From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

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

comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc


DISTRIBUTION:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
comp.unix.misc
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc


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.


GROUPS:

comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc
386BSD operating system.

History:
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc is a unmoderated newsgroup which passed its
vote for creation by 285:87 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on
22 Feb 1995. This groups supersedes the unmoderated groups in the comp.os.386bsd hierarchy, which will all be removed on 26 May 1995.

Charter:
Discussion about 386bsd which does not fall into the area
of coverage of any of the other 386bsd groups. Things
posted here should not be crossposted to the other 386bsd
groups.

Rationale:
Last on-topic message from 2010.
This operating system isn't developed anymore.
If there is need for discussion, more general groups can be used.


comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
BSD/OS operating system.

History:
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc is a unmoderated newsgroup which passed its
vote for creation by 305:69 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on
22 Feb 1995.

Charter:
Discussion about BSD/OS which does not fall into the area
of coverage of any of the other bsdi groups. Things posted
here should not be crossposted to the other bsdi groups.

Rationale:
Last on-topic discussion in 2015
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)
--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

In news.groups.proposals Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> wrote:

Rationale:
Last on-topic message from 2010.
This operating system isn't developed anymore.
If there is need for discussion, more general groups can be used.

Can they though? If someone takes an interest in running these OSs
and picks a group focused on current BSD to discuss them in, aren't
they likely to effectively be told exactly that: "The operating
system isn't developed anymore, go away"? The most active computer
groups tend to be frequented by people who are hostile to users of
unmaintained software (I think Marco Mook has fit this description
himself in the past). Having these separate places to discuss old
platforms is an asset of Usenet to allow it to cater for people
with different interests without unnecessary conflict.
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 10.10.2025 19:22 Uhr Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

In news.groups.proposals Usenet Big-8 Management Board
<board@big-8.org> wrote:

Rationale:
Last on-topic message from 2010.
This operating system isn't developed anymore.
If there is need for discussion, more general groups can be used.

Can they though? If someone takes an interest in running these OSs
and picks a group focused on current BSD to discuss them in, aren't
they likely to effectively be told exactly that: "The operating
system isn't developed anymore, go away"?

I do tell people if there OS is not supported anymore and suggest them
to install a current one due to various reasons. Although, I do not
tell them to go away. There are various folklore groups that have
discussions about ancient operating systems.

The most active computer groups tend to be frequented by people who
are hostile to users of unmaintained software (I think Marco Mook has
fit this description himself in the past). Having these separate
places to discuss old platforms is an asset of Usenet to allow it to
cater for people with different interests without unnecessary
conflict.

I would agree with that if there were people who want to do that - but
the groups listed were inactive for a very long time.
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1760116949muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On Fri, 10 Oct 2025 19:22:29 -0400, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

In news.groups.proposals Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> wrote:

Rationale:
Last on-topic message from 2010.
This operating system isn't developed anymore.
If there is need for discussion, more general groups can be used.

Can they though? If someone takes an interest in running these OSs and
picks a group focused on current BSD to discuss them in, aren't they
likely to effectively be told exactly that: "The operating system isn't developed anymore, go away"? The most active computer groups tend to be frequented by people who are hostile to users of unmaintained software
(I think Marco Mook has fit this description himself in the past).
Having these separate places to discuss old platforms is an asset of
Usenet to allow it to cater for people with different interests without unnecessary conflict.

I don't understand why this at all for UNmoderated groups now, did marco
run out of moderated groups to pick on, he's clearly more at home on
mailing lists than usenet, its not all just about currency, its about
history as well, but many have pointed this out and were ignored, becasue
what marco wants marco thinks he can get, total destruction of usenet,
bad enough he went on his little rampage with unmod'd groups but now
this... just further justification for changing all rmgroup message
entries in control to discard.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> wrote:

On 10.10.2025 19:22 Uhr Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

Having these separate places to discuss old platforms is an
asset of Usenet to allow it to cater for people with different
interests without unnecessary conflict.

I would agree with that if there were people who want to do that - but
the groups listed were inactive for a very long time.

