From: stanley@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy
Subject: Re: Newsgroup creation guidelines (was Re: Folklore, synth, and guidelines)
Date: 16 Dec 92 00:41:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: gaia.1glu0dINNmc5
Organization: Oregon State University, College of Oceanography
NNTP-Posting-Host: ruby.oce.orst.edu

In article <1992Dec15.200011.18509@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
>I agree that the document written by Mr. Stanley correctly
>documents the newsgroup voting procedures currently in effect,
>but I think these procedures are flawed.  They contradict
>at least the spirit of the guidelines on Subject lines,
>which I have posted before.  [on news.groups]

And, as I have posted before, the guidelines do not specify anything
about the Subject line.

>The published guidelines on
>Subject lines imply that people reading news have a limited
>amount of time, and are justified in skipping over articles
>whose subject lines don't indicate relevance.  

The fact that an RFD/CFV was posted to a group implies relevance, no
matter what the rest of the Subject line contains. The three characters
RFD or CFV indicate the relevance.

>These guidelines say:
>
>  Some sites truncate the
>  length of the subject line to 40 characters so keep your subjects short
>  and to the point.

"Request For Discussion: " uses 24 of the 40 available characters.
"Subject: " uses 9. "renaming " uses another 9.  24+9+9 = 42. Spelling
it out in full uses more space than is available according to your
version of the guidelines, which aren't the same as the one posted to
news.announce.newusers. Abbreviating to RFD or CFV is perfectly
appropriate, according to your version of the guidelines, since that
makes it possible to 1) include some indication of what the proposal is,
and 2) makes the relevance apparent in 3 characters -- short and to the
point. There is no violation of the "spirit" of your version of the
guidelines.

>I agree with
>these guidelines, and disagree with the exceptional treatment
>of CFVs and RFDs shown in this passage from Mr. Stanley's guidelines:

I have written no guidelines. I wrote a descriptive document, not a
proscriptive one.

>	  This is important: IF you care about the process of USENET (as
>  opposed to just "I want to read about X"), then READ THE RFD when it
>  comes by. Do NOT decide whether to read it based on the Subject line.
>  If there is a list of proposals, read the entire list. Only then should
>  you decide whether or not you are interested in this RFD.

The "exceptional treatment" I give RFD's is hardly that. It is a
statement of reality. 

The relevance of the article is indicated by the RFD or CFV in the
Subject. A fact of life is that not every piece of information about a
proposal can be stuffed into the Subject line. If it could, then there
would be no need for the body of the article. 

People certainly are justified in skipping the article, but they will
be skipping an article despite it being relevant. The relevance is
proven by it showing up in the group. Unlike almost all other postings,
RFD and CFV are posted by someone who knows what is going on and takes
an active interest in making sure the right groups are included.

>\begin{suggestion}
>(1)
>change.  A group is directly affected by the change if a successful
>"yes" vote would change the name or the charter of that group.

Charters for groups are not changed, names are.

>For example, to split rec.ham-radio into three new groups, named

rec.ham-radio is a obsolete group.

>This is because rec.truckers is currently in a different hierarchy from
>rec.ham-radio.

No, both are in rec. Rec.truckers, as a group, is in the same hierarchy
as the group rec.ham-radio.

Note that none of my comments so far have been on the desirability of
the change, only technical details of the wording. Fix those and maybe
it will have some merit. Perhaps using generic "a.b.c" group names
instead of obsolete ones will help.

The only problem with this is that it will not permit logical
reorganizations to occur all at once, for anything that attempts to pull
groups from more than one hierarchy on the net and put them into a new
one that covers them all can't be done.

>(2)
>The RFDs and CFVs for name changes and reorganizations should
>be clearly labelled in the Subject line with the acronym RFD
>or CFD and the name of the newsgroup or newsgroup hierarchy
>which would be directly affected by the proposed change.
>
>For example:  Subject: RFD: rec.ham-radio.* reorganization

Problem: there are two hierarchies affected by this change.
rec.ham-radio and rec.radio.*. Are both to be included? If not, how
are the readers of the destination hierarchy to know that the RFD
applies to them? (Barring, of course, that it would be posted in their
groups.)

And, technically, splitting rec.ham-radio is not a reorganization of
rec.ham-radio.*.

>As a reader of news, 

The guidelines are not designed to be read by Joe News User, they are
designed for Joe New Newsgroup Proposer. Comments to the generic reader
population should be in a different document, just to prevent the 
possibility of valid charges that news users must read the guidelines to
understand USENET. They don't now, and they shouldn't have to in the
future.

>you should be alert to RFD or CFV
>messages which mention newsgroups or newsgroup hierarchies
>which you read.  

As a reader of news, you should be alert to ANY RFD or CFV posted to
groups you read, for the fact that they are there means that someone
thinks you ought to know, and one of those someones is the moderator of
news.announce.newgroups.

This, of course, was in the User's Guide.
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy