There is no single person which has the power to decide whether a newsgroup is to be created and carried by all Usenet servers. Such creations are normally a democratic affair. Firstly, someone has an idea for a new newsgroup, and draws up a proposal to be put in news.announce.newgroups . Everyone is invited to take part in the discussions to follow, and the propsal is amended if necessary. After the final draft of this proposal is submitted, everyone is invited to vote for or against its creation.
Voting normally takes place over a fixed number of days.
When the proposal is passed, an announcement is made, and news servers around the world are henceforth expected to carry it. This does not apply to local newsgroups though. To learn more about the creation process, download the FAQ through FTP .