XPost: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
99 moderated newsgroups.


RATIONALE:

Currently, these groups cannot be used for discussion because of the
lack of a moderator. Most of these groups haven't had a moderator for
a long time and have been unused for years. We consider it unlikely
that they will ever be revived with a new moderator. Nonetheless,
anyone interested in becoming a moderator for a group listed in this
RFD is invited to contact the Big-8 Management Board.


DISCUSSION SO FAR:

noel, Christian Schumacher, and Vasos Panagiotopoulos argued for
having at least some groups' moderation flag unset rather than
deleting the groups. Ivo Gandolfo countered that many servers would
not properly apply the change in moderation flag.

Marco Moock said that cleaning up unused groups will make it easier
for users to find active groups; he acknowledged that some servers
don't process control articles but wondered why he should care about
these servers. Julien ÉLIE said that people will appreciate a
cleaned-up newsgroups list and that it doesn't matter if some servers
don't process the control articles. Julius Bernotas said that groups
should be deleted when they no longer fulfill their purpose.
Jean-Paul agreed with Marco that cleaning up unused groups will make
it easier for users to find active groups. Christian Schumacher said
that he looks for newsgroups by name, not by traffic.

noel argued that deleting a few hundred groups will not make it
significantly easier to find active groups. Julien ÉLIE agreed and
said that unmoderated groups should also be cleaned up.

In a separate discussion on news.groups, Adam H. Kerman said that the
RFD was not being distributed widely enough, including to potential
moderators of the specific groups in the RFD. To the argument that
removing unused groups makes active groups easier to find, he
responded that users can find these via keyword search and by
attempting to post to them. D expressed "no objections your honour"
to the RFD, later noting that 10% of currently active newsgroups are
moderated, but that the remaining 90% unmoderated active newsgroups
are overrun by trolls and spam. Paul Schleck suggested a mechanism
for crossposting a pointer to RFD to the affected groups.

Also on news.groups, Steve Bonine warned that when groups are removed,
the history associated with the contents of the group will disappear,
which could hinder people doing (historical) research. He agreed that
removing the unused groups in the RFD would prevent users from wasting
their time posting into the void, but said that at this time it's not
worth the effort to delete them. Winston shared Steve Bonine's
concern about the contents of deleted groups disappearing. Computer
Nerd Kev said that converting the groups to unmoderated ones may work
around this problem.

Computer Nerd Kev pointed out that rec.arts.movies.reviews has seen
recent activity and sees a chance to revive it. (The Board
subsequently investigated this and confirmed that the group has no
moderation address registered; the sole active poster, who they were
unable to reach for comment, seems to be circumventing this by posting
articles with an Approved header to a lenient server.) The Board also
received an e-mail from someone volunteering to moderate soc.genealogy.surnames.britain and is currently in correspondence with
them. In light of these developments, rec.arts.movies.reviews and soc.genealogy.surnames.britain were excluded from the 2nd RFD.


DISTRIBUTION:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
news.groups

Following feedback received from the earlier RFDs, the Board will
attempt to post targeted notices of this proposal in groups topically
related to each one under discussion, such as its parent group, its
sibling *.misc group, and/or the *.misc group of some other ancestor.


PROCEDURE:

This 3rd RFD will run for at least 4 weeks. The group lists may be
revised during this stage and additional RFDs posted as necessary.
Discussion about candidate groups should take place in the moderated
group news.groups.proposals. Following the conclusion of the final
RFD, we will issue a Last Call for Comments (LCC), after which the
Board will vote. If there are specific reasons to vote individually
for some groups, the Board will do, but the default will be a ballot
covering all groups.

More details can be found here:

https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Mass_removal_of_groups


NEWSGROUP LINES:

