Usenet Big-8 Management Board - Recent changes [en]

Minutes/2026-05-07

Rayner Lucas — Fri, 08 May 2026 09:34:47 GMT

Clarification of communications from misc.tax.moderated moderator

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	Present: RL, MM		Present: RL, MM
	~~Apologies: TM~~

	* Administration		* Administration
	** {{news\|comp.lang.asm.x86}}: RL has re-familiarised himself with where the STUMP setup process previously got to.		** {{news\|comp.lang.asm.x86}}: RL has re-familiarised himself with where the STUMP setup process previously got to.
	** {{news\|misc.taxes.moderated}}: Response from Jonathan Kamens noting that he is no longer responsible for hosting the asktax.org domain, and giving a contact address for the last known moderator. MM reports that the ~~moderator~~ is ~~no longer interested and~~ there should therefore now be an RFD to decide what to do with the group.		** {{news\|misc.taxes.moderated}}: Response from Jonathan Kamens noting that he is no longer responsible for hosting the asktax.org domain, and giving a contact address for the last known moderator. MM has contacted the moderator, who reports that he has nothing to do with the technical side of the moderation system and that the group is effectively dead. MM suggests that there should therefore now be an RFD to decide what to do with the group.
	** {{news\|comp.binaries.cbm}}: RL contacted the prospective moderator to ask for a status update and whether they are still interested in moderating the group.		** {{news\|comp.binaries.cbm}}: RL contacted the prospective moderator to ask for a status update and whether they are still interested in moderating the group.
	** {{news\|rec.arts.anime.creative}}: RL contacted the prospective moderator to ask for a status update and whether they are still interested in moderating the group.		** {{news\|rec.arts.anime.creative}}: RL contacted the prospective moderator to ask for a status update and whether they are still interested in moderating the group.

Minutes/2026-05-07

Rayner Lucas — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:49:44 GMT

Page creation

New page

Present: RL, MM
Apologies: TM

* Administration
** {{news|comp.lang.asm.x86}}: RL has re-familiarised himself with where the STUMP setup process previously got to.
** {{news|misc.taxes.moderated}}: Response from Jonathan Kamens noting that he is no longer responsible for hosting the asktax.org domain, and giving a contact address for the last known moderator. MM reports that the moderator is no longer interested and there should therefore now be an RFD to decide what to do with the group.
** {{news|comp.binaries.cbm}}: RL contacted the prospective moderator to ask for a status update and whether they are still interested in moderating the group.
** {{news|rec.arts.anime.creative}}: RL contacted the prospective moderator to ask for a status update and whether they are still interested in moderating the group.
** {{news|comp.protocols.dns.bind}}: Reply from Dan Mahoney for an update on the mail-to-news gateway; he reports no progress since our previous correspondence.

[[Category:Meeting minutes for 2026]]

User:Marco Moock

Marco Moock — Mon, 04 May 2026 19:32:40 GMT

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	I joined Usenet text groups it 2021 and I am mostly active in the ~~Germany~~ groups.		I joined Usenet text groups it 2021 and I am mostly active in the German groups.
	I am interested in Linux, FreeBSD, free software and networking.		I am interested in Linux, FreeBSD, free software and networking.

Board:Agenda for next Board meeting

Marco Moock — Mon, 04 May 2026 19:32:22 GMT

Board:Agenda for next Board meeting

Tristan Miller — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 19:32:09 GMT

User:Marco Moock

Marco Moock — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 15:05:42 GMT

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	I ~~found~~ Usenet ~~by searching the names of other employees of the university Heidelberg I started apprenticeship in 2020.~~		I joined Usenet text groups it 2021 and I am mostly active in the Germany groups.
			I am interested in Linux, FreeBSD, free software and networking.
	~~I then joined~~ it 2021 and I am mostly active in the Germany groups.
	I am interested in Linux, FreeBSD, free software, networking~~, and stuff where the user has the control instead of a big company or even the government~~.

	Contact me via mm+big8@dorfdsl.de		Contact me via mm+big8@dorfdsl.de

	Spam and phishing should be sent to crap2002@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de		Spam and phishing should be sent to crap2002@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

Nan:2026-04-23-board-finances

Tristan Miller — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 22:05:58 GMT

Created page with "<pre> From: Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.misc Subject: Big-8 Management Board finances Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:02:42 -0500 Message-ID: <10se4u3$e8i$1@reader1.panix.com> In March 2021, the Big-8 Management Board joined Open Collective Europe (now Open Source Europe) in order to allow users of the Big-8 hierarchies to examine its financial activities and to help cover its expenses. We are grateful for the many recur..."

