 | Posted-By: auto-faq 3.3.1 (Perl 5.004)
Archive-name: can-config
Original-Author: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis), dawn@ca.dynix.com (Dawn Whiteside)
Current-maintainer: syl@alcor.concordia.ca (Sylvain Robitaille)
Posting-frequency: every 14 days
Last-modified: Tue Mar 4 18:07:46 EST 2003
[PLEASE NOTE THE RFD DISCUSSION PERIOD AND THE COMMENTS ON REPOSTING
SUPPORT EMAIL! These sections have "|" in column one.]
Author: Chris Lewis, clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
Original Author: Dawn Whiteside, dawn@ca.dynix.com,
Lord High Jester of can.config
Current Maintainer: Sylvain Robitaille, syl@alcor.concordia.ca
------------------------------
Subject: So this is can.config. What's it for?
It's a newsgroup for the discussion and evolution of the can.*
hierarchy. Discussion of and requests for the charters of existing
can.* groups and discussions related to the creation, removal or
modification of can.* newsgroups are welcome here.
------------------------------
Subject: Why would I want to create a newsgroup?
If you earnestly believe that existing traffic on other newsgroups or
electronic mailing lists would more efficiently reach its intended
audience by being automatically propagated to thousands of machines
across Canada, you would have a valid desire to create a newsgroup.
------------------------------
Subject: How do I create a new newsgroup in can.*?
[See the step-by-step instructions below.]
First make sure you understand how to write an RFD (request for
discussion) that clearly states the important information about your
proposed newsgroup. A thorough understanding of Usenet history and
politics is recommended -- it would be a good idea to wait until
you've read and understood all the articles which are posted every
month to news.announce.newusers. Spending a week reading the
newsgroup creation discussions in alt.config, can.config and
news.groups (yes, there is a lot of stuff in news.groups) would also
be a good idea.
New can.* newsgroups are proposed in can.config, similar to the
procedure for creating new alt.* groups. The RFD is followed by a
short (typically two weeks or less) discussion period which results
in a general consensus as to whether or not the group will be
created.
------------------------------
Subject: Okay, I think I understand all the stuff in
news.announce.newusers. So what should I bear in mind when proposing
a can.* newsgroup?
That's a fine question. While there have been many ideas and
suggestions about newsgroup creation procedures here, no real
consensus appears to have been reached at this point in time.
What you want to do is convince the majority of Canadian news
administrators to create the new newsgroup so it is propagated
well across the country. Some things which may help include:
- a newsgroup name that is neither confusing nor misleading
and fits into the current hierarchy structure without adding
levels which are unlikely to be used by other new groups in
the foreseeable future (if you think can.foo.bar is needed,
can.foo should either exist or be a good place to start up a
subtree of related newsgroups like can.foo.baz and can.foo.eh)
- a charter describing the purpose of the proposed newsgroup
(and nominating a moderator if a moderated group is desired)
- a discussion period in which there is lots of public support for
the creation of the newsgroup and a consensus on the name and
charter.
NOTE: if your newsgroup does not get public support in the form
of several articles from different people per day for several days
arguing in favour of creating the newsgroup, it is unlikely that
the group will be created because of the perceived lack of interest.
- existing traffic in other newsgroups or an active electronic mailing
list which belongs in its own Canada-wide, Canada-only newsgroup
[ as opposed to a '.canada' subgroup such as 'soc.culture.canada'
or part of the normal traffic of a 'big eight' or alt.* group ]
NOTE: if there is no existing traffic in other newsgroups and no
electronic mailing list dealing with the topic exists, it is unlikely
that the group will be created because of the lack of pre-existing
traffic on the subject matter.
- little or no controversy surrounding or objection to the proposed
newsgroup
- a well-known and respected news admin volunteering to create
the group
- a final call for objections and short [ 1 week ] waiting period
before the group is created
Most of the above points should make sense to someone familiar with
the politics and nature of Usenet. If you don't understand what an
electronic mailing list is or are unfamiliar with newsgroup creation
procedures in alt.* and the 'big eight', run do not walk to the monthly
FAQs in news.announce.newusers and come back when you have read and
digested the information there. Bear in mind that the procedure for
creating a new newsgroup described there does not apply to the can.*
regional hierarchy.
