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From: bogstad@smoke.BRL.MIL (William Bogstad )
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.sys.ridge
Subject: Proposed deletion of comp.sys.ridge
Message-ID: <9922@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 26 Mar 89 06:35:31 GMT
Reply-To: bogstad@crabcake.cs.jhu.edu
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 67


	I would like to propose the deletion of the
newsgroup comp.sys.ridge.  This newsgroup was created when a
large number of ARPANET mailing lists were gatewayed to
USENET some two or more years ago.  At the time, I was the
moderator of the mailing list INFO-RIDGE which was gatewayed
to comp.sys.ridge.  As originally set up, the newsgroup was
listed as moderated by me (as info-ridge@bravo.cs.jhu.edu);
but for some reason this was changed at some unknown time.
Perhaps because there was some problems in getting mail to
me. Neither the mailing list nor the newsgroup have ever had
large amounts of traffic.  As far as I know the only traffic
in the newsgroup in over a year were two messages a couple
of months ago commenting on the fact that Ridge Computers
had announced that they were no longer going to manufacture
new systems.  With the apparent demise of Ridge computers
and the essentially total lack of traffic, this group would
appear to be a prime candidate for deletion.  I have already
requested that the mailing list entry be removed from the
ARPANET list of lists and since there appears to be some
interest right now in defining a policy on newsgroup
deletion procedures, I would like to offer this group as a
test case.

	I would like to use the following procedure:

1. An initial two week discussion period which will end on April 9, 1989.

2. Votes for or against deletion can be sent to bogstad@crabcake.cs.jhu.edu.
They can be sent at any time but there will be a two week voting
period after the discussion period.  All votes must be via mail and must
have a line of the form:

DELETE: YES	or
DELETE: NO

to be counted.  I will post an initial vote summary on April
9th and also another call for votes.  If there are 100 more
votes for deletion then against AND the votes for deletion
are more then 75% of the total vote by the end of the voting
period, I will post the final summary and request that a
backbone administrator post a remove group control message.

3. Votes for removal of a newgroup should take place no more
often then every six months.  (I don't think this problem
will come up in this case.)

	For job related reasons, I will probably be unable
to respond to messages for the next couple of days and may
not get back until April 9th. If at that time I discover a
storm of protest over my proposal or the procedures that I
have suggested I will be happy to modify them if there
appears to be a consensus.  I believe that the time periods
and required voting margins are reasonable and the builtin
bias towards preserving a group should be maintained. I
doubt that it will make a difference anyway.  As to my
qualifications in proposing these procedures, I was the
moderator of the mailing list and have been a (usually
silent) reader of USENET for about six years and as I said
you can let me know if you don't like it.

				Bill Bogstad
				bogstad@crabcake.cs.jhu.edu

Note: crabcake.cs.jhu.edu does not get news, but mail
can be sent via your local neighborhood UUCP to Internet
gateway.