Newsgroups: ott.general,ott.config,ncf.general From: Gordon Dewis Subject: [ONAG] ott.* group creation and ONAG FAQ Summary: What is ONAG? What does it do? Approved: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Followup-To: poster X-Revision: $Revision: 1.8.1.7 $ Archive-name: ONAG.faq Last-modified: $Date: 2003/08/12 22:03:49 $ This FAQ provides ott.* users with a rough idea of how ott.* groups are managed, and what "ONAG" is. Note that ONAG procedures are currently in trial-and-error experimentation, and are subject to change. ------------------------------ Subject: What is ONAG? ONAG stands for "Ottawa News Administrator Group". This is a small number of experienced Usenet administrators and users in the Ottawa area that are interested in ensuring that ott.* is a consistent and useful Usenet hierarchy. ------------------------------ Subject: What does ONAG do? ONAG's primary role is to focus discussions on ott.* management, and provide a consistent and timely procedure for group creation and deletion. Just as importantly, ONAG ensures that groups that people think should be created _are_ created, and carried in significant portions of the Ottawa region. Without a body like ONAG, group creation is an ad-hoc procedure that rarely achieves reasonable coverage. As a secondary role, ONAG produces a list of "approved" ott.* groups. By "approved", this actually means that ONAG believes that these groups should exist, and are carried on the high population news servers. ------------------------------ Subject: Who is in ONAG? ONAG has, at its core, administrators of the three largest Usenet environments in the Ottawa area. These presently are: Chris Lewis[*] Nortel/BNR and Ocunix John Stewart Carleton University and ONET Paul Tomblin National Capital Freenet Administrators of the above three sites are permanent members of ONAG, in the sense that someone nominated by these organizations should always be on ONAG. These are positional appointments, not personal. There are presently five additional members: Gordon Dewis Pinetree Dave Blackwood Russell McOrmond Flora Miranda Gray Rob Kelk [*] Chris Lewis is presently chairman of ONAG. ------------------------------ Subject: ONAG rules + The chairman does not vote. + All ONAG administrators must create any group that an ONAG vote passes, except if the administrator has raised a policy abstention. (this helps guarantee propagation) In group votes: + allowable votes are: + yes + no + policy abstention (where the member's organization has policies that prohibit carrying such a group) + A "policy abstention" or "no" from two of the three core ONAG members is a veto (if two core organizations refuse to carry the group, then there's no point in creating it) + The first member to declare a policy abstention assumes chairmanship duties for the vote ------------------------------ Subject: What power or authority does ONAG have? Absolutely none whatsoever. ONAG only has authority over the organizations represented in the membership. However, since these organizations represent something like 90%+ of the users in the Ottawa area, their actions tend to be worth listening to. As such, ONAG's power over the rest of the systems in Ottawa is purely by example and reasonability. ------------------------------ Subject: Help, I'm being harrassed by someone, ONAG, please help! ONAG is not an enforcement body. If you're being harrassed, we recommend you seek assistance from your own system administrators, and legal counsel as necessary. ONAG can sometimes provide a little guidance and advice, but ONAG has no authority to discipline users or anything like that. ------------------------------ Subject: How do I create an ott.* group? Discard any notions that you may have of RFD/CFV procedures as documented in various Usenet FAQs. Those procedures only apply to the big 8 Usenet hierarchies (comp, talk, soc, sci, misc, news, humanities, and rec) - they do not apply to alt, or regional hierarchies such as ott.*. The final authority for creating Usenet groups always rests with the owners of the systems that make up Usenet, or their delegated agents (system administrators). As such, the RFD/CFV is really only an interest poll, but one that administrators do listen to as a guiding process. As such, the process here is in essence the same (administrators/owners deciding in the final analysis), with a streamlined "interest poll". RFD/CFVs take at least 6 weeks to operate. The procedure here can take a week or less. The ott.* process, as suggested by ONAG, is somewhat similar to the alt.* or can.* process, but somewhat more formalized. A group proponent should: - Think carefully about their proposal and draft up a proposed charter describing what the group is for, why ott.* is the appropriate venue, and a proposed name. - It is recommended that the proponent consults with ONAG for advice at this point. - The proponent should cross-post the proposed charter to related groups, especially including ott.general and ott.config. Followup-To: should be set to ott.config. The intent is that this posting should cause people who're interested to respond in ott.config showing that there is interest in the proposal. Discussions of the group should occur in ott.config. - Once interest or lack thereof becomes apparent, the ONAG chairman will call a vote of ONAG members. If the group passes, ONAG will issue the newgroup. ------------------------------ Subject: Why can't I post to news.flora.org? news.flora.org is a read-only news server offered to the community. There is no way to post directly to newsgroups using the news.flora.org server. For more information, please see http://www.flora.org/flora/faq.shtml#news.flora.org ------------------------------ Subject: How do I contact ONAG? You may contact ONAG via email at onag@pinetree.org. As well, you may visit our webserver at http://www.pinetree.org/ONAG and our anonymous FTP server at ftp://ftp.onag.pinetree.org/ONAG.