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From: mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Scrap the current NG creation procedure, invent a new one
Message-ID: <4870@inco.UUCP>
Date: 6 Apr 89 18:10:01 GMT
References: <3010@looking.UUCP> <445@flatline.UUCP> <3199@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <4833@inco.UUCP> <3649@ficc.uu.net> <3130@alembic.UUCP> <462@flatline.UUCP> <4860@inco.UUCP> <473@flatline.UUCP>
Reply-To: mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Organization: McDonnell Douglas-INCO, McLean, VA
Lines: 40

In article <473@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (J. Eric Townsend) writes:
>Many people complained about the S/N ratio of news.groups.  I suggested
>that we just pull the "unwashed masses" :-) out of the loop.  I'd be
>just as happy with both news.groups and a moderated admin only group
>where the actual details were hammered out.  news.groups could be
>the playground for comp.soft-sys.andrew and all the other goofy ideas
>that come along every other week.  news.groups.d (for example) would
>be a forum for the final discussion and vote amongst admins that all
>users would be able to read.  (I'm responsible for some alt.havoc
>myself, so I can't really call anyone else a name. :-)

I personally favor a "tmp" hierarchy. If you want a group created, say
comp.soft-sys.andrew, get your nearest friendly admin to create a 
group called "tmp.comp.soft-sys.andrew". If, after a few months,
the group has a reasonable amount of traffic, conduct a vote on whether to
move it into the comp hierarchy as comp.soft-sys.andrew, rename it,
leave it in tmp or trash it entirely. People who don't want to participate
in the experiment can ax the entire tmp hierarchy. 

This approach takes care of the "demonstrated interest" clause, allows
things to happen quickly, and doesn't require a select group, whatever
the size, to advise or decide.

If you want "policy", say that no group can exist as a tmp group for more
than six months. After six months, it either becomes part of the standard
hierarchy or gets rmgrouped.

(Much as I'd like to take credit for this idea, I can't. Someone else,
I can't remember who, proposed it in one of the previous newsgroup
creation flame wars.)

In principle, the alt hierarchy could be used for this, but I think 
that's a bad idea. The alt hierarchy has established itself as the
arena for the more unacceptable forms of insanity, and I doubt that
a lot of the more conservative sites would take it. Let's call it tmp.

Any takers?

-- 
Dave Mack