I subscribe to groups in comp.* and elsewhere that have similar or
even less recent discussion. Lately I've also been subscribing to
dead groups on topics I'm less experienced in just to work back
through the archive of old posts on the news server I use.

Sometimes I post or cross-post to such groups. Sometimes I prefer
that to posting in a more active group covering a broader topic
where the regulars are very unlikely to be interested in my
sub-topic, or not even agree with me that it is remotely on-topic.
It works for me and I think it's harmless to keep these groups.

Indeed I think trying to hurd people towards the remaining active
groups will only increase the already troublesome amount of OT
discussion in many of those active groups, which can drive regulars
away from those groups too.
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 12.10.2025 11:29 Uhr noel wrote:

I don't understand why this at all for UNmoderated groups now, did
marco run out of moderated groups to pick on, he's clearly more at
home on mailing lists than usenet, its not all just about currency,
its about history as well, but many have pointed this out and were
ignored, becasue what marco wants marco thinks he can get, total
destruction of usenet, bad enough he went on his little rampage with
unmod'd groups but now this... just further justification for
changing all rmgroup message entries in control to discard.

Please have a look at https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Nan:2011-04-24-result-great-downsizing

The process of removing unused groups is rather old.

PS: From the replies we got so for no one showed interesting in posting
to the groups that are proposed to delete.
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1760261386muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On Sun, 12 Oct 2025 11:37:19 -0400, Marco Moock wrote:

On 12.10.2025 11:29 Uhr noel wrote:

I don't understand why this at all for UNmoderated groups now, did
marco run out of moderated groups to pick on, he's clearly more at home
on mailing lists than usenet, its not all just about currency, its
about history as well, but many have pointed this out and were ignored,
becasue what marco wants marco thinks he can get, total destruction of
usenet, bad enough he went on his little rampage with unmod'd groups
but now this... just further justification for changing all rmgroup
message entries in control to discard.

Please have a look at https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Nan:2011-04-24-result-great-downsizing

The process of removing unused groups is rather old.

and a lot of these things were ative back then, this group has on-topic
post from 2015 here, and who are you to decide whats on topic or not.
usenet is dying, and your expiditing its entry to the grave, you dont see
list admins or forum operators culling off threads because heaven forbid
no one wants to contribute to a 2015 or 2010 thread since the answer to
their question or curiosity is already answered.

PS: From the replies we got so for no one showed interesting in posting
to the groups that are proposed to delete.

of course not, that does not excuse your desire to remove history, and
usenet itself, but we all know you have made this decision, and no
proposal notices anywhere will change your mind.

It is extremely dangerous to have 8 hierachies fate decided by 3 or 4
people, and lets face it most others on this board that keeps voting
itself back in, see something that needs a voting on and will just hit
yeah anyway without actually giving a damn... been there, done that. So
this entire conversation is pointless, its also why I and from my
testing, serveral other free access text groups wont honour rmgroups.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

noel <deletethis@invalid.lan> wrote:

(((...))), its also why I and from my testing, serveral other free
access text groups wont honour rmgroups.

\o/ Thanks!

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Hi Noel,

marco thinks he can get total destruction of usenet

I don't believe at all that's his goal. A bit of cleaning in the very
long list of newsgroups is helpful to better see still active and
relevant newsgroups nowadays.

your desire to remove history

[...]

several other free access text groups wont honour rmgroups

Sending rmgroup articles is not a synonym of removing history.
It is normal and expected that news servers whose aim is to archive
articles and therefore keep history, do not honour rmgroup requests.
Not all news servers retain articles for a life time. If a server keeps articles during let's say 1 year, it is not intended to be used for
historical purpose and it can have a cleaner list of still active
newsgroups for its readers.
--
Julien |eLIE

-2-aFarpaitement-a!-a-+ (Ob|-lix)

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 14.10.2025 16:59 Uhr Julien +LIE wrote:

marco thinks he can get total destruction of usenet

I don't believe at all that's his goal. A bit of cleaning in the very
long list of newsgroups is helpful to better see still active and
relevant newsgroups nowadays.

