• Modern administration of creation and removal proposals

    From =?UTF-8?Q?Julien_=c3=89LIE?=@21:1/5 to All on Mon Dec 7 21:19:54 2020
    XPost: news.admin.hierarchies

    Hi Adam,

    Motivated promotion means the proponent spends months looking for
    discussion taking place on that topic in other newsgroups and asks those posters to try the proposed group.
    [...]> The reasons 10s of thousands of proposed newsgroups typically fail to
    find an audience is 1) lack of discussion and 2) proponent who could
    care less.

    Unfortunately.


    We would like to make the creation and removal of fr.* newsgroups more
    fluid, but defining the process is tricky...
    Any thoughts or advices about it according to your experience in other
    hierarchies?

    New groups do not attract new discussion to Usenet. It's more important to get discussion going on the topic of interest. Once there is sustainable discussion, then the decision can be made about breaking it off into a
    new group. But make sure there is sufficient discussion in the general newsgroup for fr.* or another newsgroup in which French is used first.
    [...]
    Discussion of the topic is the important bit. Having a highly motivated proponent is the important bit. Just discussing the idea of discussing
    the topic in a proposed group is the irrelevant bit.

    Either the topic is being discussed on Usenet, or it's not.

    Many thanks for having shared these wise thoughts.
    One often forgets that mere fact, when focusing only on the process.

    I've mentioned your response in the current discussions in the fr.*
    hierarchy. I hope it will inspire us!

    --
    Julien ÉLIE

    « C'est la première fois que je vois traiter une affaire avec autant de
    punch ! » (Astérix)

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  • From Matthew Vernon@21:1/5 to iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid on Tue Dec 8 13:22:54 2020
    XPost: news.admin.hierarchies

    Julien ÉLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> writes:

    In parallel of that, we're discussing in the fr.* hierarchy potential
    new rules to create/remove newsgroups, and I reckon it should be
    interesting to share best current practices in other hierarchies.

    All your questions about uk.* are addressed on our webpage: http://www.usenet.org.uk/guidelines.html

    But, more briefly:

    - Do you still use votes by mails?
    Yes

    - Do you still have a threshold?
    No

    - How to prevent "unwanted" changes, if the processus is laxed?
    We have a fast-track process for uncontroversial changes, but any 6
    objections (or 1 that the Committee feels well-founded) stops the
    fast-track, and then a vote is needed.

    - Do you have a process like the evaluation of the creation of a
    newsgroup after 6 or 12 months, with its removal if it is unused?
    No

    uk.* relies on ukvoting volunteers to run our votes, and I don't know
    how medium-term sustainable that is.

    Matthew
    [definitely speaking without any official hat on]
    --
    `O'-----0 `O'---. `O'---. `O'---.
    \___| | \___|0-/ \___|/ \___|
    | | /\ | | \ | |\ | |
    The Dangers of modern veterinary life

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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?Julien_=c3=89LIE?=@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 9 20:45:31 2020
    XPost: news.admin.hierarchies

    Hi Matthew,

    All your questions about uk.* are addressed on our webpage: http://www.usenet.org.uk/guidelines.html

    Thanks for the pointer. Very well described; I even see a "Quick
    creation" request with 11 supporters.


    - How to prevent "unwanted" changes, if the processus is laxed?
    We have a fast-track process for uncontroversial changes, but any 6 objections (or 1 that the Committee feels well-founded) stops the
    fast-track, and then a vote is needed.

    Do you happen to know how the number 6 was chosen?
    The notion of "well-founded" is also easy to define objectively...

    --
    Julien ÉLIE

    « J'oubliais qu'Assurancetourix a une nouvelle corde à sa harpe ! »
    (Astérix)

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