comp.binaries.cbm For the transfer of 8bit Commodore binaries. (Moderated)
comp.doc.techreports Lists of technical reports. (Moderated) comp.internet.library Discussing electronic libraries. (Moderated) comp.lang.c.moderated The C programming language. (Moderated)
comp.newprod Announcements of new products of interest.
(Moderated)
comp.org.cauce The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial
E-Mail. (Moderated)
comp.robotics.research Academic, government & industry research in
robotics. (Moderated)
comp.simulation Simulation methods, problems, uses. (Moderated) comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica Mathematica discussion group. (Moderated) comp.sources.games Postings of recreational software. (Moderated) comp.std.announce Announcements about standards activities.
(Moderated)
comp.sys.amiga.announce Announcements about the Amiga. (Moderated) comp.sys.sun.announce Sun announcements and Sunergy mailings. (Moderated) humanities.philosophy.objectivism The ideas of Ayn Rand. (Moderated) misc.activism.progressive Information for Progressive activists. (Moderated)
misc.business.consulting The business of consulting. (Moderated) misc.business.marketing.moderated Roundtable for marketing topics. (Moderated)
misc.business.moderated Roundtable for general business topics. (Moderated) misc.entrepreneurs.moderated Entrepreneur/business topics. (Moderated) misc.invest.financial-plan Financial planning in general. (Moderated) misc.transport.air-industry Airlines, airports, commercial aircraft. (Moderated)
misc.writing.screenplays.moderated Craft/business of screenwriting. (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.policy Discussion of net abuse policy. (Moderated) news.announce.conferences Calls for papers and conferences.
(Moderated)
rec.arts.anime.creative Original works by fans, related to anime/manga. (Moderated)
rec.arts.anime.info Announcements about Japanese animation. (Moderated) rec.arts.ascii ASCII art, info on archives, art, & artists. (Moderated)
rec.arts.drwho.moderated Discussion of "Doctor Who". (Moderated) rec.arts.erotica Erotic fiction and verse. (Moderated) rec.arts.movies.erotica Aspects of erotic films and videos. (Moderated) rec.arts.sf.announce Major announcements of the SF world. (Moderated) rec.arts.sf.starwars.info General information pertaining to Star
Wars. (Moderated)
rec.autos.sport.f1.moderated Discussion of Formula One racing.
(Moderated)
rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing.
(Moderated)
rec.boats.marketplace Boating products for sale and wanted. (Moderated) rec.crafts.jewelry Jewelry making and gemology. (Moderated) rec.drugs.announce Announcements about drugs and related issues. (Moderated)
rec.food.cuisine.jewish All matters concerning Jewish cuisine. (Moderated) rec.food.recipes Recipes for interesting food and drink. (Moderated) rec.gardens.ecosystems Ecosystems and organic gardening. (Moderated) rec.humor.funny Jokes that are funny (in the moderator's
opinion). (Moderated)
rec.humor.funny.reruns Reposts of rec.humor.funny archive material. (Moderated)
rec.martial-arts.moderated Martial-arts in general. (Moderated) rec.music.beatles.info Latest press notes about the Beatles. (Moderated) rec.music.beatles.moderated Fab Four analytical & investigative
articles. (Moderated)
rec.music.gaffa Discussion of Kate Bush & other alternative
music. (Moderated)
rec.music.info News and announcements on musical topics.
(Moderated)
rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature Guitar tablature and
performance. (Moderated)
rec.music.promotional Information and promo materials from record
companies. (Moderated)
rec.music.reviews Reviews of music of all genres and mediums.
(Moderated)
rec.pets.dogs.info General information and FAQs posted here.
(Moderated)
rec.pets.ferrets Forum on ferret care and husbandry. (Moderated) rec.photo.moderated The art and science of photography. (Moderated) rec.skiing.alpine.moderated Alpine (downhill) skiing. (Moderated) rec.skiing.announce FAQ, competition results, automated snow
reports. (Moderated)
sci.aeronautics The science of aeronautics & related technology. (Moderated)
sci.archaeology.moderated All aspects of archaeology. (Moderated) sci.bio.evolution Discussions of evolutionary biology. (Moderated) sci.bio.phytopathology All aspects of plant diseases and pests. (Moderated) sci.chem.organic.synthesis Synthetic organic chemistry related
topics. (Moderated)
sci.econ.research Research in all fields of economics. (Moderated) sci.med.orthopedics Orthopedic Surgery, related issues and
management. (Moderated)
sci.military.moderated Military technology. (Moderated)
sci.nanotech Self-reproducing molecular-scale machines.
(Moderated)
sci.physics.foundations Fundamental and philosophical physics. (Moderated) sci.physics.strings String theory and related fields. (Moderated) sci.space.moderated Discussions about space related topics. (Moderated) sci.space.news Announcements of space-related news items.
(Moderated)
soc.adoption.adoptees Discussion of adoption by adoptees. (Moderated) soc.atheism Living as an atheist and atheism in society. (Moderated)
soc.culture.african.american.moderated African-American perspectives. (Moderated)
soc.culture.basque Basque culture and related issues. (Moderated) soc.culture.belarus All things about Belarus. (Moderated) soc.culture.hawaii Aloha kakou, E KOMO MAI! Eh, no forget hemo da
shoes. (Moderated)
soc.culture.indian.goa About Goa, India's smallest state. (Moderated) soc.culture.jewish.parenting Issues about raising Jewish children. (Moderated)
soc.culture.kuwait.moderated Kuwaiti culture, society, and history. (Moderated)
soc.culture.turkish.moderated Issues related to Turks/Turkey. (Moderated) soc.feminism Discussion of feminism & feminist issues.
(Moderated)
soc.genealogy.african Genealogy of Africa and the African Diaspora. (Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.canada Surnames queries - Canada. (Moderated) soc.genealogy.surnames.german Surnames queries - German speaking
countries. (Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.global Surnames queries central database.
(Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.misc Surnames - regions not covered
elsewhere. (Moderated)
soc.genealogy.surnames.usa Surnames queries - USA. (Moderated) soc.history.moderated All aspects of history. (Moderated)
soc.personals Personal ads -- people in search of (ISO)
others. (Moderated)
soc.politics Political problems, systems, solutions. (Moderated) soc.politics.marxism Karl Marx and his legacy in theory and practice. (Moderated)
soc.religion.asatru Following the Gods and Goddesses of Northern
Europe. (Moderated)
soc.religion.bahai Discussion of the Baha'i Faith. (Moderated) soc.religion.hindu Discussion about the Hindu dharma, philosophy,
culture. (Moderated)
soc.religion.mormon The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Moderated)
soc.religion.paganism Networking for Pagans. (Moderated) soc.religion.unitarian-univ Unitarian-Universalism & non-creedal
religions. (Moderated)
soc.sexuality.spanking Adult sexual spanking. (Moderated) soc.support.fat-acceptance.moderated Self-acceptance for fat people. (Moderated)
soc.support.loneliness Mutual help and chat for those of us who feel
alone. (Moderated)
soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi Gay youths helping each other. (Moderated)


If you have any objections, please make them heard in moderated group news.groups.proposals. The "Followup-To:" header is set on this message,
so simply replying to this post should do the right thing.