New page

<pre>
From: Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.misc
Subject: Big-8 Management Board finances
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:02:42 -0500
Message-ID: <10se4u3$e8i$1@reader1.panix.com>

In March 2021, the Big-8 Management Board joined Open Collective
Europe (now Open Source Europe) in order to allow users of the Big-8
hierarchies to examine its financial activities and to help cover its
expenses.

We are grateful for the many recurring and one-time contributions we
have received since then. All monies received to date have been
applied to the Board's bills for web/news hosting and domain name
registration.

If you would like to see a record of the Board's income and
expenditures, or make a financial contribution to the Board, you can
do so via the Usenet Big-8 Management Board Open Collective:
<https://opencollective.com/usenetbig8>

Further information on the Board's finances is available on the
"Finances" page of our website: <https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Finances>

--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org
</pre>

Announcements

Tristan Miller — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 22:05:12 GMT

* 2026-04-23: Big-8 Management Board finances

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			* 2026-04-23: [[Nan:2026-04-23-board-finances\|Big-8 Management Board finances]]
	* 2026-04-02: [[Nan:2026-04-02-result-comp.unix.user-friendly\|RESULT: comp.unix.user-friendly will not be removed]]		* 2026-04-02: [[Nan:2026-04-02-result-comp.unix.user-friendly\|RESULT: comp.unix.user-friendly will not be removed]]
	* 2026-04-02: [[Nan:2026-04-02-result-comp.unix.bsd\|RESULT: comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc and comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc will not be removed]]		* 2026-04-02: [[Nan:2026-04-02-result-comp.unix.bsd\|RESULT: comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc and comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc will not be removed]]
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	* 2025-05-09: [[Nan:2025-05-09-lcc-comp.compression.research\|2nd RFD: Remove comp.compression.research (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)]]		* 2025-05-09: [[Nan:2025-05-09-lcc-comp.compression.research\|2nd RFD: Remove comp.compression.research (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)]]
	* 2025-05-05: [[Nan:2025-05-05-lcc-mass-deletion-nomod-2025\|3rd RfD: Mass-deletion of moderated groups without a moderator (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)]]		* 2025-05-05: [[Nan:2025-05-05-lcc-mass-deletion-nomod-2025\|3rd RfD: Mass-deletion of moderated groups without a moderator (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)]]
	* 2025-04-25: [[Nan:2025-04-25-2nd-rfd-comp.compression.research\|2nd RFD: Remove comp.compression.research]]
	* 2025-04-03: [[Usenet panel at the Born-Digital Collections, Archives and Memory Conference]]

Archived announcements

Tristan Miller — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 22:03:48 GMT

archive announcements

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	== 2025 ==		== 2025 ==
			* 2025-04-25: [[Nan:2025-04-25-2nd-rfd-comp.compression.research\|2nd RFD: Remove comp.compression.research]]
			* 2025-04-03: [[Usenet panel at the Born-Digital Collections, Archives and Memory Conference]]
	* 2025-03-28: [[Nan:2025-03-28-rfd-comp.compression.research\|RFD: Remove comp.compression.research]]		* 2025-03-28: [[Nan:2025-03-28-rfd-comp.compression.research\|RFD: Remove comp.compression.research]]
	* 2025-03-28: [[Nan:2025-03-28-mf-news.admin.announce\|MODERATOR FOUND: news.admin.announce]]		* 2025-03-28: [[Nan:2025-03-28-mf-news.admin.announce\|MODERATOR FOUND: news.admin.announce]]

Minutes/2026-04-23

Tristan Miller — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:18:25 GMT

Created page with "Present: TM, RL, MM * Infrastructure ** The Board discussed the hosting requirements circulated by e-mail. TM to ask Panix whether its VPS services provide the features we need. * Software/funding ** The meeting noted donations to the Board's Open Collective account by Board members and Julien Élie, which are sufficient to cover the Board's outstanding expenses. (TM has already submitted his expense claims; RL to do so soon.) TM to send a note of thanks to Julien on..."

