Tale of the Creation of a New Big 8 Newsgroup

In the summer of 1997 I discovered Usenet, the official name of a system of over 2,000 newsgroups that essentially amounts to topical public bulletin boards where email is posted for anyone and everyone with Usenet access who wants to read. I spent some time there and found many interesting groups. There were quite a number of groups for car stuff, but none specifically for rotary cars.
About the same time, I discovered the existence of the RX-7 mailing list. It turned out to be a sort of a Usenet substitute. I tried it for a while, but found the number of messages it generated to be overwhelming. There were a bunch of ego battles going on that caused a signal to noise ratio almost as bad as Usenet has a reputation for. The high S/N and volume of messages convinced me to unsubscribe for a while.
Not participating in "the list" freed up some time for me to investigate the Usenet group creation process. What follows was on my home page during the group conception, gestation, and creation process, and documents what must be and was done to create a group.
( What we just went through to make rec.autos.rotary happen. )

Why isn't there an RX-7 newsgroup?

Apparently no one has made a successful attempt as yet.
On Usenet there is no current newsgroup intended for owners, users, designers, manufacturers or wannabies of rotaries, be they automobiles, aircraft, snowmobiles or anything else. There is a current effort underway to change this. The process of creation of a new group among the Usenet "big eight" is something akin to getting required permits from the government agencies charged with issuing them for a multimillion dollar construction project. It is a time consuming project. At least there is no outlay of money involved.

First, a proposal, formally called a Request For Discussion, or RFD, must be developed in a specified format. Once developed, the RFD is submitted to the Usenet administrators. The proposal is then posted in the group news.groups, where interested persons may read it and comment or recommend changes, and at other locations. For rec.autos.rotary

 the proposal was also submitted to the Mazda & RX-7 mailing lists. There is a minimum period of 21 days, from November 17, 1997 in this case, before a Call For Votes, or CFV, can be made. The Usenet administrators recommend avoiding issuing a call for votes shortly before or during the Christmas holidays, so the CFV for rec.autos.rotary is expected to be made on or about the first of January. The CFV will be distributed in the same manner as was the RFD. A successful vote requires two things:

  • 100 more votes in favor than against; and
  • 2/3 or more of total votes in favor
If you are interested in following the thread on news.groups, but cannot because your news server has expired older parts of the discussion thread, you should be able to find the thread on DejaNews.
Status update as of Y2C 98/01/02: The Proponent Questionaire was submitted to the vote takers on the 28th, and the vote taking assignment was returned on the 31st. The Call For Votes (CFV) is expected to be posted in the same locations as was the RFD around the 5th to 7th. Once this is done, the voting can begin. The CFV explains how voting is done.

Update as of Y2C 98/01/06: The voting for rec.autos.rotary is now in progress. The CFV with instructions and ballot can be found on: The subject header to find there is: CFV: rec.autos.rotary
If your news server has expired the post or you are otherwise unable to find it, or you are a WebTV user, you may request special voting instructions from the vote taker
David Bostwick <bostwick@cas.chemistry.gatech.edu>
Before you attempt to vote, be sure your correct email address is in your mailer. Votes that cannot be acknowledged by the vote taker will not be counted.
Beware! Providing a ballot to another will render your vote invalid, even if you voted in the prescribed manner. Use of a ballot obtained in any manner other than that prescribed will not be counted - a wasted vote.

Update as of Y2C 98/01/28: The voting for rec.autos.rotary ended today.
The following is from "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" unedited.
The Result
1)At the completion of the voting period, the vote taker must post the vote tally and the E-mail addresses and (if available) names of the voters received to news.announce.newgroups and any other groups or mailing lists to which the original call for votes was posted. The tally should include a statement of which way each voter voted so that the results can be verified.
2)AFTER the vote result is posted, there will be a 5 day waiting period, beginning when the voting results actually appear in news.announce.newgroups, during which the net will have a chance to correct any errors in the voter list or the voting procedure.
3)AFTER the waiting period, and if there were no serious objections that might invalidate the vote, and if 100 more valid YES/create votes are received than NO/don't create AND at least 2/3 of the total number of valid votes received are in favor of creation, a newgroup control message may be sent out. If the 100 vote margin or 2/3 percentage is not met, the group should not be created.
4)The newgroup message will be sent by the news.announce.newgroups moderator at the end of the waiting period of a successful vote.
5)A proposal which has failed under point (3) above should not again be brought up for discussion until at least six months have passed from the close of the vote. This limitation does not apply to proposals which never went to vote or polls that were cancelled or invalidated.

Update as of Y2C 98/02/02: The result of voting for rec.autos.rotary was posted today. 152 YES and 26 NO, so in about five days we should see and be able to use the new resource. Thanks to all who voted in support!

On Monday 9 February 1998, the control message for rec.autos.rotary was issued, and the new group was officially born.

Want more info on group creation?
Read the public record, including the RFD & CFV, of rec.autos.rotary.
To learn more about group creation, everything you need to know is periodically posted in FAQ and "how to" articles or via links to other info in articles on news.groups. Just be warned that this is the unmoderated group where proposal discussions take place. It is a high volume group with a lot of heat at times.
Having trouble accessing a new newsgroup?
If you can't access a new group on your newsserver, you may need to make a request for it with your ISP. It is supposed to be created automatically, but the control messages responsible for doing this are like any other usenet post, not guaranteed to reach every server on the net.
In the meantime, you can read the group on Google Groups. You may actually find it easier or more convenient there.

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