https://www.faqs.org/ftp/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/talk/talk.religion.bahai
2nd RFD:
Talk.Religion.Bahai Jan 12, 1998
Path:
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From: "FG"
Newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.religion.bahai,talk.religion.misc,soc.rights.human,so
c.culture.israel
Subject: 4th RFD: talk.religion.bahai
Followup-To: news.groups
Message-ID: <884617119.9751@isc.org>
Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org
Archive-Name: talk.religion.bahai
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 14:58:39 GMT
Lines: 172
Xref: szdc news.announce.newgroups:2701 news.groups:114947
alt.religion.bahai:4571
talk.religion.misc:158814 soc.rights.human:32138 soc.culture.israel:94463
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.
CHANGES from previous RFD:
The only major change on this 4th RFD is the "disclaimer" passage
under the Charter. A few other minor changes have been made.
Newsgroup line:
talk.religion.bahaiDiscussion 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.
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.
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.
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 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."
(Message-ID: >
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." 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,
soc.culture.israel
and the following three mailing lists:
Talisman
Subscribe via: jsgreen@umich.edu
Bahai Studies
Subscribe via: major@johnco.cc.ks.us
h-Bahai h-Bahai@h-net.msu.edu
Subscribe smaneck@BERRY.EDU or jrcole@umich.edu
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,
soc.religion.sikhism,soc.religion.vaishnava,
talk.religion.buddhism,talk.religion.newage,
alt.religion.islam,alt.religion,a.bsu.religion,
uk.religion.misc,uk.religion.interfaith,
uk.religion.other-faiths,news.admin.censorship
And to the following seven Bahai-only listservs:
Subscribe via bahai-request@bcca.org
Baha'i Campus Forum (BCF)
Baha'i Discuss (Discuss)
Baha'i Singles (Singles)
Baha'i Teachers (Teachers)
Baha'i Women Converse (Women)
Baha'i Youth (Youth - aimed at the 12-18 age group)
Baha'i Announce (Announce)
Mentor: Chris Stone
Proponent: FG
Proponent: Chris Manvell
Proponent: Ron House
Homepage:
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