| Linda Gore 2006-01-30, 11:25 am |
| There are two types of knowledge people possess about a condition.
1) knowledge gained from being personally acquainted with a condition.
2) knowledge gained from studying about a condition.
AST hasn't been a site of sustained positive exchange of info or mutual
support amongst those whose knowledge of TS is a consequence of their
being personally acquainted with the condition for many years.
The primary reason support seekers have been unable to sustain a
positive exchange of info or mutual support amongst themselves----is
because posters whose knowledge of TS was obtained by their reading and
studying about TS hijack support seekers threads anytime any support
seekers posts anything about TS which contradicts the "little theories"
of those who imagine themselves an AUTHORITY on TS.
My initial reaction to a poster recently asserting the TS community
needs a moderated support groups was to encourage the poster to create
one.
Upon reflection--I realize such a ng is doomed for the same exact
reason AST was doomed to be forever embroiled in conflict between
support seekers and those who think they KNOW IT ALL where TS is
concerned.
It's not that people whose knowledge of TS comes primarily from an
acquaintance with TS
don't want to discuss theories about TS---because they do from time to
time.
But, their main focus is LIVING with TS in a toxic culture growing
more intolerant to difference amongst people every day.
Therefore, they probably primarily participate in AST while dropping
in on SMDT form time to time, and those whose focus is theorectical
discussion about TS would primarily engage in such disucssions on SMDT
----and, their having such an outlet might incite them to ceease
horning in on discussion of TS between support seekers.
I submit that if members of the TS community wish to continue to have a
voice on USENET, then having both a SMDT and AST might be the better
way to deal with competing interests of support seekers vs. authorities
(or wannabe authorities) rather then AST and ASTM; therefore, have
included info about the Big Eight NG creation process for any posters
who agree with me, and wish to more onto deciding the feasibility of
creating SMDT.
THE BIG EIGHT NEWSGROUP CREATION PROCESS
news.announce.newgroups Moderation Team <newgroups-request@isc.org>
Last modified June 17, 2004 (revision 1.10)
These guidelines document the process to create, rename, remove, or
change the moderation status of newsgroups in the Big Eight hierarchies
(those newsgroups with names starting with comp.*, humanities.*,
misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, and talk.*). Proposals under this
process must go through a discussion phase, a voting phase, and a
verification phase as described below.
For information on how to submit a proposal and advice on working
within this process, please see the FAQs posted to
news.announce.newgroups and news.groups.
New group proponents should be aware that the entire process typically
takes three months, and must be followed precisely. Those who have not
proposed a group before may wish to ask group-mentors at
lists.eyrie.org for assistance. Processes for creating groups in other
hierarchies, such as alt.*, are often quite different and sometimes
much less formal; please see the appropriate groups within those
hierarchies for details.
The goal of this process is to reach consensus on a relatively stable
list of widely useful newsgroups that can be used without change at
many Usenet sites. A Usenet site should be able to use the results of
this process to determine the list of newsgroups to carry and their
moderation status without needing to separately evaluate at each site
whether a given newsgroup should be added or dropped. The process is
biased in favor of stability and requires that new newsgroups meet a
minimum standard of demonstrated interest. The process also attempts to
ensure new newsgroups are reasonably named, have an acceptable
moderation policy if moderated, and would not have damaging effects on
Usenet as a whole.
Most of this procedure is at the discretion of the
news.announce.newgroups (hereafter referred to as n.a.n) moderation
team, who can be reached at newgroups-request@isc.org. All subjective
determinations, particularly in points 5-10, 12, 13, 24, 27, and 29
below, will be made by the n.a.n moderation team.
These guidelines have been accepted by the n.a.n moderation team and
may be changed at the sole discretion of the n.a.n moderation team.
GENERAL RULE
Only postings to news.announce.newgroups authorized by the n.a.n
moderation team are considered official in this process. All time
limits and deadlines will be based on the Date headers of those posts.
THE DISCUSSION
A proposal officially begins with the posting of a Request for
Discussion (RFD) in news.announce.newgroups. A valid RFD must contain a
rationale for the proposal, charters for all newsgroups which would be
created or changed, and moderator information sections for all created
or changed groups that are proposed to be moderated. The RFD must be
crossposted to news.groups, should be crossposted to groups likely to
be affected by the proposal, and may be crossposted to other related
newsgroups.
