Until now there has been no widely perceived need for a formal
management procedure for the scot.* news hierarchy. This situation now
appears to be changing, driven by two major factors:

*   There is a perception that, if there were a formal procedure with
    a recognised control function, ISPs would be more likely to carry
    scot.* newsgroups and to honour newgroup messages.

*   Scott Larnach, who has voluntarily god-fathered the hierarchy for 
    many years, would now like to be relieved of the burden.

This message is intended to stimulate discussion of *whether* we need
a formal procedure, and if so, what style of formal procedure.

The experience of the UK hierarchy certainly seems to show that an
open formal process can generate far more heat than light and can lead
to considerable personal abuse of the volunteers who operate the
process. However, the process is admirably open, and seems generally
to work; this is a potential model.

I propose (and clearly, I have no democratic right to do this, and
no-one can have until there is a process):

* That we discuss this here until the 10th October

* That if there is no obvious concensus we then move to a vote
    (if there is anyone here with experience as a vote-taker, now is
    the time to volunteer; otherwise I will do it)

Broadly, my view is that we should elect, periodically (say annually)
a committee of four 'user' members, and invite the news admins of
two ISPs (say Scotland Online and Demon), and two large acedemic
sites. The committee would appoint a control person from among its
members.

People wanting to change a scot.* newsgroup would send an RFD to
control, who would post it to scot.announce (a group which doesn't
currently have huge ammounts of traffic), and discussion could
reasonably take place in scot.general.

-- 
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon

        to err is human, to lisp divine
                                 ;; attributed to Kim Philby, oddly enough.