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From: Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,news.groups
Subject: 2nd RfD: Mass-deletion of moderated groups without a moderator
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2025 10:09:38 EST
Organization: Usenet Big-8 Management Board
Approved: Moderator of news.announce.newgroups <newgroups-request@isc.org>, NGP Approval Key <ngp-approval-key@ngp.big-8.org>
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               REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
99 moderated newsgroups.


RATIONALE:

Currently, those groups cannot be used for discussion because of the
lack of a moderator. Most of those groups haven't had a moderator for
a long time and have been unused for years. We consider it unlikely
that they will ever be revived with a new moderator. Nonetheless,
anyone interested in becoming a moderator for a group listed in this
RFD is invited to contact the Big-8 Management Board.


DISCUSSION SO FAR:

noel and Christian Schumacher argued for having the groups' moderation
flag unset rather than deleting the groups.  Ivo Gandolfo countered
that many servers would not properly apply the change in moderation
flag.

Marco Moock said that cleaning up unused groups will make it easier
for users to find active groups; he acknowledged that some servers
don't process control articles but wondered why he should care about
these servers.  Julien ÉLIE said that people will appreciate a
cleaned-up newsgroups list and that it doesn't matter if some servers
don't process the control articles.  Julius Bernotas said that groups
should be deleted when they no longer fulfill their purpose.
Jean-Paul agreed with Marco that cleaning up unused groups will make
it easier for users to find active groups.  Christian Schumacher said
that he looks for newsgroups by name, not by traffic.

noel argued that deleting a few hundred groups will not make it
significantly easier to find active groups. Julien ÉLIE agreed and
said that unmoderated groups should also be cleaned up.

In a separate discussion on news.groups, Adam H. Kerman said that the
RFD was not being distributed widely enough, including to potential
moderators of the specific groups in the RFD.  To the argument that
removing unused groups makes active groups easier to find, he
responded that users can find these via keyword search and by
attempting to post to them.  D expressed "no objections your honour"
to the RFD, later noting that 10% of currently active newsgroups are
moderated, but that the remaining 90% unmoderated active newsgroups
are overrun by trolls and spam.

Also on news.groups, Steve Bonine warned that when groups are removed,
the history associated with the contents of the group will disappear,
which could hinder people doing (historical) research.  He agreed that
removing the unused groups in the RFD would prevent users from wasting
their time posting into the void, but said that at this time it's not
worth the effort to delete them.  Winston shared Steve Bonine's
concern about the contents of deleted groups disappearing.  Computer
Nerd Kev said that converting the groups to unmoderated ones may work
around this problem.

Computer Nerd Kev pointed out that rec.arts.movies.reviews has seen
recent activity and sees a chance to revive it.  (The Board
subsequently investigated this and confirmed that the group has no
moderation address registered; the sole active poster, who they were
unable to reach for comment, seems to be circumventing this by posting
articles with an Approved header to a lenient server.)  The Board also
received an e-mail from someone volunteering to moderate
soc.genealogy.surnames.britain and is currently in correspondence with
them.  In light of these developments, rec.arts.movies.reviews and
soc.genealogy.surnames.britain have been excluded from this 2nd RFD.


DISTRIBUTION:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
news.groups

Because of the magnitude of the group list, this proposal is not
cross-posted to target groups. In the course of these proceedings the
Board will post pointers to this announcement to appropriate
groups. Readers are encouraged to take the initiative and spread the
message.


PROCEDURE:

The procedure shall take at least 8 weeks, with announcements posted
every 4 weeks: 1st RFD, 2nd RFD, and Last Call for Comments (LCC). The
group lists may be revised during this stage and additional RFDs
posted as necessary. Discussion about candidate groups should take
place in the moderated group news.groups.proposals. After publication
of the LCC, the Board will vote. If there are specific reasons to vote
individually for some groups, the Board will do, but the default will
be a ballot covering all groups.

More details can be found here:

   https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Mass_removal_of_groups


NEWSGROUP LINES:

comp.binaries.cbm       For the transfer of 8bit Commodore binaries. 
(Moderated)
comp.doc.techreports    Lists of technical reports. (Moderated)
comp.internet.library   Discussing electronic libraries. (Moderated)
comp.lang.c.moderated   The C programming language. (Moderated)
comp.newprod            Announcements of new products of interest. 
(Moderated)
comp.org.cauce          The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial 
E-Mail. (Moderated)
comp.robotics.research  Academic, government & industry research in 
robotics. (Moderated)
comp.simulation         Simulation methods, problems, uses. (Moderated)
comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica  Mathematica discussion group. (Moderated)
comp.sources.games      Postings of recreational software. (Moderated)
comp.std.announce       Announcements about standards activities. 
(Moderated)
comp.sys.amiga.announce Announcements about the Amiga. (Moderated)
comp.sys.sun.announce   Sun announcements and Sunergy mailings. (Moderated)
humanities.philosophy.objectivism       The ideas of Ayn Rand. (Moderated)
misc.activism.progressive       Information for Progressive activists. 
(Moderated)
misc.business.consulting        The business of consulting. (Moderated)
misc.business.marketing.moderated       Roundtable for marketing topics. 
(Moderated)
misc.business.moderated Roundtable for general business topics. (Moderated)
misc.entrepreneurs.moderated    Entrepreneur/business topics. (Moderated)
misc.invest.financial-plan      Financial planning in general. (Moderated)
misc.transport.air-industry     Airlines, airports, commercial aircraft. 
(Moderated)
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated      Craft/business of screenwriting. 
(Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.policy     Discussion of net abuse policy. (Moderated)
news.announce.conferences       Calls for papers and conferences. 
(Moderated)
rec.arts.anime.creative Original works by fans, related to anime/manga. 
(Moderated)
rec.arts.anime.info     Announcements about Japanese animation. (Moderated)
rec.arts.ascii          ASCII art, info on archives, art, & artists. 
(Moderated)
rec.arts.drwho.moderated        Discussion of "Doctor Who". (Moderated)
rec.arts.erotica        Erotic fiction and verse. (Moderated)
rec.arts.movies.erotica Aspects of erotic films and videos. (Moderated)
rec.arts.sf.announce    Major announcements of the SF world. (Moderated)
rec.arts.sf.starwars.info       General information pertaining to Star 
Wars. (Moderated)
rec.autos.sport.f1.moderated    Discussion of Formula One racing. 
(Moderated)
rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated        NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. 
(Moderated)
rec.boats.marketplace   Boating products for sale and wanted. (Moderated)
rec.crafts.jewelry      Jewelry making and gemology. (Moderated)
rec.drugs.announce      Announcements about drugs and related issues. 
(Moderated)
rec.food.cuisine.jewish All matters concerning Jewish cuisine. (Moderated)
rec.food.recipes        Recipes for interesting food and drink. (Moderated)
rec.gardens.ecosystems  Ecosystems and organic gardening. (Moderated)
rec.humor.funny         Jokes that are funny (in the moderator's 
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