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From: fwebb@bbn.com (Fred Webb)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin
Subject: Re: Proposed OFFICIAL Newsgroup Creation/Deletion Guidelines
Message-ID: <37740@bbn.COM>
Date: 24 Mar 89 19:04:10 GMT
References: <1634@ncar.ucar.edu>
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Reply-To: fwebb@BBN.COM (Fred Webb)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
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Greg, if you're willing to take on this thankless job, more power to you!

In general, I think your proposed guidelines are fine, and are pretty close
to what's been happening.  I do have a couple of minor comments.

1. On your proposed waiting period - I'm not sure 3 days is anywhere near
enough, given net propagation delays. I would say 10 days would be the minimum
to ensure that all objections have been seen. Of course, that may seem like
too long, especially if the vote was overwhelming. I don't know what to do
here. Anybody have an idea?

2. On deletion - I think it should be harder to delete a group than it was to
create it in the first place. On the other hand, if nobody cares enough to
vote, the default should probably be to delete. I propose an alternate set of
guidelines: 50 votes to keep are enough to keep the group, and votes to delete
aren't counted at all. So, if a substantial number of people want to keep the
group, it can't be taken away from them. The rest of what you said about
deletion seems just about right.

3. It seems to me that deleting a moderated group should follow the same
guidelines. What we need is some way to ensure that the call for votes gets
out, to the group, even over the moderator's objection.

4. Finally, it seems to me that we may need a way to force replacement of the
moderator of a moderated group. If the moderator stops moderating, and messages
to him go unanswered, I think it should just happen. Maybe you, as keeper of
the "Official Guidelines" could decide that this situation exists, issue a
call for volunteers for moderator, and call for votes on the new moderator.
Again, messages would have to go to the group about this. Replacing a moderator
who doesn't want to be replaced probably just shouldn't happen.

							-- Fred