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From: msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader)
Date: Fri, 2-Sep-88 17:56:08 EDT
Message-ID: <1988Sep2.175608.5257@sq.uucp>
Newsgroups: ont.general,tor.general
Subject: Local newsgroup proposals
References: <320@telly.UUCP> <3191@geac.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Distribution: ont
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto


> There seems to be a large body of folks who want to set up
> news groups without showing the kind of volume that justifies the
> setting up of a newsgroup. (remember ont.singles - what???) 
> 
> I think that we might want to have a policy about the setting up of a
> new newsgroup. Maybe modelled after the US USENET policy.


If there is a US USENET policy, I'm unaware of it.  I think the number
of US-only groups on the net is negligible.  The policy described later
in the above-quoted article is that for net-wide groups.

The reason the policy exists is related to the huge population -- for a
basically unregulated entity -- of the net as a whole.  It has arisen
relatively recently; in the early days of the net, newsgroups were created
with no formal procedure and sometimes, I think, even with no discussion.
If that was done now, things would be too chaotic.

It seems to me that the Ontario subset of the net is now too big for us
to create newsgroups without discussion, but not so big that we need a
formal procedure similar to the net-wide policy.  Here, we can take the
opposite point of view: if there seems LIKELY to be traffic, take a poll;
if there is a consensus of support, then create the group.  If the traffic
doesn't appear, remove it again.  There won't be so many people proposing
groups in Ontario, or even in Canada, that that's not workable.

Ont.singles was precisely such a creation ... there seemed to be likely
to be going to be traffic, because net.singles (as it was then) was being
cut off from Ontario.  Later I proposed it for deletion as part of a
general clean-up of Ontario and Canadian groups, but there was sentiment
to keep it, so it stayed.  I'm not subscribed to it now; if there is no
traffic any more, someone should again propose it for removal.


Mark Brader, Toronto	"Those who mourn for 'USENET like it was' should
utzoo!sq!msb		 remember the original design estimates of maximum
msb@sq.com 		 traffic volume: 2 articles/day" -- Steven Bellovin