Nan:2007-01-26-comp.lang.xharbour-lcc

From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
From: The Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Subject: 2nd RFD: comp.lang.xharbour (LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups.proposals,
 comp.lang.clipper
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:42:48 -0600
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

                      REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                           comp.lang.xharbour

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


PROCEDURE:

The B8MB plans to begin voting on this proposal after five days.  Please
offer any final discussion or comments before the end of this waiting
period.  Voting may take up to one week (7 days); a result will be posted
following the end of the voting period.

All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.proposals.

The full group creation procedure is documented here:

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



NEWSGROUPS LINE: comp.lang.xharbour

comp.lang.xharbour	xHarbour programming, Clipper, and xBase.


SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION:

Several xHarbour users and suporters supported the creation of a new
comp.lang.xharbour Usenet news group. They expressed their support
via a reply on the original RFD message in the comp.lang.clipper and
news.groups.proposals newsgroups.

The RFD got a total of 13 positive responses so far.  No negative
response for this proposal was found in any of the newsgroups.

The following messages are offered as evidence of support of this proposal:

  http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.clipper/msg/5225e343af0c437c
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/3dd71507e8e591a3
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/c8c89b559c8bc066
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/4d2dc18fa67c4356
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/b7ded589ab73229e
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/a3368d247bcf51e7
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/7447c187c7cff870
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/a0378c0a5648ca17
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/05f23ad1f80d7301
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/987548298954b0cc
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/360f0f04a0b9f59b
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/e051212064604a47
  http://groups.google.com/group/news.groups.proposals/msg/e93f868f4f89e698


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, are 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.





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
2006-01-26     2nd RFD/LCC