HISTORY OF THIS RFD:

2025-01-03: 1st RFD (remove)
2025-02-02: 2nd RFD (remove)
rec.arts.movies.reviews excluded
soc.genealogy.surnames.britain excluded
2025-03-11: 3rd RFD (remove)


--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 12/03/2025 01:44, Keith Thompson wrote:

Also, rec.humor.funny is on the list. I believe that all articles
are archived at netfunny.com, so losing Usenet archives might not
be as much of a concern.

Alas, netfunny.com is just a default Apache page... unless you
know something I don't?

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11.03.2025 21:44 Uhr Keith Thompson wrote:

Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> writes:

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the
following 99 moderated newsgroups.

RATIONALE:

Currently, these groups cannot be used for discussion because of the
lack of a moderator. Most of these groups haven't had a moderator
for a long time and have been unused for years. We consider it
unlikely that they will ever be revived with a new moderator.
Nonetheless, anyone interested in becoming a moderator for a group
listed in this RFD is invited to contact the Big-8 Management
Board.

comp.lang.c.moderated is in this list. It has had no active
moderator and no traffic since 2014. Discussions on comp.lang.c
indicate that at least some people would participate in a revived comp.lang.c.moderated, but there's little or no support for actually
reviving it.

The I think deleting is the best option. The idea is to keep usenet
usable, which means defunct stuff will be removed.

However, I'm concerned that removing the group would lose existing
posts. That's honestly probably not a huge deal, but it would be
a pity IMHO.

Archives like narkive.com exist which don't delete groups when rmgroup
messages are being sent.

Would it be possible to leave comp.lang.c.moderated as it is (can't
post to it, but servers with sufficiently long memories still allow
old articles to be read)?

Technically it would be, but I prefer to either make it usable or delete
it.
Archive servers may keep it anyway.

If that's not feasible, it should be possible for someone (maybe
even me) to take over as moderator to keep the group alive, but
not allow any new posts. This would be an alternate way to keep
the status quo.

That makes no sense because the group is still unusable.

Also, rec.humor.funny is on the list. I believe that all articles
are archived at netfunny.com, so losing Usenet archives might not
be as much of a concern. I've emailed the former moderator, who
may or may not choose to weigh in.

Please tell me the outcome of that.

At least this is also defunct for more that 10 years. If nobody wants
to be a moderator, I keep advocating for deletion.

--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1741725866muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 3/11/25 8:44 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:

Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> writes:

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
99 moderated newsgroups.


RATIONALE:

Currently, these groups cannot be used for discussion because of the
lack of a moderator. Most of these groups haven't had a moderator for
a long time and have been unused for years. We consider it unlikely
that they will ever be revived with a new moderator. Nonetheless,
anyone interested in becoming a moderator for a group listed in this
RFD is invited to contact the Big-8 Management Board.

comp.lang.c.moderated is in this list. It has had no active
moderator and no traffic since 2014. Discussions on comp.lang.c
indicate that at least some people would participate in a revived comp.lang.c.moderated, but there's little or no support for actually
reviving it.

This group could be a candidate for an MVI. When's the last time there
was an MVI for comp.lang.c.moderated?

Otherwise, the Big-8 Board could omit it from this list of 99 moderated
groups.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12.03.2025 14:16 Uhr D Finnigan wrote:

On 3/11/25 8:44 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:

Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> writes:

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the
following 99 moderated newsgroups.


RATIONALE:

Currently, these groups cannot be used for discussion because of
the lack of a moderator. Most of these groups haven't had a
moderator for a long time and have been unused for years. We
consider it unlikely that they will ever be revived with a new
moderator. Nonetheless, anyone interested in becoming a moderator
for a group listed in this RFD is invited to contact the Big-8
Management Board.

comp.lang.c.moderated is in this list. It has had no active
moderator and no traffic since 2014. Discussions on comp.lang.c
indicate that at least some people would participate in a revived comp.lang.c.moderated, but there's little or no support for actually reviving it.

This group could be a candidate for an MVI. When's the last time
there was an MVI for comp.lang.c.moderated?

I can't find an MWI that came after the group was/is defunct. https://comp.lang.c.moderated.narkive.com/

I also can't find it on the big-8 website. Maybe some older people know
it, I wasn't using Usenet before 2021.

Otherwise, the Big-8 Board could omit it from this list of 99
moderated groups.

We could, but if there is no person who wants to moderate it, it will
be deleted. comp.lang.c exists and is being used as an unmoderated
alternative.

--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1741785403muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 12/03/2025 22:12, Keith Thompson wrote:

D Finnigan <dog_cow@macgui.com> writes:
[...]

