Re: 2nd RFD: Remove rec.radio.broadcasting - LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS (REDUX)

In article <vm6vum$35c$1@reader2.panix.com>, pschleck@panix.com says...

 
However, the following item appeared in the Big-8 Management Board for
Usenet minutes for January 10th:
 
"rec.radio.broadcasting
 
TM posted the LCC. Voting period runs from 2025-01-08 to 2025-01-15. The
Board received an e-mail asking the group to be converted from moderated
to unmoderated. The Board had initiated a discussion on this practice in
news.admin.moderation back on 2024-02-23 but it did not attract many
responses;

[snip]

It was agreed to further explore this idea for discussion at the
next meeting."
 
(excerpted above from https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Minutes/2025-01-10)
 
Note that you did get at least one reply on news.admin.moderation, from
me, objecting to the idea.  See:
 
https://news.admin.moderation.narkive.com/Mtfy21b8/practical-

experiences-of-demoderating-a-moderated-group

Yours was the sole response.

I had hoped to get replies from people who had previously been involved
with converting a newsgroup to unmoderated, to get some idea of how well
it had actually worked in practice rather than relying on speculation.
Unfortunately, I had no such luck.

The next meeting of the Board would be January 17th, two days after
the conclusion of voting on this LCC.
 
What is the Board's intentions on this MVI and LCC? Is it confined to
just voting yes/no on deleting the newsgroup?

Correct.

If the vote is no (do not delete), does the Board intend to spring on
the readership a previously undiscussed (at least for
rec.radio.broadcasting specifically) intention to convert this
newsgroup to unmoderated?

Two people, to my knowledge, have proposed unmoderating the newsgroup:
one in an email to the Board, the other in the original RFD thread
(https://news.groups.proposals.narkive.com/zutWjRkx/rfd-remove-rec-
radio-broadcasting). As such, we've given the idea due consideration,
since part of the point of an RFD is to allow people to raise and
discuss such possibilities.

However, given that this RFD is specifically about whether to delete the
group, I would say that converting the group to unmoderated would need
to be a subsequent discussion, contingent on the Board first voting not
to delete the group (as deleting it would render the point moot).

I had understood that the Board had already voted on this proposal
last January, based on reading the minutes.

IIRC we planned to announce the result following the next Board meeting
after the voting period. However, before we made an announcement, we
were approached by a prospective moderator. We therefore decided to
pause the process while we were corresponding with them.

However, despite the Board reaching out to the prospective moderator
multiple times with offers to help, our recent messages have gone
unanswered. As it's been a long time since the original voting period
and the Board now has a new member, we decided it would be best to
repost the LCC rather than abruptly announcing a final decision.

[snip description of lack of interest in using or moderating r.r.b]
I did get a couple of replies to the Usenet announcements from readers
of the newsgroup. One noted that news items typically appeared on the
newsgroup a day or two sooner than other sources. I asked if they were
willing to pre-fund the Panix moderation account to get it up and
running again. I did not get any replies.

I wouldn't pay a couple of hundred bucks up front to moderate a
newsgroup either, tbh.

[snip: r.r.b lacking remaining purpose]
However, without a realistic audience, this article propagation will
likely be off-topic content and SPAM, if at all.  For example, see the
unmoderated alt.radio.broadcasting, which already exists, and for
which an unmoderated rec.radio.broadcasting would be a duplicate.

It's a reasonable point that there is already an unmoderated group on
this topic, though on the other hand there are plenty of alt.* groups
that have duplicates in the Big 8. On the third hand, a.r.b also appears
to have little traffic, so there's not much reason to think r.r.b would
fare any better.

Regards,
R