------------------------------
Subject: What _exactly_ should I do to create a group? You know,
_step_ by _step_...
| Over the past few years, the process we seem to have settled on is
| as follows:
|
| a) compose a RFD
| b) post it to can.config
| c) participate in discussions on the contents of the RFD and make
| amendments as seem appropriate.
| d) announce the RFD and solicit support to be posted to can.config.
|
| It's critical to do steps a-c before d.
|
|More detail:
- A basic group charter should be drafted, which clearly sets out
the purpose of the group, and what is encouraged or discouraged
| to be there. Previous charters in the can hierarchy are a good
| place to start.
- Some thought should be directed towards avoiding attracting spam to
the group. For example, an unmoderated group with the letters
"" in it means "spam here" to spammers, and will probably be
completely inundated with spam.
- Some subjects are illegal according to Canadian law (such as child
graphy or for copies of stolen software). Don't even propose
such groups, they will not get created.
- If the group is on a controversial subject (, religion etc.),
or is intended for children to access "safely", or you otherwise
feel that the content needs to be tightly controlled, it's strongly
recommended that you consider a moderated group. If you want to
go this route, this requires:
- a personal commitment to do it for at least 6 months. But
you don't have to do it all by yourself if you can get volunteers
to assist.
- a moderately thick skin
- a sympathetic sysadmin.
- some basic tools
- the Moderator's Handbook (which helps with the rest of the items),
at
- Moderator aliases to be set up at isc.org and elsewhere.
- A charter that attempts to ensure that the moderators remain
responsive and responsible to the readership - being a moderator
is a position of trust, despots with private soapboxes aren't
wanted.
- Groups don't have to be manually moderated, you can:
- have a single moderator manually approving posts
- have multiple moderators manually approving posts
- have a software program to automatically pass things
thru, with any criteria you want, ie:
- come from someone who has "registered" with your bot
- aren't crossposted anywhere.
- contain the word "foo" in the body (useful for
preventing spam)
etc. There are several moderator packages available, such
as Igor Chudov's "STUMP" - see the Moderator's Handbook for
others.
Ask on can.config, people will help with the details.
- Once the charter is drafted, you should post the proposal to can.config
and ask for comments. This step is to ensure that there aren't any
glaring errors, and people will often point out things you may have
overlooked. Give about a week or so for feedback. Please don't become
disturbed if people start questioning your charter bit-by-bit. Most
of the people in can.config are supportive of group creation, but
they have a desire to see:
1) That the charter is well thought out
2) That the group will be popular with a reasonably broad
interest base.
3) That the group will not be flooded with spam or flame wars -
hence a more _useful_ place to be.
Criticism of part of a proposed charter shouldn't be seen as an
objection to the group, but rather comments about the implementation.
- If the proposal seems promising, cross-post the charter to related
groups on Usenet, can.general, and can.config. Direct followups
to can.config. Ask those who have an interest in the group to post
comments supporting the creation of the group to can.config.
- At this point people should be posting letters of support (or violent
disagreement ;-) to can.config. We use this to judge whether the group
has sufficient interest. We like to see, say, a few dozen "sounds like
a great idea!" postings over a period of a week or two. If this happens,
it will be apparent to those reading can.config that the group will
probably be popular, and is probably worth creating. In the past,
if this happens, one of the Usenet administrators in the group will
ask for any final substantive objections, giving a period of about
a week, and issue a group creation if there weren't any.
| We'd prefer _not_ to see repostings of email messages that are in
| support of a group. This is often done because the person doesn't
| have access to Usenet or can.config - if they don't, that means that
| they wouldn't be able to access the group anyways, so their support
| is irrelevant. Another reason is that it leaves the proponent open
| to potential charges of fraud - either by forging the postings, or,
| not accurately representing the comments on the group.
|
| You should state up front that you will be reposting them, and be
| aware that someone may attempt to audit their authenticity.