This group could be a candidate for an MVI. When's the last time there
was an MVI for comp.lang.c.moderated?

I had to look it up: an MVI is a Moderator Vacancy Investigation.
There's no need for an investigation.

I've been exchanging emails with the previous moderator.

Been there; done that; how d'you like the t-shirt?

He's too
busy to take up moderation duties again, but he still has the
account and is willing to hand it off. We've also been discussing
it in comp.lang.c. One user in comp.lang.c has expressed interest
in having comp.lang.c.moderated revived as an active newsgroup.
Several others have not necessarily advocated reviving it, but
would participate if it were revived (I'm in that category myself).

If the group were actively (i.e. promptly) moderated, I too would
be in that category.

It's likely that one or more people would be willing to serve as co-moderators (nobody has volunteered to take on 100% of moderation
duties).

Count me in for 4½%. I think Tim would be willing, too.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

• Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>:

NEWSGROUP LINES:

comp.binaries.cbm For the transfer of 8bit Commodore binaries. (Moderated)

Being a long-time C= User (only Amigas, but I own an C=64 emulation
cd-rom), I don't see the vanish of this group as a big loss. However,
the cbm 8bit groups seem to be scattered troughout comp.*, on a quick
search I found these two groups:

#v+
comp.sys.cbm Discussion about Commodore micros.
comp.emulators.cbm Emulators of C-64, C-128, PET, and VIC-20 systems.
#v-

Why not a big loss? Because the vast majority of Commo stuff should be
on archives on the www now.
--
Regards Florian; German native by language, trying to improve
his English, Latin, French, Spanish and Polish skills.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/03/2025 22:28, Richard Heathfield wrote:

On 12/03/2025 22:12, Keith Thompson wrote:

D Finnigan <dog_cow@macgui.com> writes:
[...]

This group could be a candidate for an MVI. When's the last time there
was an MVI for comp.lang.c.moderated?

I had to look it up: an MVI is a Moderator Vacancy Investigation.
There's no need for an investigation.

I've been exchanging emails with the previous moderator.

Been there; done that; how d'you like the t-shirt?

He's too
busy to take up moderation duties again, but he still has the
account and is willing to hand it off.  We've also been discussing
it in comp.lang.c.  One user in comp.lang.c has expressed interest
in having comp.lang.c.moderated revived as an active newsgroup.
Several others have not necessarily advocated reviving it, but
would participate if it were revived (I'm in that category myself).

If the group were actively (i.e. promptly) moderated, I too would be in
that category.

It's likely that one or more people would be willing to serve as
co-moderators (nobody has volunteered to take on 100% of moderation
duties).

Count me in for 4½%. I think Tim would be willing, too.

Does c.l.c have so much off-topic traffic that a c.l.c-moderated is
really necessary?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <87ikodda8j.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com>,
Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> writes:

On 12/03/2025 22:28, Richard Heathfield wrote:

On 12/03/2025 22:12, Keith Thompson wrote:

D Finnigan <dog_cow@macgui.com> writes:
[...]

This group could be a candidate for an MVI. When's the last time there >>>>> was an MVI for comp.lang.c.moderated?

I had to look it up: an MVI is a Moderator Vacancy Investigation.
There's no need for an investigation.

I've been exchanging emails with the previous moderator.

Been there; done that; how d'you like the t-shirt?

He's too
busy to take up moderation duties again, but he still has the
account and is willing to hand it off.  We've also been discussing
it in comp.lang.c.  One user in comp.lang.c has expressed interest
in having comp.lang.c.moderated revived as an active newsgroup.
Several others have not necessarily advocated reviving it, but
would participate if it were revived (I'm in that category myself).

If the group were actively (i.e. promptly) moderated, I too would be
in that category.

It's likely that one or more people would be willing to serve as
co-moderators (nobody has volunteered to take on 100% of moderation
duties).

Count me in for 4½%. I think Tim would be willing, too.

Does c.l.c have so much off-topic traffic that a c.l.c-moderated is
really necessary?

comp.lang.c does have a lot of off-topic traffic. I personally don't
think that reviving comp.lang.c.moderated would be a good solution to
that. My personal preference would be for clcmod to remain the way it
is: an inactive newsgroup whose old articles are still available on NNTP >servers with sufficiently long memories.

Surely most news servers that carried it have long-ago expired
all of the articles that they received that were posted to it.

There may be a handful with exceptionally long memories, but
would those honor an rmgroup for it, anyway?

One way to do that would be
just to leave it out of the proposed mass-deletion. Another would be
for a new moderator to take over but not approve any posts, perhaps with
an email auto-responder to let any posters know what's going on.

But I'm open to seeing clcmod revived if there's enough demand, and
perhaps helping out somehow.

I remember when c.l.c.m was newgrouped; it was done to deal with
the huge influx of noise due to new users who hadn't been versed
in netiquette. Those days are past, and not coming back, so the
original motivation for it is gone.

Leaving it existant but unuseable (since no one can post to it)
just on the off chance that there exists a server somewhere that
both has articles that had been posted to it in the past and
would delete those if the group were removed seems fragile and
not likely to be useful, long term.

However, it doesn't make a lot of sense to make it UNmoderated,
given the name. My 2c is either find a new moderator or team of
moderators, or remove it.

