Nan:2010-03-21-rfd-soc.religion.christian.bible-study

From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
From: Alexander Bartolich <alexander.bartolich@gmx.at>
Subject: 1st RFD: soc.religion.christian.bible-study moderated (remove)
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:17:00 EDT
Message-ID: <ho610c$ogh$1@news.albasani.net>

              REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
              moderated group soc.religion.christian.bible-study

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove moderated
newsgroup soc.religion.christian.bible-study.

RATIONALE:

On 2010-02-01 Stephen Adams posted his resignation to the group.
No post was approved since then.
  Message-ID: <C89524E6-E994-3C3D-0B38-0E31C489D5B6@art.srcbs.org>

A probe post to this group resulted in a bounce.

  bible@srcbs.org
    (generated from soc-religion-christian-bible-study@moderators.isc.org)
    retry time not reached for any host after a long failure period

In news.groups.proposals Stephen Adams further explained that it was
the disuse of the group that led to his decision.
  Message-ID: <hnudbk0fdl@news5.newsguy.com>

NEWSGROUPS LINE:

soc.religion.christian.bible-study	Examining the Holy Bible. (Moderated)

DISTRIBUTION:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
soc.religion.christian.bible-study
soc.misc

CHARTER OF SOC.RELIGION.CHRISTIAN.BIBLE-STUDY

The newsgroup, soc.religion.christian.bible-study, is proposed for the 
discussion of the Bible. For the purposes of this group, the definition of 
"the Bible" will be as follows:

        All books considered to be canonical (i.e. in the Bible) by any
        major Jewish or Christian group.  In particular, this includes the
        66 books in the "Authorized" or "King James" version of the Bible,
        which includes the Jewish canon (or Tanakh - determined by the 
        council of Jamnia), plus those books and sections recognized by the 
        Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent (also known as the 
        "deuterocanonical books"), plus those additional books recognized
        by the Orthodox Churches.

        This does not include works of the Book of Mormon, _Science and
        Health_, or the Qur'an.  While some groups consider these books
        to also be the word of God, they treat them seperately from "the 
        Bible".

Other works, generally known as apocryphal, such as the Gospel of Thomas, 
the Qumran texts, Nag Hammadi, Enoch, etc..., shed interesting light and 
will be considered to be "on topic" for the purposes of this newsgroup, but 
they will not be allowed to dominate the group since they are not the main 
focus of this newsgroup.  Books which were part of previous canon lists, 
such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache, are welcome topics of 
discussion, as are discussions of canonicity, so long as they do not devolve 
into denominational flame wars.

This is a discussion about the Bible  and it is not limited to any specific 
denominational position. This group will be moderated.

    The proposed guidelines are as follows:

        o Postings which are blatantly off-topic will be rejected.
          This is construed to mean "How do I get Lemmings to work
          on my WizBangoClone?", but not "How do I get my Bible Search
          Program to work on my MacMCMLXI?"

        o Postings which are overly abusive of another person (whether
          that person is on the net or not) will be returned for 
          rephrasing. This means that "Jason is a mindless twit" will
          be rejected, but "I don't see how Jason can say this after
          agreeing in post <madeup@weirdsite.org> that..." will not.

        o Postings which attack denominational beliefs (whether directed
          towards an individual or not) will be rejected.  This should 
          NOT be construed to limit discussion to these topics but the 
          writer should exercise great care so as to present the issues as 
          fairly and calmly as possible, without resorting to "all the foos 
          are idiots".

        o Postings which are better suited for other newsgroups (such
          as the "flame sinks" of talk.abortion and talk.origins or the
          more general groups of soc.religion.christian or talk.religion.
          misc) will be guided there. This will require somewhat of a fine 
          line. For example, discussions of exegetics of Genesis will touch 
          on talk.origins territory. So long as they stay in the realm of 
          biblical exegetics or study, they are germane to soc.religion.
          christian.bible-study. When they stray into issues of dating, or 
          the geological record, they may be shunted towards talk.origins. 
          This is not to say that such topics are always out of line, but 
          that the scope of this newsgroup will be limited to biblical 
          issues.

        o Similarly, since the Bible assumes God's existence, postings
          debating this topic will be guided to one of the general 
          religion groups.  (Postings are not required to assume a 
          particular position on God's existence, however.)  Discussions 
          regarding the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus will be allowed, 
          however, as long as they do not degenerate to attacks on personal 
          beliefs.

        o Discussions which have degenerated into "is so" "is not" chains
          can be cut off or more tightly monitored for signal/noise
          ratios at the moderator's discretion.

        o Posting must include complete sources of information for the 
          convenience of others.  Verse citations must include the bible 
          designation (i.e. NIV, NKJV, NASB, etc...).  Standard abbreviations
          can be found in the FAQ on that subject.  Citations from scholarly
          or devotional works should include the author, title, publisher and
          date of publisher, and page numbers, if possible.  The minimum info
          required is the author and book title.  The moderator may return a
          posting for source citation, if warranted.

    The duties of the moderator are as follows:

        o To enforce the moderation guidelines given above.

        o To maintain FAQ files on common discussion chains. These are
          not designed to "answer" common threads, but merely to provide
          those who join the group and restart a thread to be given
          a recap of the most cogent statements of the various positions
          without flooding the newsgroup.

        o To append to each rejected posting an explanation of why it
          was rejected, and any changes that would need to be made in
          style, or topic, or newsgroup to be more appropriate.

HISTORY OF THE GROUP:

soc.religion.christian.bible-study is a moderated newsgroup which passed
its vote for creation by 177:68 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on
11 Mar 1993.

PROPONENT:

Alexander Bartolich <alexander.bartolich@gmx.at>

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, 1st RFD, 2nd RFD, and LCC), each taking two weeks. At the end of the
process the B8MB will vote on the issue.

Available options for soc.religion.christian.bible-study are:
- leave the group as it is
- remove the group

For more information on the MVA process, please see 

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

CHANGE HISTORY:

2010-02-01	Stephen Adams posted his resignation
2010-02-27	Probe post bounced
2010-03-07	Moderator Vacancy Announcement
2010-03-21	1st RFD