------------------------------
Subject: A can.* group got created, but I can't find it. What gives?
Creating the group requires that someone issue a "newgroup control
message". It propagates around the net like any other Usenet message.
This control message has to be executed on each system it traverses
through, otherwise it won't get created there. For various reasons,
few sites create all groups automatically. Instead, they rely either
on configuration files that indicate who is allowed to issue control
messages for a given hierarchy, or rely on their own users to request
the group, so that it is created locally.
In the past, can.* hasn't had an "official" group creator, hence we've
largely relied on sites creating all groups automatically (few sites do
that these days), or user complaints.
So, if you're looking for a can.* group that should be there, ask your
ISP to create it. Some proactive work can help here; for instance, the
proponent of the group could ask those who supported the group's creation
to send mail to their newsadmins, especially at large Usenet sites and
Canada-wide Internet providers.
Over the next while we hope to put something in place to make this more
automatic, as well as better formalize the lists of the groups in can.*.
------------------------------
Subject: What should I do if I have a great idea for a newsgroup but
can't find any existing traffic to justify it?
Get some discussion going on the topic in an electronic forum. Start
a thread about the topic in another newsgroup or start up and announce
a mailing list. If the thread dies or the mailing list doesn't take
off as expected, it probably wasn't time for it anyway. If there is a
lot of discussion, you have something to point to when people ask whether
there really is enough interest in the topic for its own newsgroup.
-------------------------------
Subject: What are alternatives to creating a newsgroup in can.*?
You can create a newsgroup in alt.* -- for details, check out the
article entitled "So You Want to Create an alt Newsgroup" which
is periodically posted to alt.config, alt.answers and news.answers.
You can create a newsgroup in one of the "big eight" hierarchies --
for details, check out the article entitled "How to Create a New
Usenet Newsgroup" which is periodically posted to news.announce.newusers,
news.groups, news.admin.misc, news.announce.newgroups and news.answers.
You can create a newsgroup in a different regional hierarchy -- try
asking about newsgroup creation procedures in the hierarchy by posting
to the "*.general" or "*.config" group for the hierarchy.
You can create a mailing list, whose existence could be announced
periodically in can.general or other appropriate newsgroups. Ask your
system administrator about setting up a mailing list.
If your primary aim is the dissemination of information rather than
discussion, a web page or an ftp site may be more appropriate
than a newsgroup.
------------------------------
Subject: How can I choose a good newsgroup name?
Avoid one-level names (e.g. can.widgets, can.television). Many news
administrators are of the opinion that the top level of can.* is too
cluttered as it currently stands.
Keep the number of levels in the name small (e.g. can.a.b or
can.a.b.ccc, not can.a.b.c.d unless can.a.b.c already exists).
Pick something that fits into a current hierarchy (e.g. can.talk.*,
can.university.*) or is a reasonable starting point for a new hierarchy
(e.g. can.org.* for organizations).
Choose names that can be readily understood by someone not entirely
familiar with the subject matter.
Here are some hypothetical poor name choices and better versions:
can.rec.sport.baseball.jays How about those Blue Jays, eh?
try instead:
can.talk.blue-jays
or
can.talk.baseball
can.rasc The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
or
can.astronomy.rasc
or
can.org.royal-astronomical-society
try instead:
can.org.rasc
------------------------------
Subject: I got lots of messages in favour of the group and hardly any
negative comments. This is good enough to go ahead and create a
newsgroup, isn't it?
Maybe. If the negative comments raise questions about the justification
for creating the newsgroup or the proposed name or charter, make sure
these questions and comments have been satisfactorily answered. "We'll
figure it out later" and "nobody could think of anything any better" are
generally not considered to be satisfactory answers.
This is one of the reasons for having an announcement that the newsgroup
will be created about a week before the newgroup message goes out: it
gives people with serious objections that may have been overlooked during
the discussion period a second chance to be heard and their opinions
seriously considered.