New page

Present: TM, RL, MM

* Infrastructure
** The Board discussed the hosting requirements circulated by e-mail. TM to ask Panix whether its VPS services provide the features we need.
* Software/funding
** The meeting noted donations to the Board's Open Collective account by Board members and Julien Élie, which are sufficient to cover the Board's outstanding expenses. (TM has already submitted his expense claims; RL to do so soon.) TM to send a note of thanks to Julien on behalf of the Board.
** RL and MM approved TM's draft finances article; TM to post it to {{news|news.groups}} and {{news|news.admin.misc}}.
** TM asked whether the Board should continue posting announcements to its Facebook pages and X profile, as they do not seem to have attracted any engagement. RL noted that the Facebook pages at least have followers. Agreed that TM would post messages to the Facebook pages and X profiles indicating that the Board is considering shuttering them and asking for followers to confirm whether they are reading.
* Misc
** The Board continued discussion of whether/how it was desirable to alter the process by which new members are added. There was no consensus that any changes were immediately required, and it was suggested that the sort of inconclusive result observed in the recent RfD might be avoided in the future with access to more information on existing archiving initiatives, and to more quantitative information on servers that carry the Big 8, whether obtained passively/automatically (e.g., how many there are; how many articles originate from them and from how many users; whether their TLS certificates are valid; whether they have RFC 2142 or other posted contact information; etc.) or actively (e.g., writing to the admins to ask about their control message policies).

[[Category:Meeting minutes for 2026]]

Board:Agenda for next Board meeting

Tristan Miller — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 14:59:32 GMT

Finances

Tristan Miller — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 20:54:17 GMT

update name

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	We use donations primarily to pay the above-noted bills, and secondarily to cover expenses associated with the Board's outreach activities (e.g., attendance at technical conferences where we speak about the Board's work) and to help fund maintenance and development of the [https://www.gnu.org/software/stump/ STUMP] and [https://www.gnu.org/software/webstump/ WebSTUMP] moderation software.		We use donations primarily to pay the above-noted bills, and secondarily to cover expenses associated with the Board's outreach activities (e.g., attendance at technical conferences where we speak about the Board's work) and to help fund maintenance and development of the [https://www.gnu.org/software/stump/ STUMP] and [https://www.gnu.org/software/webstump/ WebSTUMP] moderation software.

	In March 2021, the Board joined [https://opencollective.com/europe Open Collective Europe] in order to make all of its financial activities transparent. If you would like to see a record of the Board's income and expenditures, or make a financial contribution to the Board, you can do so via the [https://opencollective.com/usenetbig8 Usenet Big-8 Management Board Open Collective].		In March 2021, the Board joined [https://opencollective.com/europe Open Source Europe] (formerly Open Collective Europe) in order to make all of its financial activities transparent. If you would like to see a record of the Board's income and expenditures, or make a financial contribution to the Board, you can do so via the [https://opencollective.com/usenetbig8 Usenet Big-8 Management Board Open Collective].

Minutes/2026-04-16

Tristan Miller — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:56:46 GMT

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	Present: TM, RL, MM		Present: TM, RL, MM

			* Software/funding
			** The meeting collectively revised the [[Finances]] page to reflect the Board's current hosting and domain name registration expenses.
			** It was noted that [https://opencollective.com/usenetbig8 the Board's Open Collective account] currently has a positive balance of €98.63, which is insufficient to repay outstanding expenses from RL (around €100 for hosting) and TM ($200 for the shell account).
			** It was noted with gratitude that David Solimano has been a recurring donor to the Board's Open Collective account (€5/month) since September 2021.
			** Board members were called upon to make a one-time donation to its Open Collective account to cover the outstanding expenses.
			** It was agreed that TM would draft and circulate to the other Board members a fundraising letter.
			** The meeting discussed ways of reducing its expenses, including moving to a cheaper domain name registrar (not required for now, since JE has been paying for this without reimbursement) and consolidating the hosting and shell accounts and/or moving them to cheaper hosting providers.
			** It was agreed to send a list of hosting requirements to MM, who will draft and circulate to the other Board members an enquiry to Panix asking which, if any, of their existing services would meet them.
	* Misc		* Misc
	** ~~The meeting discussed a proposal from MM~~ to ~~enlarging the~~ electorate for ~~adding~~ Board members. The meeting briefly reviewed [[How the Management of the Big-8 Developed\|the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Board]] and [[Big-8_Management_FAQ#How_are_new_members_added_to_the_Board?\|the existing process for adding new Board members]]. The meeting debated the necessity of reforming or replacing the existing process and discussed the pros and cons of various alternatives, including a relatively open voting system (similar to how hierarchy management decisions were made before the establishment of the Board), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators#Request_for_adminship_through_consensus the consensus-based model used by Wikipedia for adding administrators] (where users hold a discussion on candidates, and a trusted cadre attempts to ~~identify a general consensus in that~~ discussion~~), and [https://github.com/thunderbird/council-docs/blob/main/BY_LAWS.md#election-procedure the voting-based model used~~ to ~~elect the Thunderbird Council] (where an electorate is formed from users meeting some defined criteria, who then vote on candidates). It was agreed to resume the discussion at the~~ next meeting.		** Proposal to enlarge electorate for selecting Board members: agreed to defer discussion to next meeting.

