Re: 3rd RfD: Mass-deletion of moderated groups without a moderator

On 2025-05-09, Tristan Miller wrote:
On 2025-05-09 09:45, Ivan Shmakov wrote:

 >> I've created the following email addresses (currently aliased to
 >> one of my mailboxes) for articles to comp.newprod, comp.simulation,
 >> comp.std.announce and rec.photo.moderated, respectively:

 > Thanks!  Could you please also provide us with a moderator contact
 > address for each of the four groups?  (This would be used in the
 > event that we, the ISC, or posters need to contact the moderators.)

Sure:

comp-newprod-contact@newsmod.am-1.org
comp-simulation-contact@newsmod.am-1.org
comp-std-announce-contact@newsmod.am-1.org
rec-photo-moderated-contact@newsmod.am-1.org

 > Whether or not allowing your co-moderators to use a web interface
 > that posts approved messages using your Eternal September account
 > counts as "abuse" is up to the Eternal September admins.  Possibly
 > they will be OK with this as long as you agree to take ultimate
 > responsibility for the posts, but you should ask them in advance
 > for confirmation about this.

Yes; yet I still will be more comfortable having proper peering
set up in such a case.  (Though probably not a full newsfeed.)

 > By the way, have you examined the existing newsgroup charters and
 > moderation policies for the groups you want to take over?  These
 > should be available at
 > <https://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/>.
 > You should make sure that you are willing and able to moderate the
 > groups according to these charters and policies.  There's no formal
 > procedure for changing them, but if any major changes are necessary,
 > an RFD could be initiated, and we can help with that.

There do not seem to be any charters on file for comp.newprod,
comp.simulation, or comp.std.announce.  My guess is that they
were created outside of the usual Big-8 process.

In particular, [1] mentions comp.std.announce, and reads:

 rfi> The INET distribution initially existed in parallel to (but within
 rfi> the namespace of) the regular Big 8 Distribution.  Over time, leakage
 rfi> between the two distributions made them virtually indistinguishable.

[...]

 rfi> In October 2002, the moderators of news.announce.newgroups announced
 rfi> that the INET groups would be included in future checkgroups
 rfi> messages.  This decision was made so as to facilitate issuance of
 rfi> checkgroups messages for the Big 8, rather than recognition of
 rfi> which INET groups had demonstrated traffic or interest.

[1] http://ftp.isc.org/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.remove-former-inet

There're also passing mentions of comp.newprod and comp.simulation
in comp.windows.x.i386unix and comp.lsi.testing, but little else
to go by so far as I can tell.

I hoped to rely on the Usenet archives at http://archive.org/ .
Web searches seem to indicate there used to be a collection of
mbox archives from Giganews [2], but it gives me 404 right now.
It seems that archive.org isn't fully operational ATM.

[2] http://archive.org/details/giganews

So I guess I'll have to rely on common sense for the time being.

For rec.photo.moderated, I intend to mostly follow the policies
as they are, though I have to note that the group being created
30 years ago now, the environment have changed considerably
since, so I'm going to balance the letter of the policy against
what users of online fora expect now.

For instance, as I've mentioned in my news:rec.photo.digital
post, news:znMYX1Q_8IJQ9I0c@violet.siamics.net ,

I don't find the 'real name' requirement /enforceable/ (we
don't have photo IDs on Usenet, after all.)  In its stead,
I'm going to require a /consistent/ identity.  In particular,
those who publish their photos under an alias are free to use
that same alias for their r.p.m postings.

 > Finally, and this is entirely optional, but you may want to consider
 > creating web pages for each of the groups where you provide its
 > charter, moderation policy, submission address, moderator contact
 > address, list of moderators, signing key, and any other pertinent
 > information.  This can help make the group more discoverable online
 > and collect important information in a somewhat less ephemeral
 > location.

I hope to get to it at some point, but no concrete plans right now.