An automated system has been created to allow readers of the alt.discuss newsgroups to create new newsgroups in the alt.discuss hierarchy.
WARNING: THIS IS AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM. IT IS STUPID. IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY, YOUR MAIL WILL BE IGNORED.
The steps in creating a new alt.discuss newsgroup are:
Proposing a new newsgroup
Cancelling a newsgroup proposal
Voting for a proposed newsgroup
And while we're at it...
Deleting an existing newsgroup (you can't)
To create a new alt.discuss newsgroup, someone must first "propose" it. This is done by sending email to advotes@vote.munitions.com with a Subject line of "propose alt.discuss.group-name", i.e., if you wanted to propose the creation of alt.discuss.lightbulbs, you would send in email with a Subject of
Subject: propose alt.discuss.lightbulbs
The body of the email should describe what the newsgroup would be used for. If you send in a proposal, the charter for the newsgroup (whatever you put in the body of the proposal) will be posted to alt.discuss.config under your name.
WARNING: when you propose a group, that doesn't constitute a vote for it. You must still send in a vote for a group that you propose as a separate piece of email.
Each WebTV box (not account) can only send in one newsgroup proposal in a 30 day period. Additional proposals sent from a particular WebTV box will be silently ignored. If a vote is cancelled by its proposer, another group can be proposed from that box immediately. This allows someone to change their mind about a newsgroup they've proposed.
Subject: cancel alt.discuss.lightbulbs
Subject: vote yes alt.discuss.group-name
Subject: vote no alt.discuss.group-name
Each WebTV unit gets a single vote for AND against each proposed newsgroup. In other words, one box, one vote each way. This is to prevent people from voting over and over again by creating and deleting accounts. You are allowed to vote both for and against the same group, in which case your votes cancel each other out. Once you have voted, you cannot undo your vote. Voting more than once is a harmless waste of time. You can send as many votes as you want from as many accounts as you want, but only one will be counted on the "for" side and only one on the "against" side.
Votes are tallied every night at 1 A.M. If a newsgroup proposal has 50 more yes votes than no votes when the votes are tallied and the vote has been going on for at least 7 days, the newsgroup is created. When a new group is created, an article announcing it is posted to alt.discuss.config and alt.discuss.announce.
The vote for a particular newsgroup only goes on for 60 days. If the group hasn't been created by then, the vote is cancelled. Also, if a proposal doesn't get any yes or no votes for 30 days in a row, the vote is cancelled. When a vote is cancelled, a notice is posted in alt.discuss.config.
If a group doesn't receive any "yes" votes in the first 7 days after it has been proposed, the vote is cancelled and a notice is posted in alt.discuss.config.
If a vote fails for any of the reasons described above, that same newsgroup (in other words, the EXACT same name) cannot be proposed again for 60 days after the date that the vote is terminated. Note that cancelling a newsgroup proposal does not constitute a failed vote.
Some people, to make voting for an alt.discuss group easier, will make a web page available, either on a non-WebTV site or in a news article, which contains "voting buttons." Both "yes" and "no" buttons may be provided, or only one or the other. By clicking on the appropriate button, you cause a piece of email to be sent in your name to advotes@vote.munitions.com containing your vote. While this is a clever idea, it is a bad way to cast your vote. You are depending on someone else to both cast your vote correctly and to cast it the way you want them to. There have been many cases in which voting buttons failed to send a correctly formatted email message to the vote-counting bot. All of these votes were ignored. There have also been cases where a button claiming to represent a "no" vote actually sent a "yes" vote for the group. It's possible that there has also been voting button fraud going the other way, where both buttons caused you to vote against the group.
If it can be determined with certainty that an alt.discuss group has been created through voting fraud, that group will be permanently deleted without warning. Any alt.discuss news article which contains fraudulent voting buttons will be deleted and a request will be sent to "abuse" requesting that the poster's WebTV subscription be suspended or cancelled.
WARNING: email replies to this message or to any other message originating from "nobody" are automatically discarded without being read. Questions and comments about this voting system should be posted to alt.discuss.config.
Here are examples of Subject lines which caused the
incoming article to be IGNORED:
alt.discuss Newsgroup Creation Rules
(Modified 11 Dec 1999)
Before you can create a new newsgroup in the alt.discuss hierarchy, you must choose a name for the newsgroup and compose a charter which describes what the newsgroup will be used for. It is strongly recommended that you "pre-propose" your newsgroup before following the steps given below. If you post an article in news:alt.discuss.config describing the newsgroup and the name you'd like it to have, it is likely that you will receive quite a few responses (possibly contradictory) suggesting better names, improvements to the charter, or pointing you to existing newsgroups which fulfil the same function as the one you're proposing. Which advice you take (if any) is up to you, but a new newsgroup with a poorly-chosen name, an incoherent charter, or which duplicates the function of an existing alt.discuss group is more likely to be defeated.
The steps in creating a new alt.discuss newsgroup are:
Proposing a new newsgroup
Cancelling a newsgroup proposal
Voting for a proposed newsgroup
Abusing the System
And while we're at it...
