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From: kjones@talos.uucp (Kyle Jones)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups
Subject: renaming a group
         (was: Re: DISCUSSION)
Message-ID: <1989Nov14.191833.19704@talos.uucp>
Date: 14 Nov 89 19:18:33 GMT
References: <8209@thor.acc.stolaf.edu> <17633.255a9307@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <1989Nov12.201312.19380@acd4.UUCP> <17935.255eb032@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Reply-To: kjones@talos.uu.net
Followup-To: news.admin
Lines: 22

Bob Sloane writes:
 > [...] there just isn't any mechanism for renaming a group.  The best
 > you can do is delete the old group and create a new one.  [...]
 > While renaming is a good idea (IMHO) it just isn't technically
 > feasable.

Some procedure needs to be ordained for renaming groups, in preparation
for the day when a group really needs to be renamed.  So, to start the
discussion, my idea of how a rename should be done appears below.

To rename <old-group> to <new-group>,

  1. Issue a "newgroup <new-group>" control message.
  2. Post note to news.admin asking admins to alias <old-group> to
     <new-group> at their sites.
  3. After a short period of time to allow the above newgroup to
     propagate, say one day, issue a "newgroup <old-group> moderated"
     control message.  This will inhibit further postings to the old
     group.
  4. After allowing enough time for articles in <old-group> to expire
     normally, say 21 days, issue a "rmgroup <old-group>" to remove the
     old newsgroup.