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FWD: RFD: comp.specification.larch, comp.specification.misc


------- Forwarded Message

From: gaf@cam.ov.com (Gary A Feldman)
Date: 14 Mar 1995 12:09:26 -0500
Subject: RFD: comp.specification.larch, comp.specification.misc
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.specification,comp.specification.z
Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net


                      Request for Discussion (RFD)

Part 1:

Proposed Newsgroup:  comp.specification.larch
Status:              unmoderated
Distribution:        worldwide
Summary:             Discussion relating to the Larch family of formal
                     formal specification languages
Proponents:          Gary Feldman <gaf@cam.ov.com>


Part 2:

Proposed Renaming:   comp.specification -> comp.specification.misc
Status:              unchanged (unmoderated, worldwide)
Summary:             General discussion of formal specification methods

This is a two part RFD.

Par 1 is a formal Request for Discussion on the creation of an
unmoderated newsgroup for discussion of issues related to the
Larch family of formal specification languages, and related
methodologies.  The purpose of the group is to relieve sporadic
congestion on the Larch interest mailing list, as well as making
up-to-date information about Larch more readily available to the
Computer Science research community.  It is parallel to the
comp.specification.z newsgroup (which serves a similar role for
the Z formal specification language).

Part 2 is a request to rename the existing comp.specification
newsgroup to be comp.specification.misc.  This is consistent with current
conventions, primarily to distinguish hierarchies (comp.specification.*)
from specific newsgroups.

The votes for these two parts will be handled separately.

This RFD has been posted in accordance with the Guidelines for
Newsgroup Creation. Its language is based on previously submitted
RFDs (and in some cases, just plain copied). The RFD is being
cross-posted to the following relevant news groups:

        news.announce.newgroups, news.groups,
        comp.specification, comp.specification.z

Followups to this RFD are to be posted only to news.groups, where
the actual discussion is to take place.

PROPOSED CHARTER

The comp.specification.larch newsgroup will be open to discusison on all
aspects of Larch.  This includes, but isn't necessarily limited to,
technical discussions, discussions of practical application, stylistic
issues, discussions of the mathematics underlying Larch, discussion
of any and all Larch Interface Languages, announcements of publications,
trait libraries, and software, discussions of particular Larch tools
(including bug reports that may be of interest to the general Larch
community, but not as a substitute for reporting uninteresting bugs to the
maintainer), etc.

The charter for the renamed comp.specification.misc will be unchanged from
the existing charter for comp.specification, i.e. general discussion of
formal specification methods, including discussion of specific methodologies
that do not have their own newsgroup.

RATIONALE

As indicated above, the proposed Larch newsgroup is consistent with
the existing hierarchy.  The traffic rate on the Larch mail list
varies, but recently has produced spikes that make it difficult for
participants to handle the various discussions.  Furthermore, as a
mailing list it has appeared to be much more intimidating to new users
than a newsgroup would be, thus inhibiting their participation.

Discussions on the Larch mailing list are most frequently technical in
nature, specific to Larch, and uninteresting to the other comp.specification
readers.  While one might consider that traffic on the existing
comp.specification newsgroup is light enough to handle additional
Larch traffic, we fully expect that traffic patterns will match the
existing traffic patterns.  Specifically, current traffic on
comp.specification.z usually exceeds that on comp.specification; we
would likewise expect traffic on comp.specification.larch to exceed
that of the general newgroup.  Hence, to put this on the general
newsgroup would be unfair to other participants in the general
newsgroup, as well as being unfair to other specification
methodologies (and their proponents) that might be lost among the
Larch discussion.

The rationale for renaming comp.specification to be comp.specification.misc
is to conform to the currently recommended naming strategy.  This should have
been done when comp.specification.z was created, but was overlooked.  This
benefits both site newsgroup administrators and participants, by making
the distinctions between the newsgroups clearer.  Please try to catch up on
existing discussions concerning this strategy in news.groups, before
adding to the discussion.

PROCEDURE

Please post any response to this message to NEWS.GROUPS.  If you use
the followup feature on your newsreader this should happen automatically.
It is important to understand that all discussions about the merits of
this proposal should occur on news.groups.

FUTURE CALL FOR VOTES

The votes for comp.specification.larch and comp.specification.misc will
be handled separately; they can both pass, both fail, or one could pass
and the other could fail.

After a discussion period of 21-30 days, unless the discussion indicates
a need to resubmit a new RFD, there will be a Call For Votes (CFV) posted
to the same groups as this RFD. The voting period will be at least 21 days.
If the new group passes by receiving 100 more YES votes than NO votes and
(at least) twice as many YES votes as NO votes, it will be created.  Likewise
for the renaming.

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