Nan:2006-12-18-lang-xharbour-rfd

From: Patrick Mast, xHarbour <patrick.xHarbour@gmail.com>
Subject: RFD: comp.lang.xharbour
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups.proposals,
 comp.lang.clipper
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:08:40 -0600
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                  unmoderated group comp.lang.xharbour

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the
unmoderated Usenet newsgroup, comp.lang.xharbour.


NEWSGROUPS LINE: comp.lang.xharbour

comp.lang.xharbour	xHarbour programming, implementation, and use.


RATIONALE: comp.lang.xharbour

xHarbour is a computer language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHarbour).

There are thousands of xHarbour developers throughout the world,
supporting
fairly busy multiple news groups at:

  news://news.xharbour.org/xHarbour
  news://news.xharbour.org/xHarbour.Spanish.Portuguese

Additionally there are multiple forums on numerous other web sites, none
offering the propagation and overall utility of Usenet. It seems that
there's sufficient interest in xHarbour to support an xHarbour specific
comp.lang group.

The main purposes of this group, therefore, is to serve as a consolidated,
dedicated group, and to make it easier for new users to locate xHarbour
related discussion, and help forum.


TRAFFIC ANALYSIS:

Current xHarbour specific news groups traffic averages some 1,500 messages
per month. There is additionally some traffic scattered through multiple
other xHarbour 3d party forums such as:

  http://fivetechsoft.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=3
  http://br.groups.yahoo.com/group/miniguibrasil

as well as multiple other general purpose forums.


CHARTER:

comp.lang.xharbour is an unmoderated newsgroup which will serve as
a forum for discussing the xHarbour programming language. The group
will serve both those who program in xHarbour and those who work
on developing the language. Topics that may be discussed include:

        - Announcements of new versions of the language.

        - Design and internals of the xHarbour language.

        - Design, programming, and administration of systems
                    and applications which use the xHarbour language.

        - Strengths, weaknesses, and general usage of xHarbour
                    to solve real world problems.

        - Technical discussion of products or themes of interest
                    to xHarbour developers, including third-party add-on
          products, their usage, advantages and drawbacks, and
          links to additional information.

Notwithstanding the above, advertisements of any kind are
specifically disallowed, except for brief announcements of products
and events specifically for xHarbour programmers. This specifically
excludes:

        a. General-purpose programming tools.

        b. Announcements of over 50 lines of text.

        c. Advertisements listing specific prices and ordering
           information.

        d. Products and events which are not substantially specific
           to the needs of xHarbour developers.

        e. Any product or event that has been announced on
           comp.lang.xharbour within the past 30 days.

Item (d) is intended to mitigate against announcements of general
purpose programming tools or events, which really belong somewhere
like:

   comp.lang.misc

There is nothing wrong with posts like this but this charter is
specifically attempting to establish strict definition of what's
considered on-topic for comp.lang.xharbour. The clear intent and
general requirement for all posts is to have directly xHarbour
related content.

Posters are expected to abide by normal Usenet standards of decorum,
and to ignore articles intended to disrupt the group.





PROCEDURE:

For more information on the newsgroup creation process, please see:

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

Those who wish to influence the development of this RFD and its final
resolution should subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate in the
relevant threads in that newsgroup.  This is both a courtesy to groups in
which discussion of creating a new group is off-topic as well as the best
method of making sure that one's comments or criticisms are heard.

All discussion of active proposals should be posted to news.groups.proposals.
To this end, the 'Followup-To' header of this RFD has been set to this group.

If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, the discussion
may be crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken to ensure
that all discussion appears in news.groups.proposals as well.

We urge those who would like to read or post in the proposed newsgroup
to make a comment to that effect in this thread; we ask proponents to
keep a list of such positive posts with the relevant message ID
(e.g., Barney Fife, <4JGdnb60fsMzHA7ZnZ2dnUVZ_rWdnZ2d@sysmatrix.net>).
Such lists of positive feedback for the proposal may constitute good
evidence that the group will be well-used if it is created.
 



DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

  news.announce.newgroups
  news.groups.proposals
  comp.lang.clipper

The proponent will also post pointers to:

  news://news.xharbour.org/xHarbour
  http://www.xharbour.org


PROPONENT:

Patrick Mast, xHarbour <patrick.xHarbour@gmail.com>

Co-Proponent: Ron Pinkas <Ron@RonPinkas.com>


CHANGE HISTORY:

2006-12-18     1st RFD