- Dan C.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <vqq7tf$ehn$1@reader1.panix.com>,
Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> wrote:

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
99 moderated newsgroups.

RATIONALE:

Currently, these groups cannot be used for discussion because of the
lack of a moderator. Most of these groups haven't had a moderator for
a long time and have been unused for years. We consider it unlikely
that they will ever be revived with a new moderator. Nonetheless,
anyone interested in becoming a moderator for a group listed in this
RFD is invited to contact the Big-8 Management Board.

Thinking in a general sense about the problem of these unusable groups,
it seems to me there are several possible ways we could choose to deal
with each group. In approximate order from most to least desirable,
these are:

- Find a moderator for the group
- Convert the group to unmoderated (if we assume that this would
work as intended)
- Place the group under automated robo-moderation (possibly as a
temporary precursor to one of the other actions)
- Delete the group
- Do nothing

The groups fall into some rough categories, based on which actions
would be appropriate:

- Groups with little likelihood of being resurrected. This would
include groups for obsolete or extremely niche topics, and groups
for topics that are well served by other, more active groups. These
probably ought to be deleted, as the other options are unlikely
to achieve anything useful.
- Groups that need to be moderated for naming or charter reasons.
Examples would be groups with "moderated" in the name, or groups
such as rec.humor.funny that are intended to be curated.
- Groups that need to be moderated because they are troll/flame
magnets, such as groups for controversial or sensitive topics.
- Groups that could plausibly be robo-moderated or converted to
unmoderated. This would include groups that are still of current
interest, but that are not especially likely to attract trolls,
spammers, or other abuse.

For groups in the latter category, I'm considering setting up some kind of robo-moderation service for them. This would have a couple of benefits:
it would give time to try converting a group to unmoderated as a test
case, and would also permit seeing whether anyone is still attempting
to post to the groups. It could therefore serve as a temporary measure
if it's unclear what the best course of action would be.

A robo-moderation system could also be a starting point for a more
general moderation platform. Currently, a serious problem is that
prospective moderators can't simply start moderating a group: they need
to set up email addresses, install and configure software (most of which
is outdated and awkward to set up), and get their Usenet provider to
allow them to post approved messages (which not all providers will be
willing to do). If we're going to have a mass deletion of groups without moderators, I think we also ought to make sure that moderating a group
is not an unreasonably difficult thing to start doing.

Thoughts?

R

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/12/25 10:19 PM, Rayner Lucas wrote:

For groups in the latter category, I'm considering setting up some kind of robo-moderation service for them. This would have a couple of benefits:
it would give time to try converting a group to unmoderated as a test
case, and would also permit seeing whether anyone is still attempting
to post to the groups. It could therefore serve as a temporary measure
if it's unclear what the best course of action would be.

A robo-moderation system could also be a starting point for a more
general moderation platform. Currently, a serious problem is that
prospective moderators can't simply start moderating a group: they need
to set up email addresses, install and configure software (most of which
is outdated and awkward to set up), and get their Usenet provider to
allow them to post approved messages (which not all providers will be
willing to do). If we're going to have a mass deletion of groups without moderators, I think we also ought to make sure that moderating a group
is not an unreasonably difficult thing to start doing.

Thoughts?

I agree that robo-moderation for certain groups, on a test basis, is a
good idea. The robo-moderator could be configured with some basic checks against flooding. Otherwise, it seems to me that the risk is a small
one, as whoever controls the robo-moderator can disable it or modify it
if needed.

We could let the robo-moderator run for 6 months or a year and see what,
if any, new articles come in.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 3/13/25 8:42 AM, Paul W. Schleck wrote:

- Ethical considerations

What if you just wind up automatically relaying off-topic material and
SPAM? What if some or all of the content is unlawful [...]

I expect that a reasonable person would shut off the robo-moderator in
that event.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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In article <87r0315ztl.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com>,
Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote: >cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) writes:

[snip]
Surely most news servers that carried it have long-ago expired
all of the articles that they received that were posted to it.

There may be a handful with exceptionally long memories, but
would those honor an rmgroup for it, anyway?

news.blueworldhosting.com shows 9540 articles in comp.lang.c.moderated
going back to 2006.

Oh that's cool. But that's just one server.

groups.google.com and narkive.com have archived articles (I don't know
how complete the archives are), but via ugly (IMHO) web interfaces.

[...]

groups.google.com is, at this point, completely disconnected
from USENET, so won't even see the rmgroup. I have no idea
what narkive will do; I've never quite figured out how to use
it's interface (there are some surprisingly pathological
behaviors I've never figured out how to work around).

- Dan C.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 13.03.2025 14:49 Uhr Dan Cross wrote:

groups.google.com is, at this point, completely disconnected
from USENET, so won't even see the rmgroup. I have no idea
what narkive will do; I've never quite figured out how to use
it's interface (there are some surprisingly pathological
behaviors I've never figured out how to work around).

In the past they didn't process rmgroup control messages. If you want
to know more, ask the operator:
Davide Cavion <davide@narkive.com>

--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1741873790muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

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On 2025-03-11, Usenet Big-8 Management Board wrote:

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
99 moderated newsgroups.

