Three changes were made in the RFD after an initial
Questionnaire
was submitted to the UVV:
1. A new proponent added: John Walker
2. Deleted from the RFD:
"Readers may also post articles that have been rejected from
soc.religion.bahai, so long as they conform to this
charter."
3. Deleted from the RFD:
"Readers are asked to observe Baha'i standards of conduct
and not
to start or prolong flamewars in the group, but to focus instead
on
articles and threads written in more moderate terms."
And replaced with:
"Readers are asked to post courteously and not to engage
in personal attacks or flamewars."
Revised RFD reflecting the above changes:
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group talk.religion.bahai
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to create
talk.religion.bahai as an unmoderated worldwide discussion group.
This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time.
Procedural details appear below. All follow-up discussion should
be cross-posted to news.groups,alt.religion.bahai.
Newsgroup line:
talk.religion.bahai Discussion of the Baha'i Faith.
RATIONALE: talk.religion.bahai
The newsgroup talk.religion.bahai is proposed to meet the need for
an open and unmoderated forum for discussion of the Baha'i Faith
within the structure of the Big 8 hierarchies.
The proponents intend that talk.religion.bahai will complement,
rather than supplant, the existing moderated group soc.religion.bahai,
and will provide those without access to alt.religion.bahai the
opportunity to participate. It is noted that the alt.* hierarchy is
less well propagated than the talk.* hierarchy; this has meant that
many people who have voted YES on earlier proposals have been unable
to join discussions on alt.religion.bahai.
This is the third talk.religion.bahai proposal to be submitted.
The following information is included for those interested in the
growth of participation in predecessor forums.
- From January 17, 1997, the posting of the first proposed
RFD, until March 27, 1997, more than 759 messages were
posted concerning talk.religion.bahai, 11 messages per
day for 70 days.
- From April 1, 1997, to September 27, 1997, over 2,863
messages were posted on alt.religion.bahai, from
people with wide-ranging points of view on the Baha'i
Faith. This is an average of 16 messages per day for
179 days or 477 messages a month for six months.
During this time period, approximately 513 different
individuals posted on over 1,200 threads.
- From September 28, 1997, to September 21, 1998, over
31,000 messages have been posted to alt.religion.bahai,
an average of 90 messages per day for 341 days or
2,583 messages per month for nine months.
These numbers may be verified by searching www.dejanews.com
for talk.religion.bahai and alt.religion.bahai for the relevant time
periods. Note that www.dejanews.com cannot pick up all postings
and sometimes splits long postings into 2 or more shorter ones;
while they may not be exact, these numbers offer a clear picture
of the level of activity. Please note that despite the lower
propagation rate of the alt.* hierarchy, the high rate of posting
demonstrates significant interest, supporting the formation of an
unmoderated newsgroup on the talk.* hierarchy. It is reasonable
to conclude that the higher accessibility of the talk.* hierarchy
will lead to even higher rates of posting by interested people.
CHARTER: talk.religion.bahai
All topics or ideas relevant to the Baha'i faith -- its history,
teachings, theology, etc. -- would be appropriate areas for
discussion.
Talk.religion.bahai fills the need for a fully open and universally
accessible Internet forum about the Baha'i Faith. Postings may take
any point of view with regard to the Baha'i Faith. While this allows
criticism, it also fully opens the door for enquirers to see with
their own eyes and not through the eyes of their neighbors, asking
questions and reading replies from anyone who is interested in their
question.
Readers are asked to observe standard netiquette in their use of
this newsgroup.
Readers are asked to post courteously and not to engage
in personal attacks or flamewars.
The posting of articles not relevant to the Baha'i Faith is prohibited.
Large ASCII graphics, large binaries, pornography, spam, and any
postings of a purely personal or commercial nature are prohibited.
To facilitate viewing in news readers that are not HTML-capable,
HTML-formatted postings are strongly discouraged.
Cross-posting to irrelevant groups is also discouraged, and readers
are encouraged to redirect follow-ups to reduce excessive
cross-posting.
END CHARTER.
PROCEDURE:
This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase
of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup
should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue
for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this
proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a
Call For Votes (CFV) will be posted by a neutral vote taker. Please
do not attempt to vote until this happens.
All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.
