Hello, 
 I'm a news.groups regular.  Like most of the regulars here, I usually 
 don't vote on proposals.  However, I've got some comments and questions 
 for you (the proponent) which you might want to consider incorporating 
 your responses to in the next draft of your RFD ("2nd RFD:..."). 
  
 In news.groups Jon Leech  wrote: 
 >                     REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) 
 >              unmoderated group rec.arts.dance.politics 
  
 >Newsgroup line: 
 >rec.arts.dance.politics Internal politics of dance communities. 
  
 >RATIONALE: rec.arts.dance.politics 
  
 [snip] 
 >Such discussions are typically highly controversial and subjective in 
 >nature, and often contain allegations against specific individuals 
 >who do not read Usenet, or do not feel able to counter those 
 >allegations in the group. While these discussions often center around 
 >one specific geographic swing dance community, at times ballroom, 
 >country-western, and swing politics in other areas, have also come 
 >up. The volume of these threads is significant compared to the 
 >overall rec.arts.dance group volume, though the number of posters is 
 >relatively small. 
  
 This begs the question, "do these readers WANT to use a different 
 group for these discussions?"  It's a heck of a lot harder to move 
 discussions or topics or readers out of a group than it is to 
 pull them into a new group.  Just creating a new group doesn't 
 mean these folks will use it.  They need to WANT to use it, to 
 support this proposal, to back you.  Otherwise, no matter how 
 large a landslide victory you get, you will still be stuck with 
 the political discussion in RAD. 
  
 Has there been much discussion of this proposal in RAD and 
 affected groups? 
  
 >CHARTER: rec.arts.dance.politics 
  
 >Discussion Topics 
  
 [snip] 
 >Commercial postings, including event announcements, are forbidden. 
  
 I point out that "forbidden" is not really enforceable in unmoderated 
 newsgroups.  Some folks like to use that word to illustrate how 
 unwelcome these postings are, though. 
  
 What about binaries?  Do they pose a problem in the existing dance 
 groups? (probably not) 
  
 >Anonymous and pseudonymous postings are strongly discouraged. 
  
 And this will be enforced how, particularly given how easy 
 it is to use pseudonyms on usenet? 
  
 [snip] 
  
 >END CHARTER. 
  
 ru 
  
 -- 
 My standard proposals rant: 
 Quality, usefulness, merit, or non-newsgroups popularity of a topic 
 is more or less irrelevant in creating a new Big-8 newsgroup. 
 Usenet popularity is the primary consideration. 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)