From: conty@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (E. Kontei)
Subject: Proposal for a rec.arts.anime split
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 00:23:19 GMT
Keywords: LONG posting...


Over the last few months, a number of people have complained about the
increased amount of traffic in rec.arts.anime.  After some deliberation
with a small group of fellow posters, I'd like to suggest a split for
rec.arts.anime.  Before describing the proposed organization, I'd
like to explain the reasoning used to arrive at it.

A newsgroup split should be designed to achieve the seemingly contradictory
goals of:
1) split the readership into orthogonal groups with few common interests
2) retain enough size to justify the existence of the sub-groups

Number 1 seems to be unfeasible.  rec.arts.anime suffers from the same
problem as rec.arts.movies; too many subjects to be discussed.  A split
by genre would not work:  most people here are fans of several genres,
so they would have to read the various newsgroups anyway (not to mention
the problem of what to do with genre-independent threads).  Splitting by
popular shows is also a bad idea:  deleting a newsgroup is quite more
difficult than creating it, and once the popularity for the show dies
down (it will, eventually), we end up with a "dead" newsgroup consuming
valuable network resources.

There is another alternative, however.  The major complain about r.a.anime
is the low signal-to-noise ratio; too much perceived "fluff" material.
I propose to create a new newsgroup, rec.arts.anime.info, which is described
as follows:
	rec.arts.anime.info will be a "Moderated" newsgroup.  The
	following kinds of postings will be allowed in
	rec.arts.anime.info:
	- FAQs (natch)
	- Lists (voice actor list, CD list, subbed/dubbed list, etc...)
	- Informational postings ("How to take care of your cels", etc...)
	- Summary articles of magazines like Animedia,
	  Animage, NewType, Advance Comics, etc.
	- Reviews
	- Industry, con, and club announcements
	- Any other anime-related news ("Kikuchi and Asamiya seen together!")

	Any follow-ups to postings in rec.arts.anime.info will
	be sent to the regular rec.arts.anime newsgroup.
	
	For those people who get rec.arts.anime through the
	ANIME-L mailing list, a new mailing list will be
	created for rec.arts.anime.info.

[BTW, a "Moderator" is a person who controls what gets posted to
 a newsgroup.  Steven Pearl has volunteered to be r.a.a.info's
 first moderator.  Given that newsgroup moderation is a difficult
 (and sometimes ungrateful) job, I really have to thank Steve for his
 dedication.  Of course, if you think you can do a better job than
 Steve, you're more than welcome to volunteer...]

Attentive readers may have noticed by now the lack of any mention of
"fanfic", "GIF", or "script" in the text above.  This is so
because none of these will be present in r.a.a.info, for a number of
reasons, starting with:
- GIFs and fanfic are not informational postings.  No offense
  intended to our most excellent group of fanfic-writers, but fanfic
  qualifies more as "noise" than as "signal".  ^_^
- The dubious legality of all three types of posting.

Interested persons may, if they wish, post these in the regular
rec.arts.anime newsgroup (although posting GIFs in r.a.anime is,
as always, discouraged).

Note that the traffic in r.a.a.i. will be high-signal, no noise,
and minimal duplication from rec.arts.anime.  An "extract", if
you will.  Of course, as with any newsgroup split, the TOTAL number
of postings will increase, but we expect the increase to be
relatively small.

I think this proposal addresses the issues concerning r.a.anime to the
best our abilities at the current time.  I am confident that, once
we have cleared out any issues and an RFD is created, the proposed
split will pass the CFV vote.

If there are no major complaints regarding the above proposal, I shall
post a RFD to rec.arts.anime, news.groups. and news.announce.newgroups
by the end of the month.  [Aside: I'll need a volunteer for the
vote-taking.  Any offers?]


Acknowledgments
---------------
Thanks to:
	Hitoshi Doi
	Ryan Gavigan
	Steven Pearl
	Iain Sinclair
	Michael Studte
	Albert Wong
for their varying degrees of help, support, and blessing of this project.



Addendum:  An explanation of new newsgroup creation.
----------------------------------------------------

- A Request for Discussion (known as an RFD), is posted to
	news.announce.newsgroups and any other relevant newsgroups.

- After a one-month discussion period, a CFV (Call for Votes)
	is posted to the same newsgroups.  The voting period
	can last anywhere from 21 to 31 days.

- If the total number of "YES" votes is 100 or more *AND* the number
	of "YES" votes is at least twice the number of "NO" votes,
	the newsgroup is created.  If the vote fails, nothing is changed.
-- 
			    E n r i q u e  C o n t y
			       Master of Science!
			      jester@ihlpm.att.com
		    Disclaimer: You're not dealing with AT&T