From: jonathan@mantis.co.uk (Jonathan Egre')
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Proposal:alt.guitar.bass.tab
Date: 2 Oct 92 21:50:06 GMT
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

webb@chopin.udel.edu (W Webb Pickersgill) writes:

> 	I don't know exactly how this process works but here it goes.
> Speeking for many of the people subscribed to alt.guitar.bass and
> alt.guitar.tab, we bassists would like to begin a new newsgroup.  I was
> informed that this newsgroup(news.groups) is the path you need to walk to
> get there.  The bass guitar players need a place to post music to each
> other without having to weed out the guitar music in alt.guitar.tab.
> I posts the idea and got 10-20 positive responses in only a couple days.
> I'm sure that most bassists are not subscribed to news.groups to respond
> to my proposal but I will also cross-post this letter to those groups
> involved.

HOLD YOUR HORSES!

VOTING IS CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS to replace the alt.guitar.* groups with
rec.music.makers.* groups like this:

    alt.guitar      --> rec.music.makers.guitar
    alt.guitar.bass --> rec.music.makers.bass
    alt.guitar.tab  --> rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature

I suggest you look in news.groups or news.announce.newgroups for an 
article with the subject line "CFV: rec.music.makers.* groups" to find
the "Call For Votes" posting.  You might like to vote!

Voting for these replacement groups (and a couple of groups for other 
instruments) will end on October 28th.

I STRONGLY SUGGEST that you wait until the outcome of this vote is known
before trying to create a newsgroup for bass tablature.  The tablature 
newsgroup belongs close to the main bass newsgroup (and to a lesser 
extent, closer to the guitar tablature newsgroup), and you will need to 
wait until the end of October to find out whether that means 
alt.guitar.bass or rec.music.makers.bass.

Although there is no *technical* reason why you couldn't create a new
(alt.*) newsgroup now, it is NOT RECOMMENDED because you will risk 
creating a newsgroup which has to be deleted, which is very messy.

If (after the end of the current voting) you want to create an alt.* 
group, then you ought to post an informal request for discussion to 
alt.config.  Some people will tell you that it's not necessary, but 
posting to alt.config before creating a new alt.* group will make a lot
of people happier because it gives everybody the opportunity to point out
potential problems etc.

If you want to create a rec.music.* group, then you MUST post a formal 
"Request For Discussion" to news.announce.newgroups (entitled something 
like "RFD: rec.music.makers.bass.tablature").  News.announce.newgroups
is a moderated newsgroup; this means that instead of your posting appearing
immediately, it is sent automatically to a moderator, who checks that your
article belongs in news.announce.newgroups before broadcasting to the 
world.  Crossposting your RFD to news.groups and any newsgroups you think
might be interested (e.g. rec.music.makers.bass, if it exists by then)
would be a very good idea.

After the RFD has been discussed for a bit you can proceed to a 
"Call For Votes", and if the vote is successful the rec.music.* group 
gets created.

The advantage of rec.* over alt.* (and the reason why the current vote is
taking place) is essentially that more people get rec.*.

-- Jonathan Egre' = jonathan@mantis.co.uk = jonathan_e@cix.compulink.co.uk --
========= Serious but friendly request for the benefit of everyone: =========
When posting an item of local interest to a global newsgroup, please use 
"Distribution:" so that people on the other side of the world are not 
inconvenienced.  Consult your manual or local expert for technical details.
Xref: sparky news.groups:18623 alt.save.the.earth:1224