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From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.cog-eng,comp.ai,sci.misc,sci.research
Subject: Re: Votes & Posts for comp.cog-sci (was Re: Another vote for comp.cog-sci)
Summary: check netiquette
Keywords: comp.cog-sci != sci.psych
Message-ID: <605@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jan 88 01:06:31 GMT
References: <1416@uhccux.UUCP> <4215@utai.UUCP> <10334@mimsy.UUCP> <1988Jan28.174756.1141@mntgfx.mentor.com>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 33

Um, I'm not too sure about this, never having wanted to start a newsgroup,
but I *think* the protocol is
	Someone thinks it would be a good idea to start a new newsgroup.
	He posts the suggestion.
	After some discussion, it is announced that voting will start.
	Votes are MAILED to the proposer.  ONLY MAILED VOTES COUNT.
	If there are 100 more yes than no votes in a 30-day period,
	the proposer creates the newsgroup at his site,
	and tells the backbone, sending the voting record.
This is described in some detail in the document "How to Use USENET
Effectively" which I haven't got handy, but your sysadmin should be
able to find you a copy.  A package of information about USENET and
how to use it is posted to one of the news.* groups every couple of
months, I forget just which but your sysadmin should know.

What this means is that not one of the votes which have been posted
to this group counts for anything at all.  Worse than that, I think
the etiquette is that someone who has posted a vote is disbarred from
mailing a vote that *will* count.

The very best way of creating a newsgroup is to start a mailing list.
You know the sort of thing:  one site sets up a mailbox which is
mapped to a list of addresses, and messages sent to that mailbox are
automatically forwarded to all the people who are interested.  When
you have enough traffic in the mailing list you (say 100 readers)
that's the time to promote it to a newsgroup.

Suggestions:
  (1)	Find a copy of "How to Use USENET Effectively" and read it.
  (2)	Instead of saying how wonderful it would be to have such a
	group, someone volunteer to administer a mailing list, and
	then everyone who is interested can subscribe and can start
	to justify the thing by mailing information instead of votes.