I have to admit that I've had little interest in moderated
newsgroups so far, so I guess my thoughts below are to be taken
with a grain of salt.

Overall, I support the efforts of the Board to keep the portion
of the news: namespace they are responsible for clean. That
a particular newsserver may carry many newsgroups from many
other namespaces, including unmaintained ones (such as alt.*,
by design) should be of no consequence to the Board policies.

With regards to moderation, as a user, I'd expect *.moderated
newsgroups to be moderated, and if no one volunteers for the
job, to be removed. Given that Usenet is, at this time, a kind
of a niche medium, with relatively few users, and hence limited
supply of potential moderators, I believe that while MVIs should
be initiated as promptly as possible, discussions of possible
removal are to be delayed until at least a year passes since an
article is last successfully approved to the group at hand.

Same applies to announcement newsgroups (such as *.announce
and, e. g., comp.newprod), as well as newsgroups that might be
oriented more at publishing and collaborating on works rather
than discussion proper (rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature,
rec.arts.ascii.)

I would prefer other groups to, as a rule, become unmoderated
if no one volunteers to be their moderator.

I agree that such a change won't necessarily revive a group.
However, a newly unmoderated group /might/ become active,
while a deleted group certainly won't.

I think that a viable approach to moderation would be to have
a whitelist of good faith posters to each newsgroup, so that
the moderator would only need to consider posts by infrequent
users, or those who aren't particularly observant of the group's
charter.

Having little prior interest in moderated newsgroups, I'm not
familiar with the moderation process, or at least its technical
details; however, I have for a long time had interest in netnews
and Internet standards in general, so I'd be willing to give it
a try, including entirely by myself. However, my preference
would be to be a part of a team instead, as I don't feel ready
to invest effort in the process on a daily basis.

I'd be interested in (co)moderating the following groups.

comp.newprod Announcements of new products of interest.
(Moderated)
comp.std.announce Announcements about standards activities.
(Moderated)
rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature Guitar tablature and performance.
(Moderated)
rec.photo.moderated The art and science of photography. (Moderated)

Groups that I'd be monitoring were they "reactivated," either
by becoming unmoderated (which would be my preference, except
for news:rec.arts.ascii; and provided that their new status
isn't at odds with their respective charters, which I haven't
checked), or by finding a new moderator.

comp.simulation Simulation methods, problems, uses. (Moderated) rec.arts.ascii ASCII art, info on archives, art, & artists.
(Moderated)
sci.bio.evolution Discussions of evolutionary biology. (Moderated) sci.bio.phytopathology All aspects of plant diseases and pests.
(Moderated)
sci.chem.organic.synthesis Synthetic organic chemistry related topics.
(Moderated)
soc.politics Political problems, systems, solutions.
(Moderated)
soc.politics.marxism Karl Marx and his legacy in theory and practice.
(Moderated)

In particular, note that news:soc.politics has been active
recently, e. g., news:VI-cnTLCE4IuxQn6nZ2dnZfqn_GdnZ2d@giganews.com
(also via a forged Approved: header), even if the value of such
activity is debatable.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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XPost: news.groups

In <vquse4$3d1t6$1@dont-email.me> D Finnigan <dog_cow@macgui.com> writes:

On 3/13/25 8:42 AM, Paul W. Schleck wrote:

- Ethical considerations

What if you just wind up automatically relaying off-topic material and
SPAM? What if some or all of the content is unlawful [...]

I expect that a reasonable person would shut off the robo-moderator in
that event.

I expect that a reasonable person would not be able to react in time to
an unpredictable and short-duration SPAM or flooding incident and the automatically approved articles would post to the newsgroups unimpeded.
For a slow or no traffic newsgroup, the approved articles would be
mostly or all SPAM and flooding, which still exists on moderator
submission addresses, even post-Google Groups. Shutting off the
robo-moderator would be closing the gate after the horse bolted.

Do we expect the administrators of this robomoderation gateway to employ sophisticated monitoring and alerting, and that they would respond
quickly to any incident, 24/7? That's a lot to ask. Furthermore, if
they do shut off the robo-moderator, what do they do with any rejected submissions after shutoff? Dump all of them? Queue them up to manually
go through them to pick out only the approvable ones?

Such a service would realistically have to employ monitoring/alerting,
SPAM filtering, keyword trapping, duplicate detection, rate limiting,
and manual review of any queued articles for false positives. This is
starting to resemble the duties of a human moderator, and a significant workload for one volunteer long-term.

--
Paul W. Schleck
pschleck@panix.com

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On 3/14/25 10:16 AM, Paul W. Schleck wrote:

Such a service would realistically have to employ monitoring/alerting,
SPAM filtering, keyword trapping, duplicate detection, rate limiting,
and manual review of any queued articles for false positives. This is starting to resemble the duties of a human moderator, and a significant workload for one volunteer long-term.

Are you volunteering to run the robo-moderator?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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XPost: news.groups

On Fri, 14 Mar 2025 19:58:41 -0400, Paul W. Schleck wrote:

Personally, I think this robo-moderation idea has the risk of being a
lot of effort for little reward.

I agree with this statement.

It's less work to implement the previous mod flag suggested solution, if
a server accepts and makes that change, good, if not, so be it.