Exactly that is the case. Occasionally some new users join and to make
them subscribe to a group, there need to be at least some articles per
year in a group. Otherwise the most likely don't subscribe to that.
Long-time readers may also unsubscribe because of no traffic for years.

your desire to remove history

[...]

several other free access text groups wont honour rmgroups

Sending rmgroup articles is not a synonym of removing history.

History of groups is available at isc and the board of various
hierarchies also provide it.
Old articles are being archived. Not every NNTP server is an archive and
most NNTP servers don't have retention longer than some years, so the
groups proposed for deletion do not contain one article.
--
kind regards Marco
Send spam to 1760453945muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On Tue, 14 Oct 2025 16:59:05 -0400, Julien |eLIE wrote:

Hi Noel,

marco thinks he can get total destruction of usenet

I don't believe at all that's his goal. A bit of cleaning in the very
long list of newsgroups is helpful to better see still active and
relevant newsgroups nowadays.

It wont ffect hat at all IMHO, people search for and read/sub to those
groups, they wont care if there is 20K unused groups with history.
Thankfully these people who want to weild there new found power, can only destroy eight hierachies.

your desire to remove history

[...]

several other free access text groups wont honour rmgroups

Sending rmgroup articles is not a synonym of removing history.
It is normal and expected that news servers whose aim is to archive
articles and therefore keep history, do not honour rmgroup requests. Not
all news servers retain articles for a life time. If a server keeps
articles during let's say 1 year, it is not intended to be used for historical purpose and it can have a cleaner list of still active
newsgroups for its readers.

Of course there are some servers who have short retention and there
purpose is to just offer whats "current" some of these are useless for
anyone searching because they have sub 90 days, I've been running usenet servers since early 90's, back then we had 12 months retention - because
we also carried binaries and disks were expensive, now days large
capacity SAS disks are cheap.

The average person will never know what groups are still active or not.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

[in reply to ReK2 Hispagatos <rek2@usenet_reborn.tui>]

My 2 cents on this,
Nobody uses Solaris/AIX/..... and there are plenty of Linux/BSD newsgroups already, so I do not mind if this if really dead to be removed..
Like in the future "if someone decides to pick on this OS..." who?
if we do not already use a classic Unix OS who is going to do it?
most people who will actually run this OS's already use usenet for most part

only my opinion, I am working hard to give a good word for USenet
so the cleaner we can get it and to the point, the easier it is
for new people to enjoy it and be part of their daily computing..

PD: Do not touch the GNU/Linux/BSD* newsgroups tho.. this is very much
very in use.

Happy Hacking
ReK2
--
EfA|rCiryaN+AEfA|EfuNN+AEfA+N+Ari?N+AEfna {gemini,https}://{,rek2.}hispagatos.org - mastodon: @rek2@hispagatos.space [https|gemini]://2600.Madrid - https://hispagatos.space/@rek2

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> wrote:

On 14.10.2025 16:59 Uhr Julien ?LIE wrote:

marco thinks he can get total destruction of usenet

I don't believe at all that's his goal. A bit of cleaning in the very
long list of newsgroups is helpful to better see still active and
relevant newsgroups nowadays.

Exactly that is the case. Occasionally some new users join and to make
them subscribe to a group, there need to be at least some articles per
year in a group. Otherwise the most likely don't subscribe to that.

Occasionally new users also try and advocate for creating new groups on specific sub-topics because they're not comfortable posting about those
topics in the more general groups that already exist, so that argument
for a longer/shorter group list sways both ways. Appeal to some new
users and you'll disappoint others - it's just rearranging deck
chairs on the Titanic.

Also it's almost certain that those new users who do complain about
too many, rather than not enough, groups are really talking about all
the alt.* (etc.) groups carried by the server they're using. Trimming
out groups from comp.* is never going to make a meaningful change
compared to all those, so you might as well retain them and not have
some new user asking for an "alt.386bsd" just because they can't see
for themselves that nobody would talk to them there anyway.
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

In article <10coosn$l42m$2@matrix.hispagatos.org>,
ReK2 Hispagatos <rek2@usenet_reborn.tui> wrote:

Nobody uses Solaris/AIX/.....