This RFD attempts to comply with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and
"Writing an RFD" and available for perusal on news.groups or
news.announce.newgroups. Please refer to these documents if you
have further questions about the process.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,soc.religion.bahai,
alt.religion.bahai,talk.religion.misc,soc.rights.human
and the following four mailing lists:
Talisman
Subscribe: jsgreen@umich.edu
Bahai Studies
Subscribe: major@johnco.cc.ks.us
h-Bahai h-Bahai@h-net.msu.edu
Subscribe: jrcole@umich.edu
bahai-faith bahai-faith@egroups.com
Subscribe: bahai-faith-subscribe@makelist.com
or https://www.eGroups.com
Pointers will appear in the following newsgroups:
soc.religion.eastern,
soc.religion.gnosis,
soc.religion.hindu,
soc.religion.paganism,
soc.religion.quaker,
soc.religion.unitarian-univ,
talk.religion.buddhism,
talk.religion.newage,
uk.religion.misc,
uk.religion.interfaith,
uk.religion.other-faiths,
talk.philosophy.misc,
talk.philosophy.humanism,
alt.religion
Proponent: FG <FG@hotmail.com>
Proponent: Ron House <house@usq.edu.au>
Proponent: Fran Baker <fran@crhc.uiuc.edu>
Proponent: Frank Baker fbaker@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Proponent: John Walker <johnwalker@ozemail.com.au>
This RFD was posted to news.announce.newgroups on
October 27, 1998. For comparison the earlier version
appears at the end.
From: Frank Baker <fbaker@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Subject: 2nd RFD: talk.religion.bahai
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 1998 8:57 AM
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group talk.religion.bahai
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to create
talk.religion.bahai as an unmoderated worldwide discussion group.
This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time.
Procedural details appear below. All follow-up discussion should
be cross-posted to news.groups,alt.religion.bahai.
Newsgroup line:
talk.religion.bahai Discussion of the Baha'i Faith.
RATIONALE: talk.religion.bahai
The newsgroup talk.religion.bahai is proposed to meet the need for
an open and unmoderated forum for discussion of the Baha'i Faith
within the structure of the Big 8 hierarchies.
The proponents intend that talk.religion.bahai will complement,
rather than supplant, the existing moderated group soc.religion.bahai,
and will provide those without access to alt.religion.bahai the
opportunity to participate. It is noted that the alt.* hierarchy is
less well propagated than the talk.* hierarchy; this has meant that
many people who have voted YES on earlier proposals have been unable
to join discussions on alt.religion.bahai.
This is the third talk.religion.bahai proposal to be submitted.
The following information is included for those interested in the
growth of participation in predecessor forums.
- From January 17, 1997, the posting of the first proposed
RFD, until March 27, 1997, more than 759 messages were
posted concerning talk.religion.bahai, 11 messages per
day for 70 days.
- From April 1, 1997, to September 27, 1997, over 2,863
messages were posted on alt.religion.bahai, from
people with wide-ranging points of view on the Baha'i
Faith. This is an average of 16 messages per day for
179 days or 477 messages a month for six months.
During this time period, approximately 513 different
individuals posted on over 1,200 threads.
- From September 28, 1997, to September 21, 1998, over
31,000 messages have been posted to alt.religion.bahai,
an average of 90 messages per day for 341 days or
2,583 messages per month for nine months.
These numbers may be verified by searching www.dejanews.com
for talk.religion.bahai and alt.religion.bahai for the relevant time
periods. Note that www.dejanews.com cannot pick up all postings
and sometimes splits long postings into 2 or more shorter ones;
while they may not be exact, these numbers offer a clear picture
of the level of activity. Please note that despite the lower
propagation rate of the alt.* hierarchy, the high rate of posting
demonstrates significant interest, supporting the formation of an
unmoderated newsgroup on the talk.* hierarchy. It is reasonable
to conclude that the higher accessibility of the talk.* hierarchy
will lead to even higher rates of posting by interested people.
CHARTER: talk.religion.bahai
All topics or ideas relevant to the Baha'i faith -- its history,
teachings, theology, etc. -- would be appropriate areas for
discussion.
Talk.religion.bahai fills the need for a fully open and universally
accessible Internet forum about the Baha'i Faith. Postings may take
any point of view with regard to the Baha'i Faith. While this allows
criticism, it also fully opens the door for enquirers to see with
their own eyes and not through the eyes of their neighbors, asking
questions and reading replies from anyone who is interested in their
question.
Readers are asked to observe standard netiquette in their use of
this newsgroup.
Readers are asked to observe Baha'i standards of conduct and not
to start or prolong flamewars in the group, but to focus instead on
articles and threads written in more moderate terms.
The posting of articles not relevant to the Baha'i Faith is prohibited.
Large ASCII graphics, large binaries, pornography, spam, and any
postings of a purely personal or commercial nature are prohibited.
To facilitate viewing in news readers that are not HTML-capable,
HTML-formatted postings are strongly discouraged.
Cross-posting to irrelevant groups is also discouraged, and readers
are encouraged to redirect follow-ups to reduce excessive
cross-posting. Readers may also post articles that have been
rejected from soc.religion.bahai, so long as they conform to this
charter.
END CHARTER.
PROCEDURE:
This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase
of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup
should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue
for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this
proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a
Call For Votes (CFV) will be posted by a neutral vote taker. Please
do not attempt to vote until this happens.
All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.