Crossposts to poorly propagated or regional newsgroups may be
disallowed at the discretion of the n.a.n moderation team. Proposals
will only be posted or crossposted to moderated groups with the
explicit permission of the moderators of those groups. The total length
of the Newsgroups header in the RFD (and CFV) must not exceed 200
characters, including "Newsgroups: ". The Followup-To header will be
set to news.groups only (but see point 11). The RFD, after it has been
posted, may be redistributed freely.
Due to the crosspost filters of some large ISPs, it is recommended (but
not required) that proposals be crossposted to no more than five groups
(including n.a.n and news.groups).
A proposal must consist of one or more of the following changes to Big
Eight newsgroups: Create a new newsgroup, remove an existing newsgroup
(by subsuming it into an existing group), change the moderation status
of an existing newsgroup, or rename a newsgroup. No other types of
proposals will be accepted, nor will proposals to create, change, or
remove newsgroups outside the Big Eight. There is currently a
moratorium on converting unmoderated newsgroups to moderated
newsgroups, and proposals of that type will not be accepted.
All proposed group names must be within the Big Eight hierarchies. A
group name is made up of name components separated by '.' (period or
dot). Each component must consist solely of lowercase ASCII letters,
digits, '+' (plus), or '-' (dash), must contain at least one letter
(a-z), and must be no more than twenty characters long.
A proposal may include multiple changes if they are closely related,
but each individual change (as defined in point 3) will be voted on
separately. The n.a.n moderation team may require closely-related
proposals submitted at the same time to be combined into a single RFD.
The n.a.n moderation team may also require that unrelated proposals
combined in a single RFD be split into multiple RFDs. Once a proposal
has been posted as an RFD, the n.a.n moderation team will not require
that it be combined with another proposal, and instead overlapping
proposals will be dealt with according to point 8.
A proposal that is substantially similar to a previous failed proposal
may not be made until at least six months after the close of voting on
the last such failed proposal.
A proposal that significantly affects the same groups as a previous
successful proposal may not be made until at least three months after
the implementation (point 30) of the last such successful proposal.
Two proposals with overlapping purposes, newsgroup names, or effects
may not proceed at the same time. Precedence is normally given to the
first group to present a formal proposal, but repeat proposals under
point 6 above may be handled differently at the discretion of the n.a.n
moderation team (to prevent monopolization of a proposal).
Proposals that unmoderate or change the moderator(s) of an actively
moderated group against the desire of the moderator(s) will be
rejected.
Proposals may be rejected by the n.a.n moderation team in the extremely
rare circumstance that the proposal would be opposed by the vast
majority of news administrators or have a sufficiently deleterious
effect on the Big Eight as a whole as to make it dangerously unworkable
or extremely ill-advised (for example, a proposal for a newsgroup where
the act of posting on charter would be almost universally illegal).
All discussion of active proposals should be posted to news.groups. If
desired by the readership of closely affected groups, it may be
crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken to ensure that all
discussion appears in news.groups.
Additional RFDs for a proposal may be posted as needed, as the proposal
changes in response to discussion. An additional RFD is needed if there
have been major changes to the proposal or if 60 days have passed since
the previous RFD. Examples of major changes include any change to a
group's name or moderation status or a significant alteration to the
charter. Examples of minor changes not requiring an additional RFD
include the addition or removal of a proponent or tidying up some
wording in the rationale or charter.
The discussion period must be a minimum of 21 days. If a proposal
remains in the RFD phase for more than 120 days, the proposal may be
suspended and a competing proposal allowed to go forward. If it has
been more than 120 days since the latest RFD for a proposal and a
Proponent Questionnaire (see point 14) was not submitted within 60 days
of the latest RFD, the proposal will be considered withdrawn.