Cheers

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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In article <87wmcvf8mi.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com>,
Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Also, rec.humor.funny is on the list. I believe that all articles
are archived at netfunny.com, so losing Usenet archives might not
be as much of a concern. I've emailed the former moderator, who
may or may not choose to weigh in.

I also emailed the most recent moderators, Brad Templeton and Jim
Griffith. I got a reply from Brad indicating that the group is not
currently in operation, but that he would be open to recruiting a new
moderator for it.

Anyone wishing to volunteer can find Brad's contact details at the
bottom of his home page here: https://www.templetons.com/brad/. I've
also offered to help with moderation if needed, as has fellow Board
member Tristan Miller. Hopefully this means it'll be possible to
revive the group in some fashion; given its place in the history of
Usenet it would be nice to keep it around.

R

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Dear Ivan,

On 2025-03-13 21:03, Ivan Shmakov wrote:

Having little prior interest in moderated newsgroups, I'm not
familiar with the moderation process, or at least its technical
details; however, I have for a long time had interest in netnews
and Internet standards in general, so I'd be willing to give it
a try, including entirely by myself. However, my preference
would be to be a part of a team instead, as I don't feel ready
to invest effort in the process on a daily basis.

I'd be interested in (co)moderating the following groups.

> comp.newprod Announcements of new products of interest.
> (Moderated)
> comp.std.announce Announcements about standards activities.
> (Moderated)
> rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature Guitar tablature and performance.
> (Moderated)
> rec.photo.moderated The art and science of photography. (Moderated)

Moderation is most conveniently done with a dedicated software package,
and we'd be happy to advise you on the options and with getting one of
them set up on your infrastructure. This initial setup will probably be
most of the effort; after that it's just a matter of approving or
rejecting posts, in accordance with the group's charter and moderation
policy, as they come in. As the groups have been disused for some time
now there may not be many submissions unless or until some effort is
made to revive the community. We could start this off by posting an announcement of the new moderator here and in other relevant groups,
though arranging for some additional targeted announcements would be
helpful.

In any case, it's always a good idea to have multiple moderators. Would
you be willing to post calls for volunteers in the groups related to the
ones you are interested in moderating? I could suggest at least the
following:

comp.newprod -> comp.misc

comp.std.announce -> comp.misc, comp.std.misc

rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature -> rec.music.makers.guitar, rec.music

rec.photo.moderated -> rec.photo.misc

We could do this on your behalf, though it would probably look better
coming from you as the actual volunteer; this might also give you the opportunity to gauge whether there's actually any interest in reviving
the groups.

Regards,
Tristan

--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2025-03-11, Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> wrote:

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
99 moderated newsgroups.

rec.arts.anime.creative Original works by fans, related to anime/manga. (Moderated)

It looks like the previous moderator set up robomod in 2005[1] and was
using it satisfactorily until some time in 2016. The robomod service
has been discontinued which is why the modmail address raac-moderator@robomod.net is not working.

I have no interest in running manual moderator approval flows for
r.a.a.c but I do have my own email domain and an always-online server
with a static IP, so if there is an equivalent service to robomod, or if
the robomod software still works self hosted, I would be interested in
running it for rec.arts.anime.creative.


[1]: https://www.usenetarchives.com/threads.php? \ id=rec.arts.anime.creative&y=0&r=0&p=671

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2025-03-28, Tristan Miller wrote:
On 2025-03-13 21:03, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
On 2025-03-11, Usenet Big-8 Management Board wrote:

I'd be interested in (co)moderating the following groups.

comp.newprod Announcements of new products of interest.
(Moderated)
comp.std.announce Announcements about standards activities.
(Moderated)
rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature Guitar tablature and performance.
(Moderated)
rec.photo.moderated The art and science of photography. (Moderated)

On a second thought, I don't think I'd be able to do a good job
with rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature . Rather, if the intent
is still to remove currently unusable moderated groups, I'd
take over comp.simulation.

Moderation is most conveniently done with a dedicated software
package, and we'd be happy to advise you on the options and with
getting one of them set up on your infrastructure.

I certainly would appreciate pointers to the relevant
specifications, guides, and software.

So far, I've checked News-Article and PGP-Sign on CPAN, and
I think I now have an idea how the signature in the X-Auth:
header is computed.

Other than that, my intent is to create group.name-submit@
aliases to my own mailbox come Monday, so once the
moderators.isc.org (?) mail forwarding configuration is
updated, I can start accept new postings in my queue.

http://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/A/AG/AGIERTH/News-Article-1.27.tar.gz http://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/R/RR/RRA/PGP-Sign-1.04.tar.gz

In any case, it's always a good idea to have multiple moderators.
Would you be willing to post calls for volunteers in the groups
related to the ones you are interested in moderating? I could
suggest at least the following:

comp.newprod -> comp.misc
comp.std.announce -> comp.misc, comp.std.misc rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature -> rec.music.makers.guitar, rec.music rec.photo.moderated -> rec.photo.misc

Not a call for volunteers, per se, but still:

news:pjOHLctoq1qK-GfX@violet.siamics.net news:znMYX1Q_8IJQ9I0c@violet.siamics.net

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Greetings.

