From: John Pearson <john@cognac.apana.org.au>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 11:05:18 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: alt.cypherpunks
In-Reply-To: <199702120549.VAA07146@toad.com>
Message-ID: <m0vuw3H-000JGWC@cognac.apana.org.au>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> Hey, folks,
> 
> I thought all you had to do to create an alt.group was to have a news admin
> somewhere just make a group; send out a control message of somekind. I
> thought that alt groups didn't have to go through a charter, or voting
> process, or anything else. They just happened.
> 
> Then, everyone just has to tell their local news admin that they went to
> see it, or they can wait until their news admin sees it flying by, and adds
> it to the available groups list at his own discretion.
> 
> It's not like we want comp.cypherpunks or something, with a voting process,
> right?
> 

It's not quite that simple.  While a "Big 7" group requires CFD, charter
and voting, once you pass tthose hurdles you're virtually guaranteed good
propagation.  alt has no "set" creartion procedure, but your group will
not receive good propagation unless the powers that be "approve" of the 
idea.

In this case, the people you have to convince are the news admins who must
permit your control message to be honoured; time was most sites ran on
autopilot, but joke and badly-named groups mean that most news admins
now drop most newgroup messages on the floor.  These people hang out in
alt.config, and you should propose the group's creation there, followed
by a couple of weeks of discussion, hopefully featuring many more 
supportive messages than non-supportive ones.  After that, a newgroup 
message stands a much better chance.

> Cheers,
> Bob Hettinga
> 
> 
>

Hip hip,

John P. 
john@huiac.apana.org.au