Nan:2009-11-28-rfd-comp-ai-jair

From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
From: Alexander Bartolich <alexander.bartolich@gmx.at>
Subject: 2. RFD: comp.ai.jair.* moderated (change moderator or remove)
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:45:46 EST
Message-ID: <hesgcn$mhr$1@news.albasani.net>
References: <hdp6j9$es4$1@news.albasani.net>


              REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
              moderated group comp.ai.jair.announce
              moderated group comp.ai.jair.papers

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to change moderators of
comp.ai.jair.announce and comp.ai.jair.papers, or to remove these groups.

NEWSGROUPS LINE:

comp.ai.jair.announce	Announcements & abstracts of the Journal of AI Research. (Moderated)
comp.ai.jair.papers	Papers published by the Journal of AI Research. (Moderated)

DISTRIBUTION:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
comp.ai.jair.announce
comp.ai.jair.papers

PROPONENT:

Alexander Bartolich <alexander.bartolich@gmx.at>

CHARTER OF COMP.AI.JAIR.ANNOUNCE

	Announcements and abstracts.  This group will primarily be used
	to announce the publication of new papers; when a paper has been
	accepted to the journal, the abstract will be posted here.

  The AI Access Foundation, a nonprofit corporation devoted to the
  electronic dissemination of scientific results in AI, is pleased to
  announce a new journal, the Journal of Artificial Intelligence
  Research (JAIR).  JAIR is a refereed publication, covering all areas
  of AI, that will be distributed over the internet. In addition, each
  complete volume of JAIR will be published by Morgan Kaufmann.

  JAIR will only publish articles of the highest quality.  Submissions
  will be evaluated on their originality and significance.  All claims
  should be clearly articulated and justified either empirically or
  theoretically.  Papers should describe work that has both practical
  and theoretical significance.

  We encourage authors to be concise. Short, high-quality articles
  will be welcomed, in addition to the longer articles that traditionally 
  appear in AI journals. JAIR will also publish technical notes -- very 
  brief papers that extend or evaluate previous work.

  Submissions in all areas of AI are invited, including automated
  reasoning, cognitive modeling, knowledge representation, learning,
  natural language, perception, and robotics.  JAIR will begin accepting
  submissions on June 15, 1993. Further information regarding submissions
  can be obtained by sending a request to jair@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov.  A
  more detailed announcement containing subscription information will be
  issued later this spring.

CHARTER OF COMP.AI.JAIR.PAPERS

	Accepted papers: postscript, LaTeX or other source suitable
	for text search, supporting code or other data that would not
	normally be included in articles due to size limitations.

  The AI Access Foundation, a nonprofit corporation devoted to the
  electronic dissemination of scientific results in AI, is pleased to
  announce a new journal, the Journal of Artificial Intelligence
  Research (JAIR).  JAIR is a refereed publication, covering all areas
  of AI, that will be distributed over the internet. In addition, each
  complete volume of JAIR will be published by Morgan Kaufmann.

  JAIR will only publish articles of the highest quality.  Submissions
  will be evaluated on their originality and significance.  All claims
  should be clearly articulated and justified either empirically or
  theoretically.  Papers should describe work that has both practical
  and theoretical significance.

  We encourage authors to be concise. Short, high-quality articles
  will be welcomed, in addition to the longer articles that traditionally 
  appear in AI journals. JAIR will also publish technical notes -- very 
  brief papers that extend or evaluate previous work.

  Submissions in all areas of AI are invited, including automated
  reasoning, cognitive modeling, knowledge representation, learning,
  natural language, perception, and robotics.  JAIR will begin accepting
  submissions on June 15, 1993. Further information regarding submissions
  can be obtained by sending a request to jair@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov.  A
  more detailed announcement containing subscription information will be
  issued later this spring.

RATIONALE:

According to Google's archive the last on-topic post appeared in
comp.ai.jair.papers on 2000-03-30, and in comp.ai.jair.announce
on 2006-04-20.

Probe posts to these groups resulted in bounces.

  The original message was received at Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:49:58 -0700
  from moderators.individual.net [130.133.4.7]

     ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
  <jair-papers@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>
      (reason: 550 5.1.1 <jair-papers@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>: Recipient
      address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table)

  The original message was received at Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:47:55 -0700
  from moderators.individual.net [130.133.4.7]

     ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
  <jair-announce@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>
      (reason: 550 5.1.1 <jair-announce@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov>: Recipient
      address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table)

Peter J Ross has volunteered to take over moderation of these group.
- He hopes that submissions are still made but never get through
- Wants to post to articles mentioned on http://www.jair.org/
- Wants to contact jair.org to set up some kind of gateway
>Message-ID: <slrnhfh5fb.7fd.pjr@pjr.gotdns.org> 

Perceived shortcomings of his offer:
- Moderation team too small.
- No policy for replacement of inactive members.
- No endorsal from The Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research.
  David E. Ross tried to contact them via mail and a contact form
  but has not received a reply, yet.

Peter J Ross has not addressed the perceived shortcomings listed
in the 1. RFD.

HISTORY OF THE GROUPS:

comp.ai.jair.announce is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for
creation by 344:18 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 21 Jul 1993.

comp.ai.jair.papers is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for
creation by 332:24 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 21 Jul 1993.

PROCEDURE:

Those who wish to comment on this request to remove this newsgroup should
subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate in the relevant threads
in that newsgroup.

To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to
news.groups.proposals.

In the course of the removal process four formal announcements are posted
(MVI, 1. RFD, 2. RFD, and LCC), each taking two weeks. At the end of the
process the B8MB will vote on the issue.

Available options for comp.ai.jair.* are:
- leave the groups as they are
- remove the groups
- appoint Peter J Ross as new moderator

For more information on the MVI process, please see 

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

CHANGE HISTORY:

2009-10-22      Probe post bounced
2009-10-25      Moderator Vacancy Investigation
2009-11-15      1. RFD
2009-11-29	2. RFD