Nan:2007-02-13-b8mb-update

From: The Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Subject: [B8MB] State of Affairs, 13 Feb 2007
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, news.groups.proposals
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:51:50 -0600
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

This is an official announcement from the Big-8 Management Board.

Recent Actions
--------------

Since the last announcement (in early December), the following proposals
have been successfully completed:

        - Two new newsgroups were created: comp.lang.xharbour and 
          sci.physics.foundations . 
        - Six existing newsgroups were removed: comp.home.misc, 
          comp.sys.mac.games.announce, misc.news.internet.announce, 
          comp.lang.basic.visual.announce, comp.archives, and 
          comp.laser-printers .
        - New moderators were appointed for three moderated newsgroups:
          news.announce.conferences, rec.aviation.stories, and
          soc.religion.shamanism .

In addition, one proposal has been rejected (create the newsgroup
sci.research.eeg).   

There are currently four open proposals to create a new newsgroup, and
seven to remove existing groups.
                

Minimum New Group RFD Requirements Documented
---------------------------------------------

Although the Board has published the sections that have to be included
in an RFD before a proposal is put to a vote, we have never documented
the minimum requirements for an RFD to be considered acceptable for
publishing in news.announce.newgroups and subsequent discussion in
news.groups.proposals.

The success of news.groups.proposals has convinced us that more
proposal discussions should start in that group, rather than starting
in news.groups and later moving to news.groups.proposals.  We hope that
publishing the minimum requirements for an RFD will encourage more people
to start discussions in new.groups.proposals.

For publication in news.announce.newgroups, the first draft of a new group
RFD must contain at least the following:

  - The basic topic and scope of the desired group,
  - A tentative name (or a list of potential names),
  - An initial proponent (the person submitting the RFD),
  - A list of related newsgroups.

As the proposal is discussed and developed in news.groups.proposals, it
should become more complete and more final, until the proponent determines
that it's ready for a vote. As always, the Group Mentors volunteers are
available to assist proponents at all stages of the process.


Term Limit Modifications
------------------------

The Board has recently voted to modify the Membership Policy rules to
require Board approval for members to renew their appointments.
The new rules are documented here:

  http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:membership

 V. REAPPOINTMENT OF EXISTING MEMBERS

  1. At the expiration of a Member of the Board's term of office, if he
     wishes, he may be re-appointed to a new term at the discretion of the
     Board.  The Board shall vote on the re-appointment by secret ballot;
     the vote-taker (the Chair) shall publish the results of the vote to the
     Board, but not the individual ballots.

  2. If the Chair is himself up for re-appointment, the vote shall be
     taken by the Vice-Chair.
  
  3. The member whose reappointment is at issue may cast a ballot in this
     vote as usual.
  
  4. The vote tallies shall not be published to the public, though the
     re-appointment itself shall be announced.


Issue Votes
-----------

As described in <nan.20061219172154$03fa@killfile.org>, the topic of Issue
Votes was modified in December to require a minimum level of participation
in internal Board votes.  More information is available in the original
post, and the relevant rule (Rule 9) is available on the web here:

  http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:board_voting


Jonathan's Resignation
----------------------

As noted in <nan.20070125201738$1293@killfile.org>, Jonathan Kamens has
retired from the Board.  Again, we hope that you will all wish him luck.


news.groups.proposals
---------------------

As a reminder, the moderated newsgroup news.groups.proposals was created
on 14 Nov 2006.  All "official" discussion of active proposals now takes
place in this group; this has proven to be remarkably successful.  The
Board would like to publicly thank the NGP moderators for their hard, and
successful, work.

For more information on the group, please see its homepage at:

  http://www.big-8.org/~ngp/


Call For Proposals
------------------

The Board would like to once again officially encourage users to propose
new, interesting groups throughout the Big-8 hierarchies.  The Board and
the newly-reformed Group Mentors would be happy to help you refine your
ideas into an RFD; and if your proposal appears to have a good shot at
creating a well-named, well-used group, we are probably willing to give
your idea a chance.  Be creative!  Extra points go to proposals that
promise to bring entirely new users to Usenet.
 

Volunteer Committees
--------------------

Our monthly reminder - the B8MB is attempting to put together several
volunteer organizations to handle individual aspects of the new group
creation system.  These groups are not currently fully populated, but they
have fairly clear (if general) goals.  And most importantly, they have
mailing lists, so it's possible to start getting them organized.

Please, if you are interested in helping out the Big-8, or Usenet as a
whole, please volunteer for one (or more) of these groups!  And if you
would like to help shape the future of the groups, and have the time to
help coordinate them, please contact the listed Coordinator.


  Usenet Volunteer Pollsters
  ==========================

  Coordinator    Tim Skirvin + Jonathan Kamens
  Mailing List   http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/uvp/
  Description    http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=workgroups:polltakers


  Usenet Volunteer Moderators
  ===========================

  Coordinator    Tim Skirvin
  Mailing List   http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/uvm/
  Description    http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=workgroups:moderators


  Group Mentors
  =============

  Coordinator    Tim Skirvin
  Mailing List   http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/group-mentors/
  Description    http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=workgroups:mentors


  Deadwood Groups Task Force
  ==========================

  Coordinator    Dave Sill
  Mailing List   http://lists.big-8.org/mailman/listinfo/deadwood/
  Description    http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=workgroups:deadgroups


                                - The Big-8 Management Board
-- 
http://www.big-8.org/                           Big-8 Management Board