From: Mark-Jason Dominus <mjd@plover.com> Subject: RFD: comp.lang.perl.moderated moderated Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 01:41:25 GMT 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 <rra@stanford.edu> Moderator: Greg Bacon <gbacon@cs.uah.edu> Moderator: Hildo Biersma <hpp@lunatech.com> Moderator: Mark-Jason Dominus <mjd-clpmod-submissions@plover.com> Moderator: Eric Eisenhart <eric@sonic.net> Moderator: M.J.T. Guy <mjtg@cus.cam.ac.uk> Moderator: Tad McClellan <tadmc@metronet.com> Moderator: Chris Nandor <pudge@pobox.com> Moderator: Nathan V. Patwardhan <nvp@mediaone.net> Moderator: Stephen P. Potter <spp@colltech.com> Moderator: Stephen Zander <gibreel@pobox.com> 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 <mjd-perl-clpmod@plover.com> Proponent: Chip Salzenberg <chip@perlsupport.com> This RFD was endorsed by the following notable people and organizations: The Perl Institute <tpi@perl.org> Larry Wall <larry@wall.org> Tom Christiansen <tchrist@perl.com> Randal Schwartz <merlyn@stonehenge.com> The Perl Journal <staff@tpj.com> Jon Orwant <orwant@tpj.com>