On 2025-03-12 19:30, Florian Rehnisch wrote:

• Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>:

NEWSGROUP LINES:

comp.binaries.cbm For the transfer of 8bit Commodore binaries. (Moderated)

Being a long-time C= User (only Amigas, but I own an C=64 emulation
cd-rom), I don't see the vanish of this group as a big loss.

The Board received an email from someone offering to take over
moderation of this group. We contacted the current moderator, who was
unaware that the submission address had stopped working but agreed that
the new volunteer should take over as moderator. We'll post an update
if/when the change of moderator is finalized.

Regards,
Tristan

--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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In article <slrn100jdfb.1kau.tidux@tankpad.borg.moe>, tidux@borg.moe
says...

On 2025-03-11, Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> wrote:

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following
99 moderated newsgroups.

rec.arts.anime.creative Original works by fans, related to anime/manga. (Moderated)

It looks like the previous moderator set up robomod in 2005[1] and was
using it satisfactorily until some time in 2016. The robomod service
has been discontinued which is why the modmail address raac-moderator@robomod.net is not working.

I have no interest in running manual moderator approval flows for
r.a.a.c but I do have my own email domain and an always-online server
with a static IP, so if there is an equivalent service to robomod, or if
the robomod software still works self hosted, I would be interested in running it for rec.arts.anime.creative.

[1]: https://www.usenetarchives.com/threads.php? \ id=rec.arts.anime.creative&y=0&r=0&p=671

Hi,

Robomod.net is, as you say, defunct, and I'm not sure if the software it
used is currently available anywhere (if anybody is aware of a place to
get it, we'd be grateful to know about it).

There's a robomoderator package called "Marvin" available from https://users.ics.aalto.fi/kaip/marvin/. It was written in 2001, so I
expect it'll need Python 2 to work. I haven't tried using it, but it
does have at some basic documentation and is a fairly small amount of
code, so it should be possible to figure it out.

I'll also drop you an email.

Kind regards,
Rayner

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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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:

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

It's possible to submit articles by email, such as explained in
[1], though see the bottom of this article.

[1] http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Moderated_newsgroups#How_can_I_bypass_my_News_Service_Provider?

I plan to use my existing Eternal September account to inject
the approved articles. It dawned on me, however, that allowing
that same account to be used by co-moderators (should there be
any), such as via the web interface I intended to deploy, would
perhaps be seen as abuse, so instead I will be providing access
to the queue for the co-moderators to pick articles from there,
and post the approved ones via their own accounts. (Having an
account that allows posting Approved: articles thus becomes a
requirement for prospective co-moderators.) Alternatively, I
can add a co-moderator's email to my aliases(5), so they get
copies of new submissions.

Once the Board confirms me as the new moderator, and I'm granted
the permission to post Approved: articles at E-S, I'll post short
announcements to these groups on them now being operational.

I'm going to forgo signing the articles for now, as that does
not /seem/ to be a strict requirement.

In the unlikely case that there'll be significant interest,
I'll consider deploying my own INN instance to be used by
co-moderators.


With regards to submitting articles via email.

First, make sure your message has a proper Newsgroups: header.
(At some point I'm going to configure my Exim instance to
reject emails to the addresses above lacking one.)

Also, it's my recommendation that submitted messages have a
valid email address in the envelope (MAIL FROM:; and preferrably
also a valid DKIM signature) but /not/ in the From: header,
as the latter is indexed in the newsserver overview data (OVER
/ XOVER), making it easy for abusers to harvest.

On a Unix-like system with properly configured mail delivery,
the following example /usr/sbin/sendmail invocation can be used
as a starting point (tested on Debian GNU/Linux "Bookworm", but
if I'm reading sendmail(1) correctly, it should also work on
NetBSD just as well):

$ cat < newspost

From: Alice <alice@nowhere.invalid>

Reply-To: Alice <alice@example.net>

Newsgroups: example.newsgroup

Message-Id: <k9jluEK3D9GNCJR-yKcIdRiIsWgOR792@example.invalid>

Date: Fri, 09 May 2025 08:24:48 +0000
Subject: test

This is a test message.
$ /usr/sbin/sendmail \
-f alice@example.net \
example-newsgroup-submit@example.com \
< newspost

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Dear Ivan,

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.)

I plan to use my existing Eternal September account to inject
the approved articles. It dawned on me, however, that allowing
that same account to be used by co-moderators (should there be
any), such as via the web interface I intended to deploy, would
perhaps be seen as abuse, so instead I will be providing access
to the queue for the co-moderators to pick articles from there,
and post the approved ones via their own accounts. (Having an
account that allows posting Approved: articles thus becomes a
requirement for prospective co-moderators.) Alternatively, I
can add a co-moderator's email to my aliases(5), so they get
copies of new submissions.

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.

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.

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.

Regards,
Tristan

--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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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:

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

[...]

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

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Dear Ivan,

On 2025-05-13 09:04, Ivan Shmakov wrote:

> 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

Thanks.

> 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.

It seems you're right. I turned up only the same information you did.

We've got all the information we need from you now to change the
moderators for the four groups. I'll put this on the agenda for
Friday's Board meeting for final confirmation and action and get back to
you by e-mail.

Regards,
Tristan

--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

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