	[[Category:Meeting minutes for 2026]]		[[Category:Meeting minutes for 2026]]

Minutes/2026-04-09

Tristan Miller — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:46:11 GMT

Created page with "Present: TM, RL, MM * Misc ** The meeting discussed a proposal from MM to enlarging the electorate for adding Board members. The meeting briefly reviewed the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Board and the existing process for adding new Board members. The meeting debated the necessity of reforming or replacing the existing process and discus..."

New page

Present: TM, RL, MM

* Misc
** The meeting discussed a proposal from MM to enlarging the electorate for adding Board members. The meeting briefly reviewed [[How the Management of the Big-8 Developed|the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Board]] and [[Big-8_Management_FAQ#How_are_new_members_added_to_the_Board?|the existing process for adding new Board members]]. The meeting debated the necessity of reforming or replacing the existing process and discussed the pros and cons of various alternatives, including a relatively open voting system (similar to how hierarchy management decisions were made before the establishment of the Board), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators#Request_for_adminship_through_consensus the consensus-based model used by Wikipedia for adding administrators] (where users hold a discussion on candidates, and a trusted cadre attempts to identify a general consensus in that discussion), and [https://github.com/thunderbird/council-docs/blob/main/BY_LAWS.md#election-procedure the voting-based model used to elect the Thunderbird Council] (where an electorate is formed from users meeting some defined criteria, who then vote on candidates). It was agreed to resume the discussion at the next meeting.

[[Category:Meeting minutes for 2026]]

Board:Agenda for next Board meeting

Tristan Miller — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:44:02 GMT

Finances

Tristan Miller — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:17:31 GMT

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:17, 16 April 2026
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	The Usenet Big-8 Management Board is financed entirely through donations by Board members or members of the public. Our regular recurring expenditures are as follows:		The Usenet Big-8 Management Board is financed entirely through donations by Board members or members of the public. Our regular recurring expenditures are as follows:

	* €4.99 per month for mail and web hosting		* €8.64 per month for mail and web hosting
	* ~~€25~~ per year for domain name registration		* €21.22 per year for domain name registration
	* $100 per year for moderation software hosting		* $100.00 per year for moderation software hosting

	We use donations primarily to pay the above-noted bills, and secondarily to cover expenses associated with the Board's outreach activities (e.g., attendance at technical conferences where we speak about the Board's work) and to help fund maintenance and development of the [https://www.gnu.org/software/stump/ STUMP] and [https://www.gnu.org/software/webstump/ WebSTUMP] moderation software.		We use donations primarily to pay the above-noted bills, and secondarily to cover expenses associated with the Board's outreach activities (e.g., attendance at technical conferences where we speak about the Board's work) and to help fund maintenance and development of the [https://www.gnu.org/software/stump/ STUMP] and [https://www.gnu.org/software/webstump/ WebSTUMP] moderation software.

	In March 2021, the Board joined [https://opencollective.com/europe Open Collective Europe] in order to make all of its financial activities transparent. If you would like to see a record of the Board's income and expenditures, or make a financial contribution to the Board, you can do so via the [https://opencollective.com/usenetbig8 Usenet Big-8 Management Board Open Collective].		In March 2021, the Board joined [https://opencollective.com/europe Open Collective Europe] in order to make all of its financial activities transparent. If you would like to see a record of the Board's income and expenditures, or make a financial contribution to the Board, you can do so via the [https://opencollective.com/usenetbig8 Usenet Big-8 Management Board Open Collective].

