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From: woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin
Subject: More on Moderated news.group
Message-ID: <3497@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: 21 Jun 89 15:44:13 GMT
Reply-To: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods)
Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 42

I am delaying the call for votes on this, because it is clear from the 
discussion that a couple of key points have not yet been resolved.
They are:

1) The name of the group. The two alternatives are to put it under
   news.announce (news.announce.groups) or under news.groups 
   (news.groups.proposals). There is not yet, as far as I can see, a clear
   consensus on which is better. For my own part, I can see good arguments
   for either. I don't think either side is more numerous in its supporters,
   but the supporters of news.groups.proposals are more vocal; a number of
   them in private mail who are great supporters of the idea of a new
   moderated group for newsgroup proposals in general have threatened to vote
   NO on the group if it is to be placed under news.announce. If you have
   a strong opinion on this which you have not already expressed to me, please
   do so. I have logged, and will continue to log, all comments I get on this
   proposal, either posted or mailed.

2) Guidelines enforcement. Perhaps I can clear this up a bit by saying WHY I
   want to enforce the guidelines. Then I will make a compromise proposal.  It 
   appears clear to me that the vast majority of guidelines violations we have
   seen are inadvertent (e.g. misc.emergency-services, rec.music.bluegrass).
   It is these violations, rather than willful ones for topical groups, that
   I want to eliminate. So, how about this as a compromise: if the posting
   contains language making it clear that the poster is aware that s/he is
   in violation of the guidelines, it gets posted, assuming that it actually 
   is a well-formed proposal for a new group or a call for votes. This would
   allow for things like "I know this has not been discussed, but I think we
   need to quickly create net.blotto", or" This is a call for votes on 
   net.blotto, even if we have not discussed it yet"  or "the discussion seems
   clear after 5 days and I don't want to wait the required 14. Therefore this
   is a call for votes on the creation of net.blotto". Otherwise I will point
   out the violation to the poster and give them the options of either following
   the guidelines, editing their posting to insert a statement that they know
   they are in violation, or if they insist on posting it verbatim I will do
   so with a SHORT, concise parenthetical remark at the beginning that the
   guidelines are being violated. Would this satisfy everyone?

Once again my timing is not good; I'm leaving Thursday morning for a 4-day
camping trip. I will review posted and mailed comments when I return, and
hopefully THEN I can post a call for votes on this long-overdue newsgroup.

--Greg