From Newsgroup: news.announce.newgroups

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the following unmoderated newsgroups.

comp.unix.sys5.misc
comp.unix.sys5.r4


DISTRIBUTION:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
comp.unix.misc
comp.unix.sys5.misc
comp.unix.sys5.r4


PROPONENT: Marco Moock <mmoock@big-8.org>


RATIONALE:

There are various groups in comp.unix.* that are not used regularly.

I propose to delete groups that are not used well and to direct the
people to more general groups like comp.unix.misc in case they want to
discuss the topics they special groups covered.
If people declare interest in using them, I suggest to not delete them.


DISCUSSION SO FAR:

Discussion took place primarily in news.groups.proposals with some
further posts in news.groups. Responses were received in the threads
"RFD: Remove comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc and comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc" (in news.groups.proposals) and "RFD: Remove comp.unix.user-friendly" (in news.groups.proposals and news.groups). No responses were received in
the thread "RFD: Remove comp.unix.sys5.misc and comp.unix.sys5.r4".
However, all of the points raised could be applicable to any of the five newsgroups currently under consideration, and therefore we have collated
all of the responses into a single summary covering all five groups.

Computer Nerd Kev argues that it is better to have separate newsgroups
to discuss old platforms, as some users in the more general groups may
not welcome discussions of old unmaintained software.

Julien +LIE supports the proposals but suggests that a mass deletion of
unused groups would be more efficient than removing groups a few at a
time.

Jesse Rehmer and ReK2 Hispagatos believe that a long list of newsgroups
where many have had no traffic for years is discouraging for new users
and makes it hard to find relevant groups.

Computer Nerd Kev and Winston both note that they personally subscribe
to groups with no traffic, and therefore lack of activity is not
necessarily an indication that nobody has any interest in the group.

noel, sticks, yeti, and DrunkenThon all expressed concern that removing
the groups would also remove valuable historical discussions associated
with those groups. Scott Dorsey countered that news service providers typically do not guarantee that old posts will remain available
indefinitely in any case, and an archive server should not remove old
posts if the group no longer exists. Todd McComb suggested that it would
be more productive for anyone concerned about the availability of
historical posts to direct their efforts at improving the state of
Usenet archiving.

Adam Kerman and Steve Bonine both consider the proposed changes a "make-
work" activity that achieves nothing useful.


GROUPS:

comp.unix.sys5.misc
Versions of System V which predate Release 3

Charter:
Older versions of System V are still in use, however, and there should
be a home for discussion of new releases. Thus the proposal to create "c.u.sys5.misc".

History:
comp.unix.sys5.misc is an unmoderated newsgroup which passed its vote
for creation by 252:50 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 17
Sep 1992.

Rationale:
1 message in 2011
This operating system isn't developed anymore.
If there is need for discussion, more general groups can be used.


comp.unix.sys5.r4
Discussing System V Release 4.

Charter:
System V Release 4 has been an even bigger success than SVR3, not only
on the IBM PC but also on the Amiga and other proprietary
architectures. Thus the proposal to create "c.u.sys5.r4".

History:
comp.unix.sys5.r4 is an unmoderated newsgroup which passed its vote
for creation by 258:50 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 17
Sep 1992.

Rationale:
Last thread in 2010, last message in 2012.
This operating system isn't developed anymore.
If there is need for discussion, more general groups can be used.


PROCEDURE:

Those who wish to comment on this request to remove this newsgroup
should subscribe to news:news.groups.proposals and participate in the
relevant threads in that newsgroup.

To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to news.groups.proposals.

All discussion of active proposals should be posted to
news.groups.proposals.

If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, the
discussion may be crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken
to ensure that all discussion appears in news.groups.proposals as
well.

For more information on the newsgroup removal process, please see https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Removing_newsgroups


HISTORY OF THIS RFD:

2025-10-10: 1st RFD (remove)
2025-11-15: 2nd RFD (remove)
--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

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