lot of all-NO spite votes. And remember, each group creation or
removal is a separate vote, even though they can all be on the same
ballot. If some things pass and others don't, weird results can
result. Remember, you can always do things in two or more steps
(votes).
Suggestions on RFDs
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Q: What should I know about the group name?
A: Check existing groups for hints on appropriate names. Especially
check to see if a group already meets your needs! Also, although few
systems are affected anymore, each component of the group name should
be 14 characters or less. For example, foo.bar.bletch has three
components, "foo", "bar", and "bletch", all less than 15 characters,
so no problem. sci.physics.particle-accelerators, on the other hand,
is out, as the last component is 21 characters. Shorten it down.
The naming is very important - it should be hierarchical, with each
extension in the hierarchy further subdividing the subject. Don't add
a period just as punctuation (for example, foo.bar.don.rippold is bad,
use foo.bar.don-rippold)!
Most new groups fit in nicely at three levels deep... usually
comp.sys.something or rec.arts.something. See if your subject fits
nicely under existing hierarchies. New second level hierarchies, such
as rec.something, are usually frowned on unless somehow Usenet has
managed to overlook a group for a major subject, such as rec.toys.
The "big 7" hierarchies covered by these rules are:
comp Computer related.
misc Anything that doesn't go somewhere else - not used much
news Dealing with Usenet itself.
rec Recreational. Fun stuff.
sci Related to the sciences.
soc Social issues - for discussion of such issues, or certain social
backgrounds, such as soc.culture.italian.
talk Heated debate about controversial issues - politics and religion,
for instance.
There are also the "other hierarchies" such as bit. and bionet. The
most important of these is alt., which operates on different and much
looser "rules." Read alt.config for information about this.
If you just can't come up with something, group-...@uunet.uu.net is
a mailing list of administrators who can help you.
Q: Where should I post the RFD?
A: All RFDs _must_ be crossposted to news.announce.newgroups. Any which
don't do this are invalid, which can cause problems when you try to
start a CFV. You should also crosspost to news.groups and set
"Followup-To: news.groups" where discussion should take place. If you
don't do it, the moderator has to. Also crosspost to groups which
might be interested, but don't go overboard. A good way to avoid
confusion here and when you post the CFV is to just list the groups in
the body of the RFD.
If your site won't let you post to a moderated group, send your RFD to
announce-...@uunet.uu.net.
Since news.announce.newgroups is moderated, your posting will not
appear in _any_ of the groups until the moderator approves the
posting. Be patient. Don't go posting it to the other groups
yourself; this will irritate people. Also, the moderator may notice
problems in your proposal, and can help you correct them before they
get posted. Because of such reasons, if you are dealing with a
mailing list it is a good idea to not send the RFD to the mailing
list until it officially appears on news.announce.newgroups. Even
better, just send a pointer message ("There's an RFD for ... on
n.a.n.") to the mailing list. Anyone who could read the created
group should be able to read n.a.n as well.
Q: How long does the RFD discussion go on?
A: The minimum period of RFD discussion before you can issue the CFV,
even if the consensus of all posters is "good idea, lets do it!" is 21
days by preference of the news.announce.newgroups moderator. If the
RFD takes much longer than 30 days, the discussion should be taken
offline until a consensus can be reached.
Keep in mind that you can work out many of the hairy details in
advance before ever posting an RFD - this is what has been done in
several tricky reorganizations and has worked rather well. The
group(s) can take their time working out all the details, then post
the RFD, and all you have to deal with then are suggestions from
news.groups readers, which should be possible to do in under 30 days.
Q: How many times should I post the RFD?
A: Usually just once. Another RFD is used only if there have been
significant changes to the proposal since the first RFD and you want
to involve those who don't read news.groups / news.announce.newgroups
in the discussion again. In other words, not all that often.
Suggestions on Moderation
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Q: Who should moderate a group, if it is moderated?
A: It should be someone respected, who has a fast news connection (no
leaf nodes), and has the time to do a good job of it. The moderator
kills or nurtures the moderated group, so choose wisely.
In addition, the moderator should be able to set up a separate account
or mailing address just for moderation purposes.
Q: What if the moderator needs to go on vacation?
A: It's an excellent idea to name a backup moderator at group proposal
time. If the moderator ever needs to disappear for an extended period
of time, the backup moderator takes over until the moderator returns.
Q: How about getting rid of the moderator?
A: There is _no_ official way to get rid of a moderator without their
consent! Even if s/he turns out to be a bum who never does anything,
you can't easily replace them. Thus, take great care with your
moderation guidelines.
Suggestions on CFVs
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Q: Should I take the CFV myself?
A: For many reasons, group-advice and the news.announce.newgroups
moderator require that you use the services of an experienced neutral
votetaker. You can email uvv-c...@amdahl.com about having a
neutral third-party member of the Usenet Volunteer Votetakers run
the vote for you.
Q: Which groups should you have the votetaker post the CFV to?
A: All CFV's _must_ be crossposted to news.announce.newgroups, and should
be crossposted news.groups. Also to other interested groups, but
don't go overboard - the groups you posted the RFD to are a good
guide. This is in the Guidelines, but is violated so often it is
worth repeating. Please post only to groups that are related to the
subject of your CFV.
Q: What if I forget or don't notice an appropriate group until after the
CFV has been posted?
A: First, note that it should be an _appropriate_ group. You have two
choices. First, if the second CFV has not been posted yet, the group
may be added to that CFV, but the votetaker will add a note at the top
of the CFV letting the news.announce.newgroups moderator know what's
happened. He may overrule the addition.