THE VOTE
Success or failure of a proposal will be determined by the results of a
general interest poll conducted by a member of the Usenet Volunteer
Votetakers (UVV). Before the poll begins, the proponent must submit a
Proponent Questionnaire (PQ) to the UVV. The votetaker will post a CFV
(Call for Votes) based on the PQ, generally to the same newsgroups to
which the RFD was posted. Each proposed change from the list in point 3
above will be voted on separately and will pass or fail independently.
The first CFV may be posted between 10 and 60 days after the latest RFD
for the proposal. At least 21 days must have elapsed between the first
RFD and the first CFV.
The voting period will last 21 days. The votetaker will post a second
copy of the CFV near the middle of that period, identical to the first
copy, except possibly for procedural or votetaker notes that do not
modify the body of the proposal. Only votes that arrive at the
votetaker's machine prior to the close of voting will be considered
valid.
The votetaker may reject votes not cast precisely according to the
instructions in the CFV.
Only one vote per person is permitted. If multiple votes are received
from a single account, only the last vote will be counted, even if the
account is used by more than one person. Multiple votes which are, in
the judgment of the votetaker, attempts to bypass these restrictions
may all be rejected.
Votes from undeliverable addresses (including transformations of valid
addresses intended to avoid spam) are not valid. The votetaker will
e-mail an acknowledgment of the vote in response to each vote, and if
this acknowledgment bounces, the corresponding vote will not count
towards the total. Voters are responsible for investigating what
happened if their votes are not acknowledged.
Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid. Votes mailed by
WWW/HTML/CGI forms are considered proxy votes and are not valid. The
precise definition of anonymous is at the discretion of the votetaker
but should not be interpreted as requiring all voters to use their real
name; votes from well-established pseudonyms should be accepted.
The explicit voting instructions in the CFV may not be distributed, in
whole or in part, to any forum, by anyone except the votetaker. People
wishing to vote should be referred to the CFV posted in
news.announce.newgroups or told to contact the votetaker for a copy.
Violations may result in invalidation of votes by the votetaker or
long-term suspension of the proposal by the n.a.n moderation team.
Whether or not the CFV may be sent to mailing lists is at the
discretion of the votetaker, and if done should only be done by the
votetaker directly.
The validity of any given vote is determined by the votetaker. Votes
may be disqualified for violation of the above points or for any other
actions seriously detrimental to the integrity of the vote, at the
discretion of the votetaker. The decision of the votetaker may be
appealed to the n.a.n moderation team. The decision of the n.a.n
moderation team is final.
If there are significant problems with the vote, if the votetaker is
unable to collect the votes, or if there are other serious flaws in the
voting procedure, the n.a.n moderation team will normally cancel the
vote and hold an immediate revote without disclosing the results of the
first vote.
THE RESULT
After the completion of the vote, the votetaker will tally the result
and post it to the same newsgroups to which the votetaker posted the
CFV. The posted result will contain the name, a form of the e-mail
address, and the vote of everyone who voted except for those people who
subsequently cancelled their vote.
Each separate proposed change will be considered to have passed if and
only if it received at least 100 more YES than NO votes and received at
least twice as many YES as NO votes.
After the result posting, there will be a five day period when any
objections to the vote may be raised in news.groups. The n.a.n
moderation team should also be informed (at newgroups-request@isc.org)
of any objections or inaccuracies that could change the outcome.
At the conclusion of this waiting period, the n.a.n moderation team
will either validate the results or will put the proposal on hold while
objections are considered. The final determination of whether a vote
has passed or failed will be made by the n.a.n moderation team; the
n.a.n moderation team may also call for a revote or take other
appropriate action to deal with severely flawed votes.
The results of a vote may be accepted despite flaws in the voting
process. If the voting period lasted at least 21 days with at least one
posted CFV and the flaws are, in the determination of the n.a.n
moderator, extremely unlikely to have caused a change in the outcome,
the n.a.n moderator may accept the voting results even if the above
procedure is not followed exactly.
All portions of the proposal that passed will be implemented by control
messages issued by the n.a.n moderation team. Control messages will
generally be sent shortly after the waiting period (point 27) and final
validation of the results, but may be delayed due to major holidays,
initial setup of moderation, or transition periods (for example, during
renames, removal of an existing group may be delayed until creation of
its replacement has had time to propagate).
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