From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.answers
Subject: CFV: *.answers moderated newsgroups
Followup-To: poster
Date: 19 Nov 1992 10:21:57 -0500
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Reply-To: mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

Archive-name: news-answers/administrivia

			What the vote is about

  This is a CALL FOR VOTES on the proposal to create the following
moderated newsgroups:

	comp.answers
	misc.answers
	rec.answers
	sci.answers
	soc.answers
	talk.answers

The charters of these newsgroups will be identical to the charter of
news.answers, with the addition that each of these newsgroups will
contain only periodic informational postings that are also posted to
other newsgroups in the same hierarchy (e.g., the "comp.answers"
newsgroups would contain only postings that appear in at least one
other "comp" newsgroup).

  The charter of news.answers, from the "Introduction to the
news.answers newsgroup" posting, is as follows:

>			What is news.answers?
>
>  The news.answers newsgroup serves as a repository in which periodic
>informational postings (a.k.a "Frequently Asked Questions" postings,
>or "FAQs") from other newsgroups are posted.
>
>  Although it's difficult to say exactly what qualifies as an FAQ that
>belongs in news.answers, the basic description is, "any posting which
>answers common questions and is meant to be read by humans beings."
>Furthermore, FAQs cross-posted in news.answers should have meaningful
>subject lines.  For example, an FAQ for rec.chess should have a
>subject line saying something like "chess Frequently Asked Questions
>(FAQ)," rather than just "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)."
>
>  For example, the comp.unix.questions "Frequently Asked Questions
>about Unix - with Answers [Monthly posting]" and the
>news.announce.newusers "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on
>Netiquette" belong in news.answers, as does the README file from
>comp.mail.maps.  However, the comp.mail.maps map postings and the
>readership statistics from news.lists do not.
>
>  FAQ postings from any hierarchy that travels using "USENET
>mechanisms" can be cross-posted to news.answers (i.e. news.answers is
>not limited to postings from the comp, sci, misc, soc, talk, news and
>rec hierarchies).  If an FAQ maintainer feels that his (and I mean
>that "his" in a completely politically correct, gender-neutral way, so
>don't bother complaining about it) posting is of interest only to
>people in its home hierarchy, then he can (try to) restrict the
>distribution of the FAQ using the Distribution mechanism; if he feels
>that it is of more general interest, he can avoid any Distribution
>restrictions, in which case the FAQ might receive a wider distribution
>that most postings in the hierarchy.  This is a pretty reasonable
>thing, considering that FAQs are often considered the "distilled
>wisdom" of a newsgroup or group of newsgroups, so a single FAQ from a
>hierarchy might be of wider interest than the hierarchy as a whole.
>
>  Where there is an ambiguity, I will decide whether or not a posting
>belongs in the newsgroup.
>
>  There are several reasons why this newsgroup exists.  They include:
>
>* It is easier for site administrators to keep FAQs around for a long
>  time if they are all cross-posted to one newsgroup....
>  Administrators can make the maximum expire time for news.answers
>  very long, instead of making every newsgroup with FAQs in it have a
>  long maximum expire time.
>
>* It is easier for sites that archive FAQs to generate their archives,
>  since they will need to watch just one newsgroup rather than
>  scanning the entire news spool.
>
>* It provides a "quick reference" for users, in several different
>  respects.  Users who want to browse through the various FAQs that
>  the USENET has to offer can do so in just one newsgroup.  Users who
>  want to find an FAQ from a particular newsgroup but don't know its
>  subject can search for that newsgroup in the headers of the articles
>  in news.answers.
>
>* Software for retrieving FAQs can also be simplified to use
>  news.answers as the basis for FAQ searches.

These newsgroups are being proposed in order to make it easier for
users to choose which FAQs they will and will not read, and to make it
easier for administrators to choose which FAQs will be fed to their
sites and which will not.

  Initially, these newsgroups will be moderated by the moderator of
news.answers (i.e., by me).  Eventually, I hope to find others to
moderate some of the newsgroups -- I will develop a mechanism for the
multiple moderators working together to keep the *.answers newsgroups
consistent while dividing the labor between them.

  Note that news.answers will continue to exist in its current form,
i.e, ALL PERIODIC POSTINGS WILL CONTINUE TO APPEAR IN NEWS.ANSWERS,
even the ones that are cross-posted to other *.answers newsgroups as
well.

  In addition to the newsgroups being voted on here, other *.answers
newsgroups will probably be created in some alternative and regional
hierarchies (for example, alt.answers).  However, those groups are not
being considered here because new groups in other hierarchies are not
created using the guidelines under which this vote is being held.


			     How to vote

  In order to vote for or against this newsgroup, you must send a mail
message to the address mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu (if you reply
via mail to this message, your mail will be directed to that address).
If your site does not understand that address, you might try:

	mail-server%pit-manager.mit.edu@athena.mit.edu
	mit-athena!pit-manager.mit.edu!mail-server
	uunet!pit-manager.mit.edu!mail-server

If none of these addresses works, talk to someone at your site who can
help you address the mail properly.  Posted votes will not be counted.
Votes mailed to the poster of this message will not be counted.

  Your mail should contain in its body one line for each vote you want
to cast.  The line should be in the format "vote newsgroup myvote",
where "newsgroup" is the name of the newsgroup for which you are
voting and "myvote" is either "yes", "no" or "abstain".  To vote
easily, you can cut-and-paste the following lines and replace the
string MYVOTE at the end of each with the vote you want to cast:

	vote comp.answers MYVOTE
	vote misc.answers MYVOTE
	vote rec.answers MYVOTE
	vote sci.answers MYVOTE
	vote soc.answers MYVOTE
	vote talk.answers MYVOTE

A vote of "yes" indicates approval of the newsgroup.  A vote of "no"
indicates opposition to it.  A vote of "abstain" cancels any previous
vote for or against it.

  Multiple votes from the same person should be sent from the same
address, although they do not have to be sent in one E-mail message.
If multiple votes for a particular group are received from the same
person, the last vote received for that group is the only one counted.

  You should receive a response to your vote, acknowledging its
receipt, within two days.  If you do not, or if you have some other
problem with voting, you can get help by sending mail to
postmaster@pit-manager.mit.edu.


			     When to vote

  Votes received between the date in the header of this message and
Sat Dec 20 23:59:59 GMT 1992 will be counted.  At least one mass
acknowledgement and repeat call for votes will be posted during the
voting period.
-- 
Jonathan Kamens                                         jik@MIT.Edu
MIT Information Systems/Athena              Moderator, news.answers
Xref: sparky news.announce.newgroups:1359 news.groups:22762 rec.collecting:8769