The second choice is to post a note in the group mentioning that the
CFV is going on, sorry this group was missed, and please read article
"CFV: the.group.name" in news.announce.newgroups if you are interested
in voting. Don't just go and post the CFV there. It's effectively the
same thing, but appearances are everything.
Q: How long should the CFV run and how many times should it be posted?
A: Standard length of a vote is 22 days. The vote can run as long as 31
days, but this usually doesn't accomplish anything except delay the
group for another week and a half. There are normally two CFVs
posted. Once on the initial day, and the second a week after that or
halfway into the vote. The votetaker will take care of this.
Q: Can the CFV be sent to mailing lists?
A: Yes, but the people on the mailing list should be able to read the new
group, if created, or else you have people voting on something they'll
never see, which may cause some raised eyebrows. And of course the
mailing list should be intimately related to the subject of the
proposed group. Note that purposely excluding a directly related
mailing list from seeing the CFV just because they're likely to
vote no may also cause eyebrows to elevate.
Q: How should the CFV be sent to a mailing list?
A: First, use the full disclosure tactic. Let the votetaker know which
mailing lists the CFV should go to, so he can note them in the CFV as
required. Either the votetaker or the proponent can do the actual
mailing, but make sure it is done _only_ after the official CFV has
appeared in news.announce.newgroups, and that the CFV posted to the
mailing list is the one which appears in news.announce.newgroups,
or the votes received will be invalid.
Q: What's the big deal about mailing lists?
A: One of the best ways to get your vote canceled is to send the CFV to a
mailing list without following the above procedures. Disclose in
advance!
Q: Can I put the CFV in Mosaic, or any WWW or WAIS-type server and set
up a vote dialog?
A: It's best not to do this. Many who have access to such services
don't have or use Usenet. They wouldn't have access to the created
group, and don't even have access to news.announce.newgroups or
news.groups to keep track of future developments. Your best bet,
if you wish to set up something like this, is to set up a text
item telling people that a vote is going on, and that the article
titled "CFV: foo.bar.misc" in news.announce.newgroups is what they
should read if they care to vote on it.
Q: Can I campaign for or against the group(s)?
A: The rule is that the votetaker can't do any campaigning. If you're
not the votetaker (and you likely will not be), you can campaign.
Be aware, however, that this often inspires negative feelings on
the part of some, who will immediately begin campaigning against
the group.
Q: Can I vote on the group?
A: You bet. One person, one vote, and even though you're the proponent
you're also a voter.
Q: Can I find out how the vote is going?
A: No. The votetaker, by the Guidelines, may not reveal to _anyone_ how
the vote is going, even to the proponent. If they do, the vote is
rendered invalid. So don't even ask.
Q: Any other hints?
A: The votetaker will take care of the mechanics of the CFV presentation.
Your job is to come up with the best group charter you can.
Suggestions After the Vote
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: The group passed! My job is over, right?
A: Wrong. Don't be caught napping. Your new group will be visited by
plenty of people who never saw the RFD or CFV and want to know what's
up. Even people who know what the group is for may not be familiar
with proper etiquette.
Q: How about a FAQ?
A: Good idea. It's a Good Thing to have a embryonic Frequently Asked
Questions list which can be posted as soon as the group is created
that explains the nature of the group, including the charter. It will
grow, but it's good to have one to start with. In fact, if you create
a FAQ before the CFV is posted, and include it in the CFV, it may
answer the questions of those who are unsure whether or not they want
to vote for the group - it's an indicator that the group may be of
similar high quality.
Your FAQ should definitely encourage the use of keywords in the
subject line, for help with killfiles. For example, in
rec.arts.comics, MARVEL, DC, or INDY in the subject, as in "Subject:
DC: Sandman #92", are suggested. These will depend on the nature of
your group.
Q: It's going to be moderated, is there anything special to do?
A: Yes. Read the Guidelines, and as soon as the vote passes, follow the
instructions on mailing the moderator's addresses to the specified
people who maintain the official moderators lists.
Whoever is moderating should have another account or mailing address
created which is for nothing but postings to the moderated group.
This way, there is no possibility of confusion as to personal mail and
potential posts, among other advantages. This may take some time to
set up, and should be done as soon as possible.
Q: The group failed! When can I try again?
A: In six months. Consider the results, though, so you don't waste your
time again. If it failed miserably, you might try a mailing list
instead. If it was a close vote, consider any flaws in the proposal.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus Endeth Ye Documente
Thanks To: Alan Barrett, Nick Fitzpatrick, Ed McGuire, Andrew Hackard, J
Lee Jaap, Jonathan I. Kamens, David Lawrence, Mark Linimon, Emma
Pease, Edward Reid, Brenda J. Roder, Chip Rosenthal, Edmund
Schweppe, David Seal, Al Sharp, Josh Smith, David W. Tamkin, Coyt D
Watters, David Wright
--
Rebecca Graham McQuitty
Carol Koster
Dear News.Groups.Readers,
Two people have been kind and have sent copies. My thanks for your help.
Happy Mardi Gras!
Henrietta Thomas
In news.groups on 24 Feb 1998 18:50:58 GMT, m...@wco.com (Rebecca McQuitty)
wrote:
>[ posted and mailed ]
>
>From: rdip...@happy.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
>Newsgroups: news.groups,news.announce.newusers,news.answers
>Subject: Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion
>Date: 23 Mar 1995 22:23:54 GMT
Thank you, Rebecca McQuitty. I've always wanted to read the
Newsgroup Creation Companion, and now I have my very own
copy. :-)
Henrietta Thomas
h...@wwa.com