But it's only really necessary if you feel there's something that
should be changed about the proposal. Simply a few posts of "good
idea" and a lack of "bad idea" posts can be enough, particularly,
I should wager, when the amount of sim racing discussion is evident.
In the case of the newsgroup I created (rec.music.ragtime), there
was absolutely no place where the topic was discussed, but only
because there was no place appropriate. We had to point out that
indeed there were people out there who'd want to see the group,
but had only a few supportive posts during the discussion period.
In a way that's like when rec.autos.simulators was made. There was
no one place for sim racers to congregate, so we mostly were hidden
away drowned out in various computer game and motorsport newsgroups,
just as ragtimers were drowned out in piano and (though it pains me
to say it) jazz newsgroups, neither of which were appropriate. We
did have a bit of discussion about what the name should be (like
perhaps rec.autos.sport.simulators since rec.autos.sport was for
racing). I suggested rec.autos.simulators be the name, so as to
leave it open-ended for non-racing automotive simulations. (Always
a good thing to present a wider possible area of discussion to the
people on news.groups who argue and vote over groups they'll have
no interest in, because a wider area of possible discussion makes
them more likely to vote in your favor.)
Another amusing parallel... People who didn't understand the topic
kept asking if perhaps we'd best fit in the comp.sys.ibm-pc.games
hierarchy. We had to tell them no, because these aren't games,
and no, because we don't want to be platform-specific. For r.m.r,
it was a case of people wanting to stick us in the rec.music.bluenote
hierarchy. Really! Ummmmm... Ragtime has no blue notes, thank you
very much! Had to inform people that, if anything, jazz is a form
of ragtime -- not the other way around! Anyway, in both cases, those
of us who know what we're talking about ended up getting our groups
created.
Back to the topic at hand...
In actuality, the discussion period is just a "wait and see if
anyone has major objections that should be addressed" time. Even
if not a word is posted, that won't stop you from moving ahead to
the voting stage, because nothing posted means there were no
objections to the concept/name.
Still, should someone -- like one of the news.groups junkies who
doesn't understand what we're about but thinks he knows what's best
for Usenet -- post some kind of objection, it's good if those of us
who do know the subject can jump in to its defense. So, check out
news.groups if you possibly have the time. If things still are
arranged the way they used to be, if you don't have time, subscribe
at least to news.announce.newgroups which is a moderated group
displaying calls for votes and vote results, so you can at least
see the CFV when it comes and make your vote. It's been a few years
since I was one of those aforementioned news.groups junkies, though,
so it might've been restructured by now...
--
http://members.cruzio.com/~keeper/toons.html - Contemporary WB cartoons info
http://www.armory.com/~keeper/midi.html - My own MIDI music and arrangements
