The BE.* Newsgroup hierarchy

The be.* newsgroup hierarchy is intended for Belgium-oriented miscellaneous newsgroups.
The following text was drafted when the hierarchy was started in 1994, and is rather outdated, but still contains many valuable guidelines for the creation of new BE.* newsgroups.

Creating a new be.* newsgroup

People wishing to create a new newsgroup in the be-hierarchy, should follow the following procedure:

First, publish an RFD (Request for Discussion). In this, you discuss your arguments for creating the newsgroup. The procedure is described below.

The RFD (Request For Discussion)

For an RFD of a certain newsgroup, the following holds:

RFD-1:

It has to be posted in be.announce, so that everyone can be notified. There is no objection to cross-posting; this is possible by specifying a list of newsgroups in the 'Newsgroups' headerline, eg.:

Newsgroups: be.announce,be.misc

By using a 'Followup-To:' headerline, followups should be directed to be.misc by preference, eg.:

Followup-To: be.misc

RFD-2:

A so-called 'charter' needs to be declared, i.e. a description of the content of the newsgroup to be created. It would be nice if the 'charter' is already composed before the start of the RFD. Also, a short one-line description needs to be determined, eg:

be.test For testing news software configurations

If the newsgroup has to be moderated, a moderator has to be appointed and available.

RFD-3:

During the RFD, which is at least 10 days, the name of the newsgroup needs to be determined. If there is no consensus within two weeks about the name of the newsgroup, the discussion regarding the name of the newsgroup has to be continued by e-Mail. As soon as consensus is reached, a new RFD has to be started.

There are some restrictions on the name of a newsgroup. A name component may not be longer than 14 characters. A name component consisting solely of digits is not allowed; capitals are not allowed, and only '+', '-' and '_' are allowed as punctuation marks.

RFD-4:

If there are no serious objections against the RFD concerning this newsgroup-to-be, a vote concerning the creation of this newsgroup can be held.
This is called the 'Call For Votes' (CFV).

The procedures for a CFV are described below. Note that even though it is not stated explicitly (yet), you are strongly encouraged to use a neutral votetaker. If for example the instigator of a RFD/CFV procedure also acts as the votetaker, (s)he has an unfair advantage towards his/her 'opponents', because he always knows how many YES votes (s)he has short.

 

The CFV (Call For Votes)

A volunteer for the CFV votetaking has to be found.

If a consensus is reached about the name of the newsgroup to be created (through a succesfull RFD), a vote concerning the creation can be held through a CFV. For this, a mail-address needs to be found or created, to which votes can be sent.
Always verify whether the mail address works *BEFORE* the start of the voting period.

For a CFV of a certain newsgroup, the following holds:

CFV-1:

See RFD-1.

CFV-2:

The following has to be mentioned in the CFV:

  • The 'charter' of the newsgroup, eg. the purpose of the newsgroup (see RFD-2);

  • The start of the voting period

  • The end of the voting period

  • The mail address to which the votes can be sent and the way
    one can vote either in favour of or against.

CFV-3:

The voting office will be opened either 2 or 3 weeks.

CFV-4:

For each week during the voting period, an appeal for convincing those who have not yet voted to vote, may be posted.

At the second and following voting appeals, a list of votes has to be included (obviously without their votes).

CFV-5:

After the end of the voting period, the result of the vote has to be posted in be.announce (Again, there is no objection to cross-posting). Again, make sure followups are sent to be.misc .

The NO-voters, the YES-voters and the result need to be clearly mentioned.

The voting result has to be made public within 5 days after the end of the voting period. For each day exceeding this limit, the objection period is extended with two days. If the result isn't posted after 3 weeks, the vote is declared negative, and CFV-7 holds.

CFV-6:

After the posting of the CFV result a period of at least 5 days needs to be taken into account, in which objections can be made concerning the result.

CFV-7:

If the result of the CFV is positive (see CFV-8) for the newsgroup to be created, the results (see CFV-5) have to be mailed to , together with a request to honor the result of the CFV.

If the voting turns out negative for the creation of the newsgroup, a vote for an equally named newsgroup cannot be issued within the 6 following months.

CFV-8:

The criteria for creating a new be-newsgroup are:

  • There have to be at least 30 more YES-voters than NO-voters.
  • At least 2/3 of the voters needs to have voted YES.

 
© 2001 - Site maintained by Tom De Voeght (tdv@pandora.be)