This RFD attempts to comply with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and
"Writing an RFD" and available for perusal on news.groups or
news.announce.newgroups. Please refer to these documents if you
have further questions about the process.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,soc.religion.bahai,
alt.religion.bahai,talk.religion.misc,soc.rights.human
and the following four mailing lists:
Talisman
Subscribe: jsgreen@umich.edu
Bahai Studies
Subscribe: major@johnco.cc.ks.us
h-Bahai h-Bahai@h-net.msu.edu
Subscribe: jrcole@umich.edu
bahai-faith bahai-faith@egroups.com
Subscribe: bahai-faith-subscribe@makelist.com
or https://www.eGroups.com
Pointers will appear in the following newsgroups:
soc.religion.eastern,
soc.religion.gnosis,
soc.religion.hindu,
soc.religion.paganism,
soc.religion.quaker,
soc.religion.unitarian-univ,
talk.religion.buddhism,
talk.religion.newage,
uk.religion.misc,
uk.religion.interfaith,
uk.religion.other-faiths,
talk.philosophy.misc,
talk.philosophy.humanism,
alt.religion
Proponent: FG <FG@hotmail.com>
Proponent: Ron House <house@usq.edu.au>
Proponent: Fran Baker <fran@crhc.uiuc.edu>
Proponent: Frank Baker <fbaker@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
This first draft of the RFD was posted to
news.announce.newgroups on
September 28, 1998:
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group talk.religion.bahai
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to create an unmoderated
worldwide discussion group called talk.religion.bahai. This is not a
Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details
appear below. All followup discussion should be crossposted to
news.groups,alt.religion.bahai.
Newsgroup line:
talk.religion.bahai Discussion of the Baha'i Faith.
RATIONALE: talk.religion.bahai
Currently, the only newsgroup on the Big 8 heirarchies, which exists
specifically for discussion of the Baha'i Faith, is moderated. A
need exists for an unmoderated forum, and this proposed newsgroup
would meet that need.
From January 17, 1997, the posting of the first proposed RFD, until
March 27, 1997, more than 759 messages were posted concerning
talk.religion.bahai, 11 messages per day for 70 days.
From April 1, 1997, to September 27, 1997, over 2,863 messages
have been posted on alt.religion.bahai from people with highly
varying points of view on the Baha'i Faith, resulting in 16 messages
per day for 179 days, and 477 messages a month for six months.
Since www.dejanews.com does not pick up all postings, an
additional conservative 5 percent, roughly 150 messages, have
probably been lost from the archive. During this time period,
approximately 513 different individuals posted on over
1,200 threads.
From September 28, 1997, to September 21, 1998, over 31,000
messages have been posted to alt.religion.bahai resulting
in 90 messages per day for 341 days and 2,583 messages per
month for nine months.
These numbers may be verified by searching www.dejanews.com
for talk.religion.bahai and alt.religion.bahai for the relevant time
periods. Please note that despite the poor propagation of the
alt.* hierarchy the high rate of posting demonstrates significant
interest, justifying the forming of an unmoderated newsgroup on
the Bahai Faith on the talk.* hierarchy. It is only reasonable
to conclude that the easy accessibility of the talk.* hierarchy
will lead to even higher rates of posting by interested people.
As a further indication of interest in an unmoderated newsgroup,
it should be noted that the web site "The Bahai Faith & Religious
Freedom of Conscience" has had more than 3,715 hits on it
since May 8, 1998 representing 26 hits a day for 139 days or
roughly 900 a month:
bahai.htm
The proponents intend that talk.religion.bahai will complement,
rather than supplant, the existing moderated group
soc.religion.bahai, and will provide those without access to
alt.religion.bahai, on the less well propagated alt.* hierarchy, the
opportunity to participate, especially since many people who
voted YES on the first proposal were unable to join in on
alt.religion.bahai, their ISPs not carrying the hierarchy. It is
anticipated that alt.religion.bahai will evolve along as its users
see fit and will complement talk.religion.bahai as an alternative
unmoderated newsgroup.
CHARTER: talk.religion.bahai
All topics or ideas relevant to the Baha'i faith -- its history,
teachings, theology, etc. -- would be appropriate areas for
discussion.
Postings may take any point of view with regard to the Baha'i Faith.
Whilst this allows criticism, including criticism that might be
uncomfortable or hurtful to some, it also fully opens the door
for enquirers to see with their own eyes and not through the
eyes of their neighbours by asking questions and reading replies
from anyone who is interested in their question. Talk.religion.bahai
also fills the need for the first and only universally accessible
Internet forum about the Baha'i Faith. As the Internet is clearly
becoming an indispensible part of modern life, such access for
those interested in the Baha'i Faith will, in the future, be
as important a civil right as the right to free speech in non-
electronic forums. Thus talk.religion.bahai is clearly in the
spirit of Baha'u'llah's injunctions supporting a free press.