Deleting an existing newsgroup (it's automatic)
To create a new alt.discuss newsgroup, someone must first "propose" it. This is done by going to http://www.munitions.com/~advotes/advotes.cgi and selecting the link entitled "Propose Creation of a New alt.discuss Newsgroup". You will be presented with a form which contains entries for the newsgroup name, the charter and a one-line description of the newsgroup which will be shown with the newsgroup name in the WebTV browser. The newsgroup name MUST begin with alt.discuss. and you MUST provide a charter. The one-line description is optional.
The newsgroup name consists of a series of components separated by periods. Each component of the name must begin with either a letter or a number and may contain letters [a-z], numbers [0-9], hyphens(-) and underbars (_). It may not contain adjacent underbars or hyphens, (i.e., "--", "-_", "_-", or "__".) Each component must be no more than 20 characters long, and the name must contain no more than 10 components, including the 2 "alt.discuss" components. These rules are enforced by the CGI script on www.munitions.com - it will reject any newsgroup name that violates them.
The charter should describe what the newsgroup would be used for. The system will reject charters that are empty or which contain only whitespace.
When you propose a new alt.discuss newsgroup, an article announcing the proposal and containing the charter will be posted to alt.discuss and alt.discuss.config.
It is important to realize that there is no way for the system on www.munitions.com to determine who has entered a newsgroup proposal. You should not assume that a username in the charter of a proposal means anything.
If the group you propose would create a new top-level name in alt.discuss (for example, alt.discuss.newname, where no other newsgroup has alt.discuss.newname in its name), it will require 100 more votes for the group than against it to get it created. If your newsgroup does not create a new top-level name (for example, you want to create alt.discuss.newname.mytopic and alt.discuss.newname is already part of of the name of some other group), it will require 50 more votes for the group than against to pass it.
The vote for a new newsgroup goes on for a minimum of 7 days and a maximum of 30 days, If at the end of the first 7 days, a group has received no "for" votes, the vote for that newsgroup is cancelled and no group with that name can be proposed for the 180 days after the failure of that vote. The votes for all of the existing proposals are tallied at 1 AM PST each morning. If , at that time, a proposal has existed for more than 7 days and has a sufficient margin of for votes over against votes (depending on whether or not it creates a new top-level alt.discuss name), the group is created and the vote ends. If, at the end of 30 days, the proposal still doesn't have a great enough margin of for votes over against votes, the vote is cancelled and no newsgroup with that name can be proposed again for 180 days after the date on which the vote failed.
The charter for a new newsgroup can be revised by an account on the box from which it was proposed during the first five days after it was proposed. The charter can be revised up to 3 times. Each time the charter is revised, the new version is posted to alt.discuss and alt.discuss.config. To revise a charter, go to http://www.munitions.co\ m/~advotes/advotes.cgi and clicking on the link labelled "Revise the Charter for Your alt.discuss Newsgroup Proposal". When you go to revise the charter, you will be told how many more times you will be allowed to revise it.
WARNING: when you propose a group, that doesn't constitute a vote for it. You still need to vote for the group you've proposed.
Each WebTV box (not account) can issue one newsgroup proposal in a 30 day period. If a proposal has been issued from your WebTV box in the last 30 days, clicking on the Proposal link will bring up a message telling you how many days you have to wait before you can propose another newsgroup. If a vote is cancelled by an account on the proposer's box, another group can be proposed from that box immediately. This allows someone to change their mind about a newsgroup they've proposed. However, when a proposal is cancelled, the newsgroup name cannot be proposed again by anyone for 180 days after the cancellation.
An account on the box where a new newsgroup proposal originated can cancel that proposal by going to http://www.munitions.com/~advotes/advotes.cgi and clicking on the link labelled "Cancel Your alt.discuss Newsgroup Proposal". If a proposal has been received from that box, you will be offered the opportunity to confirm that you really want to cancel the proposal.
When a proposal is cancelled, no one can propose a newsgroup having that name for the next 180 days.
You can vote for or against a proposed newsgroup by going to http://www.munitions.com/~advotes/advotes.cgi and clicking on the link labelled "Vote for a Proposed alt.discuss Newsgroup". You will be offered a list of all of the ongoing newsgroup proposals. Clicking on the proposed newsgroup name will show you the current version of the charter for the group. You will be presented with "for" and "against" buttons with which to vote. If you have already voted on a group, there will be a single button on the right side labelled ""Cancel Previous Vote". You may cancel your vote, then vote again if you choose. When you either cast a vote or cancel your previous vote, the page will be updated. DO NOT HIT BACK or you will be shown the page as it existed before you voted/cancelled. If you do hit "back", hit "reload" to see the current state of the page. Use the links at the top of the revised page to navigate the voting site.
Each WebTV unit gets a single vote for or against each proposed newsgroup. In other words, one box, one vote. This is to prevent people from voting over and over again by creating and deleting accounts.
There is no mechanism for requesting that an existing alt.discuss newsgroup be deleted; however, an alt.discuss newsgroup will be deleted automatically if no articles are posted in it for 14 consecutive days.
Certain newsgroups which seasonally alternate between having many articles and having none will be excluded from deletion.