RFD: remove uk.gov.social-work

[Mike Bristow]

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REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the following changes
in the uk.* Usenet hierarchy:

delete newsgroup uk.gov.social-work

Newsgroup line:
uk.gov.social-work Social Work policies and practice


*** ALL DISCUSSION MUST TAKE PLACE IN UK.NET.NEWS.CONFIG ***

This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time.
Further procedural details are given below.

RATIONALE: uk.gov.social-work

Examining the posts available via two well known news servers, it
is apparent that the newsgroup is dead. The posts made during 2012
and 2013 so far can be broken down as follows:

9: Creative Support
7: Lewis Robinson
6: commercial spam
1: facebook
1: linked in spam


The Creative Support category refers to 3 threads, each cross posted
to uk.misc and alt.support.schizoaffective. The google groups
profile of those that follow up suggest that they are picking up
the posts via "uk.misc", as that group is in their top newsgroups,
placed above both uk.gov.social-work and alt.support.schizoaffective.

The "Lewis Robinson" category refers to 7 posts, each without a
followup, which appear to be letters of complaint to various NHS
and local government organizations, and "CC'ed" to the newsgroup.
They were all posted by the same person; none generated a followup.

The "facebook" category refers to a single post which is hard to
categorize beyond being short, and about facebook.

Ignoring spam, these 17 posts are the only the only traffic on the
group. If they were all on-topic and relevant, they would hardly be
indicitive of a healthy group.

I feel it is approprate to ignore the "facebook" post as it started
no discussion, and is appears to me to be off-topic.

While the Lewis Robinson posts are (arguably) on-topic, they generate
no discussion, and are in my view insufficent to justify the group.

The "Creative Support" posts are, frankly, difficult to dismiss
out-of-hand; however, they are crosposted to an arguably more
approprate group (alt.support.schizoaffective). And also crossposted
to uk.misc.

Regradless of their merit, I believe the group is dead and should be
removed.


CHARTER:
uk.gov.social-work

1. This group is not Government owned nor Government moderated.
2. uk.gov.social-work is for discussion regarding the quality,
policies, provision and practice (or theoretical practice) of:
1. any statutory social work service.
2. any service (statutory or voluntary-sector) that is
substantially funded or purchased entirely by a local authority
social work department (including 'Privately Funded Initiatives'
and PPP's).
3. the differences between the services outlined above and any
other social-care service (Eg. private or voluntary, including
those in other countries), where it is relevant to the
discussion to compare such services.
3. Local government employees are reminded that they should not breach
workplace confidentiality policy at any time.
4. No commercial advertising is permitted, although short hyperlinks to
relevant information is acceptable.
5. All posts must be in plain text. Attachments, HTML and other types
of formatted text are not permitted with the exception of:
* Short hyperlinks to relevant information/resources.
* Encryption signatures or similar (Eg. PGP).
6. Participants should ensure crossposting between newsgroups is
relevant and kept to a minimum.
7. Groups within uk.gov.* are for the discussion of the operation and
policy of the Body concerned. Discussions relating to Government
policy ought to take place in the relevant uk.politics.* group,
where such a group exists.

END CHARTER

PROCEDURE:

This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of
the process, any potential problems with the proposal should be raised
and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of 10
days, starting from when this RFD is posted to uk.net.news.announce
(i.e. until June 12th) after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be
posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it.
Alternatively, the proposal may proceed by the fast-track method. Please
do not attempt to vote until this happens.

This RFD attempts to comply fully with the "Guidelines for Group Creation
within the UK Hierarchy" as published regularly in uk.net.news.announce
and is available from http://www.usenet.org.uk/guidelines.html (the UK
Usenet website). Please refer to this document if you have any questions
about the process.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups:
uk.net.news.announce
uk.net.news.config
uk.gov.social-work

Proponent:
Mike Bristow <mi...@urgle.com>

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