As Baha'u'llah taught, a free press has both rights and
responsibilities. Therefore some Baha'is might fear misuse of
the facility, especially postings by covenant-Breakers. However,
the Universal House of Justice has addressed this question:
"First, the civil rights of Covenant-breakers must be scrupulously
upheld."
From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice
to a National Spiritual Assembly, October 29, 1974. Lights of
Guidance, Page: 186.
Further, it is permitted for Baha'is to read and post material in an
open Internet forum:
"In general, the House of Justice has no objection to Baha'is'
participating in public, unmoderated discussions about the
Faith, whether those discussions take place in person or
through some form of electronic communication."
Department of the Secretariat, DATE: 14 October 1997 U.S.A.
Readers are asked to observe standard netiquette and voting
procedure in their use of this newsgroup and during its creation.
Readers are asked to observe Baha'i standards of conduct and not
to start or prolong flamewars in the group, but to focus instead on
articles and threads written in more moderate terms.
The posting of articles not specifically relevant to the Baha'i Faith
is strongly discouraged. Also discouraged are personal messages,
large ASCII graphics, binaries, special-format files, pornography,
spam, and any postings of a purely commercial nature.
Crossposting to irrelevant groups is also discouraged, and readers
are encouraged to redirect followups to reduce excessive
crossposting. Readers may also post articles that have been
rejected from soc.religion.bahai, so long as they conform to this
charter.
As is true for other groups devoted to discussing a particular
religion, including supposedly soc.religion.bahai, the
talk.religion.bahai newsgroup is not an official organ of any
institutional faith.
END CHARTER.
PROCEDURE:
An instructive passage by Russ Allbery might fruitfully be
considered by all:
"There is no official 'list of acceptable reasons for voting'; Nothing
of the sort is enforced. There's no way of knowing why people vote
the way they do. There *is*, however, a general *consensus* that
certain *patterns* of voting constitute abuse of the system. Block
voting on religious, cultural, ethnic, or political grounds is one of
the things that is frowned upon. It is unlikely that even extreme block
voting would cause a result to be overturned, but it's practically
assured that block voting *will* earn an extremely bad reputation for
the group doing the block voting. In other words, yes, the Baha'i
*could* vote down the newsgroup en masse and be successful.
This would, however, also earn the Faith a reputation (fairly or no)
amongst those people who followed the proposal as a religion that
advocates censorship. I think it's in the best interest of Baha'is and
the Baha'i Faith to avoid that."
The process of creating newsgroups is twofold. First is the RFD
stage, when someone writes a Request for Discussion (RFD) outlining
the purpose of the proposed group. The RFD appears in
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, and other relevant discussion
groups. Anyone may publicly comment on the RFD in news.groups for a
three-week period. During the discussion phase, proponents may modify
the RFD in response to suggestions from posters on news.groups.
The second stage is the Call for Votes (CFV) stage. The proposal must
pass a Usenet-wide vote with a 2/3 supermajority -- and at least 100
more votes in favor than against -- to be created. Anyone with an
e-mail address may cast a ballot. A neutral votetaker from the Usenet
Volunteer Votetakers (UVV) conducts all CFV's.
This RFD attempts to comply with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and
"Writing an RFD" and available for perusal on news.groups or
news.announce.newgroups. Please refer to these documents if you
have further questions about the process.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,soc.religion.bahai,
alt.religion.bahai,talk.religion.misc,soc.rights.human
and the following four mailing lists:
Talisman
Subscribe: jsgreen@umich.edu
Bahai Studies
Subscribe: major@johnco.cc.ks.us
h-Bahai h-Bahai@h-net.msu.edu
Subscribe: jrcole@umich.edu
bahai-faith bahai-faith@egroups.com
Subscribe: bahai-faith-subscribe@makelist.com
or https://www.eGroups.com
Pointers will appear in the following newsgroups:
soc.religion.unitarian-univ,soc.religion.eastern,
soc.religion.gnosis,soc.religion.hindu,
soc.religion.paganism,soc.religion.quaker,
talk.religion.buddhism,talk.religion.newage,
uk.religion.misc,uk.religion.interfaith,
uk.religion.other-faiths,news.admin.censorship,
alt.atheism,alt.atheism.moderated,
alt.religion,alt.religion.christian.biblestudy,
alt.religion.christian.last-days,
alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,
alt.religion.christian.pentecostal,alt.individualism,
talk.philosophy.misc,alt.activism,talk.atheism,
talk.philosophy.humanism,talk.philosophy.misc,
alt.philosophy.debate,aus.religion.christian
Proponent: FG <FG@hotmail.com>
Proponent: Ron House <house@usq.edu.au>
Proponent: Fran Baker <fran@crhc.uiuc.edu>
Proponent: Frank Baker <fbaker@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
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