Subject: RFD: comp.lang.perl.moderated moderated
From: Mark-Jason Dominus <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 01:41:25 GMT
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.perl.announce

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
               moderated group comp.lang.perl.moderated

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of
comp.lang.perl.moderated This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you
cannot vote at this time.  Procedural details are below.

For your newsgroups line:
comp.lang.perl.moderated        Perl language. (Moderated)

CHANGES from previous RFD

  * Added promise to try to accomodate address munging.

  * Added more specific positive policy about what articles will be
    accepted.

  * Removed enumeration of types of undesirable articles.

  * Added requirement that articles be readable by most news reader
    software.

  * Advertisement policy changed:  Advertisements are not permitted at
    all.   (Used to be:  Only with permission of The Perl Institute.)

  * Policy for appointment / removal of moderators changed:  2/3 vote
    of all moderators required.  (Was at the discretion of TPI.)

  * Initial list of moderators brougth up to date.

RATIONALE: comp.lang.perl.moderated

The comp.lang.perl.misc group presently has very high
traffic: typically about 250 articles per day.  Much of this
traffic is given over to people asking off-topic questions,
and questions answered in the FAQ.

In these circumstances, a number of regular posters to the
group have stopped reading comp.lang.perl.misc, while new
readers can find it difficult to find relevant posts.  The
result is reduced usefulness of the existing
comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.

This comp.lang.perl.moderated group is proposed as high
signal-to-noise group where readers will not be subjected to
the types of articles described above. The intention is to
provide a useful resource for inexperienced Perl programmers
and to attract and retain experienced programmers who can
make a substantial contribution to the group.

comp.lang.perl.misc would still be left in place for more
general discussion, and for those topics that no one seems
to agree on a place for.

CHARTER: comp.lang.perl.moderated

The purpose of comp.lang.perl.moderated is to provide a forum
for discussion of matters related to the Perl programming
language.

comp.lang.perl.moderated is a moderated news group for
discussion of common Perl programming issues.  Welcomed
topics of discussion will include any topic directly related
to the Perl programming language.  The moderators will
decide which posts are of general interest to the worldwide
Perl community.  The moderators are free to reject any post
which is covered by the comp.lang.perl FAQ(s) or which is
more appropriate to another Usenet discussion group.
Obvious homework problems and trivial questions that can be
answered by quick inspection of the on-line documentation or
any Perl text may also be considered off-topic.  Very broad
questions which could equally apply to any computer
programming language may also be considered off-topic by the
moderators.  Advocacy and "flame wars" about Perl will be
considered off-topic.

Articles should be formatted so as to be easily readable by
any Usenet reader.  Badly formatted or munged articles and
articles in violation of the standard principles of
netiquette may be rejected by the moderators.

Overall, the moderators will lean towards accepting articles.

All posters to the group must be registered.  Submissions
from registered posters will be forwarded to a moderator,
who will post it to the group if it is appropriate.
Inappropriate articles will be returned to the poster when
possible, with an explanation of why the article was
rejected.  No attempt will be made to verify the validity of
the poster's address, and bounces will be discarded.
If feasible, some mechanism will be provided for users to
post under false addresses until some better solution to the
spamming problem appears.

Articles from first-time posters will be held temporarily.
The poster will be sent registration instructions, the group
charter, and pointers to relevant references.  After the
poster registers, the held article will be forwarded to the
moderation panel as usual.

No commercial posts of any sort will be allowed in the group.

The moderation panel will always consist of at least six
members.  New moderators may be appointed, and old ones removed,
by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderation panel.

Any article submitted by a member of the moderation panel
outside the exercise of his or her administrative role will be
subject to the full moderation procedure described herein.

The moderation panel may implement any technical solutions it
considers necessary to enforce the provisions of this charter.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: comp.lang.perl.moderated

The moderation panel will initially consist of:

Moderator: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Greg Bacon <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Hildo Biersma <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Mark-Jason Dominus <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Eric Eisenhart <[email-masked]>
Moderator: M.J.T. Guy <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Tad McClellan <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Chris Nandor <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Nathan V. Patwardhan <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Stephen P. Potter <[email-masked]>
Moderator: Stephen Zander <[email-masked]>

END MODERATOR INFO.

PROCEDURE:

This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes.  In this phase
of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup
should be raised and resolved.  The discussion period will continue
for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this
proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For
Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion
warrants it.  Please do not attempt to vote until this happens.

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

This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How
to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal".  Please refer to these
documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any
questions about the process.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD has been posted to:
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, comp.lang.perl.misc,
comp.lang.perl.announce, perl5-porters mailing list.

Proponent: Mark-Jason Dominus <[email-masked]>
Proponent: Chip Salzenberg <[email-masked]>

This RFD was endorsed by the following notable people and organizations:
            The Perl Institute  <[email-masked]>
                    Larry Wall  <[email-masked]>
              Tom Christiansen  <[email-masked]>
               Randal Schwartz  <[email-masked]>
              The Perl Journal  <[email-masked]>
                    Jon Orwant  <[email-masked]>