Minutes/2026-04-16

Tristan Miller — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 18:53:26 GMT

New page

How the Management of the Big-8 Developed

Tristan Miller — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 18:39:57 GMT

Development of news.groups and news.announce.newgroups: fix link

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	In 1987, net.news.group became news.groups.[http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/msg/788649ca05fb43b?hl=en\|*] The new group inherited the task of the old group: to discuss newsgroup proposals and provide lists of active newsgroups.		In 1987, net.news.group became news.groups.[http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/msg/788649ca05fb43b?hl=en\|*] The new group inherited the task of the old group: to discuss newsgroup proposals and provide lists of active newsgroups.

	On August 8, 1989, news.announce.newgroups (n.a.n.) was created with Greg Woods as the initial moderator of the group: "The moderated group will contain ONLY new group proposals, calls for votes, and results of votes, and periodic postings of the newsgroup creation guidelines. Proposals for changes to the newsgroup creation procedure will also be considered, again with the discussion and inevitable flame wars taking place only in news.groups, provided that these proposals do not become too numerous (bearing in mind that the major goal of this new group is to keep the volume low)."[http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/msg/e464008f22c5d615?hl=en\|] In January 1990, [~~[wp>Eliot_Lear\|~~Eliot Lear]] took over, at first as backup moderator for Woods.[http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/msg/758b2dd9c67f8fab?dmode=source\|] He shepherded the system through its early turbulence and then chose David C. Lawrence (tale) as his successor in February 1991.[http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/msg/da887dc7ac81aa4b?hl=en\|*]		On August 8, 1989, news.announce.newgroups (n.a.n.) was created with Greg Woods as the initial moderator of the group: "The moderated group will contain ONLY new group proposals, calls for votes, and results of votes, and periodic postings of the newsgroup creation guidelines. Proposals for changes to the newsgroup creation procedure will also be considered, again with the discussion and inevitable flame wars taking place only in news.groups, provided that these proposals do not become too numerous (bearing in mind that the major goal of this new group is to keep the volume low)."[http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/msg/e464008f22c5d615?hl=en\|] In January 1990, [https://datatracker.ietf.org/person/Eliot%20Lear Eliot Lear] took over, at first as backup moderator for Woods.[http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/msg/758b2dd9c67f8fab?dmode=source\|] He shepherded the system through its early turbulence and then chose David C. Lawrence (tale) as his successor in February 1991.[http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups/msg/da887dc7ac81aa4b?hl=en\|*]

	=== Subsequent news.announce.newgroups moderators ===		=== Subsequent news.announce.newgroups moderators ===

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			* 2026-04-23: [[Nan:2026-04-23-board-finances\|Big-8 Management Board finances]]
	* 2026-04-02: [[Nan:2026-04-02-result-comp.unix.user-friendly\|RESULT: comp.unix.user-friendly will not be removed]]		* 2026-04-02: [[Nan:2026-04-02-result-comp.unix.user-friendly\|RESULT: comp.unix.user-friendly will not be removed]]
	* 2026-04-02: [[Nan:2026-04-02-result-comp.unix.bsd\|RESULT: comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc and comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc will not be removed]]		* 2026-04-02: [[Nan:2026-04-02-result-comp.unix.bsd\|RESULT: comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc and comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc will not be removed]]
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	* 2025-05-09: [[Nan:2025-05-09-lcc-comp.compression.research\|2nd RFD: Remove comp.compression.research (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)]]		* 2025-05-09: [[Nan:2025-05-09-lcc-comp.compression.research\|2nd RFD: Remove comp.compression.research (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)]]
	* 2025-05-05: [[Nan:2025-05-05-lcc-mass-deletion-nomod-2025\|3rd RfD: Mass-deletion of moderated groups without a moderator (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)]]		* 2025-05-05: [[Nan:2025-05-05-lcc-mass-deletion-nomod-2025\|3rd RfD: Mass-deletion of moderated groups without a moderator (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)]]
	* 2025-04-25: [[Nan:2025-04-25-2nd-rfd-comp.compression.research\|2nd RFD: Remove comp.compression.research]]
	* 2025-04-03: [[Usenet panel at the Born-Digital Collections, Archives and Memory Conference]]