------------------------------
Subject: I think I have enough support but nobody is volunteering to
create the newsgroup for me. Why?
Post an article summarizing the proposal, its support and answers to
any concerns raised during discussion. In this article, ask whether
a well known news administrator will consider issuing the newgroup
message and if not, why not.
------------------------------
Subject: My friend sent out a newgroup message to start my new newsgroup
and lots of sites are refusing to carry it. Why?
Many news administrators will not automatically create newsgroups when
the request (newgroup message) comes from someone who does not have a
reputation as a respected news administrator. If you follow the
guidelines for proposing a new newsgroup and the proposal succeeds,
odds are very good that a well known and respected news administrator
will send out the message to create the newsgroup.
------------------------------
Subject: Just who are the well known and respected news administrators,
anyway?
Of late, Chris Lewis (clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca) has been
volunteering to create newsgroups but other well-known news admins
are more than welcome to offer their services. Dawn remembers Chris
being on the net since about forever (and she's been around in one
form or another since around '86) [I've been around since 1982 CL]
so his opinion does carry a fair bit of weight. Chris is not the
local Newsgroup Czar: he's just one of the few news admins who makes
the time to respond to proposals.
Another administrator who often gets involved is Dave Blackwood.
[We are discussing setting up a "can group cabal" ;-), so stay tuned.]
------------------------------
Subject: It looks like the newsgroup I want to create won't be created.
What should I do now?
There are other hierarchies in which one may attempt to create a
newsgroup (it just won't be a newsgroup under can.*). Newsgroup
creation procedures for the alt, comp, misc, news, rec, sci, soc
and talk hierarchies are posted monthly to news.announce.newusers
and crossposted to news.answers. In addition, other regional
hierarchies may have less stringent newsgroup creation procedures
and be more suited to the subject matter of the proposed newsgroup.
You can create a mailing list. Talk to your system administrator and
read comp.mail.list-admin.software and comp.mail.list-admin.policy
for more information on setting up and maintaining mailing lists.
If you are primarily interested in making information available to
the public rather than the open discussion typical of newsgroups, you
can publish that information on the Internet using gopher, WAIS, a mail
or anonymous ftp server or the World Wide Web. Such a resource could
be mentioned occasionally (less frequently than once a week) in
appropriate newsgroups to help attract the people you're trying to
reach.
------------------------------
Subject: Some sites have can.foobar and others don't. Why?
The Canadian contingent of Usenet is not managed as strictly as
the 'big eight' newsgroups. News administrators throughout the
country have different ideas about what newsgroups should and do
exist in can.*. Some sites may also be aware of the existence of
newsgroups in can.* and simply choose not to carry them.
There have been some "official" lists of groups in the past, but,
they were never accepted particularly well, and have since fallen
into disrepair.
The group lists maintained at www.isc.org are about as authoritive
as it gets. We hope to do better shortly.
------------------------------
Subject: Who died and made you king of this little patch of Usenet?
Dawn sez:
Nobody and I'm not. I was involved with the creation of can.config
and have decided to volunteer a small chunk of time to reminding
the readers of this newsgroup of what seems to be the state of
affairs here. If you have constructive comments or suggestions,
mail them to news@concordia.ca [if they went to my personal address
they might be inadvertently misfiled and you'd think I was ignoring
you on purpose] and they'll be considered for incorporation into this
little missive.
-------------------------------
Subject: Can I get a copy of this posting from somewhere?
The most recent version of this article can be retrieved via querying
. A more permanent home is being sought.
-------------------------------
Subject: Can I get the charters/FAQs of other can.* newsgroups?
New groups created over the past two years have pretty well all
had charters.
Groups with charters are:
can.rec.fishing
can.rec.boating
can.arts.sf
can.community.* groups
can.jobs.gov
[List to be extended as I find them.]
Copies of the charters of these and some other can.* groups can
be found in their control messages, archived at
. FAQs that are
posted periodically to can.* groups might be archived at the
Internet FAQ Consortium at , or might be
retrievable via Google Groups at .
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