Not much discussed in comp.unix.solaris, but...
$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Oracle Solaris"
PRETTY_NAME="Oracle Solaris 11.4"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:oracle:solaris:11:4"
ID=solaris
VERSION=11.4
VERSION_ID=11.4
BUILD_ID=11.4.85.0.1.201.2
HOME_URL="https://www.oracle.com/solaris/" SUPPORT_URL="https://support.oracle.com/"
VARIANT_ID=sru
VARIANT="Support Update"

John
groenveld@acm.org

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> writes:
[...]

History of groups is available at isc and the board of various
hierarchies also provide it.

[...]

What is isc? What is "the board of various hierarchies"? How are
they accessible?
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Greetings.

On 2025-10-13 14:59, noel wrote:

It is extremely dangerous to have 8 hierachies fate decided by 3 or 4
people

If that were truly the case, then neither you nor anyone else would be participating in this community discussion.

RFDs to create, remove, or change newsgroups can be (and have been)
initiated by Usenet users at large, not just the Board itself. At least
as long as I've been a member, all RFDs that we've processed have
followed a set, publically documented procedure that involves an
extended period of community consultation. We often collectively spend
many hours helping the proponents get their initial RFD in order,
publicizing it, reading through the ensuing discussions, and summarizing
them for the second and subsequent iterations of the RFD. We've never
gone against community consensus in the final voting phase -- or at
least, no one has ever accused us of this. In controversial cases where
we could not identify a relatively strong community consensus, we have
decided for the status quo.

By design, Usenet is essentially a trust-based network with no central governance. If server administrators no longer trust the Board's
competence to decide the "fate" of groups in the Big 8, then they're
free to ignore the control messages sent on our behalf, and perhaps
instead recognize those from some other decision-making body that they
feel better reflects their or the community's wishes.

Regards,
Tristan
--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Greetings.

On 2025-10-10 18:22, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

In news.groups.proposals Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org> wrote:

Rationale:
Last on-topic message from 2010.
This operating system isn't developed anymore.
If there is need for discussion, more general groups can be used.

Can they though? If someone takes an interest in running these OSs
and picks a group focused on current BSD to discuss them in, aren't
they likely to effectively be told exactly that: "The operating
system isn't developed anymore, go away"?

There might be an easy way to test this. In this case, the most obvious
"more general group" is comp.unix.bsd.misc. Someone could post to it
asking whether articles on 386BSD or BSD/OS are welcome there. If the
answer is no, then one could go to the next most general group, which
would be comp.unix.misc, and ask the same thing. But I doubt there will
be negative answers in either group, since they are not particularly
active. Most of the users who frequented those groups have probably
left for other venues, and those who remain lurking would probably be
happy for some new traffic.

I've gone ahead and posted such a query to comp.unix.bsd.misc: <10cr6n5$2sn$1@reader2.panix.com>

Regards,
Tristan
--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

Greetings.

On 2025-10-16 08:38, Keith Thompson wrote:

Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> writes:
[...]

History of groups is available at isc and the board of various
hierarchies also provide it.

[...]

What is isc? What is "the board of various hierarchies"? How are
they accessible?

ISC is the Internet Systems Consortium. They maintain an archive of
control messages, RFDs, and similar administrative documents for the Big
8 hierarchy at <https://ftp.isc.org/usenet/>.

Most other newsgroup hierarchies on Usenet are managed by other entities (i.e., not the Big-8 Management Board). Julien |elie has a list of
managed hierarchies, and the corresponding managing organizations, at <http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/>.

Regards,
Tristan
--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 16.10.2025 12:14 Uhr Tristan Miller wrote:

RFDs to create, remove, or change newsgroups can be (and have been) initiated by Usenet users at large, not just the Board itself. At
least as long as I've been a member, all RFDs that we've processed
have followed a set, publically documented procedure that involves an extended period of community consultation. We often collectively
spend many hours helping the proponents get their initial RFD in
order, publicizing it, reading through the ensuing discussions, and summarizing them for the second and subsequent iterations of the RFD.
We've never gone against community consensus in the final voting
phase -- or at least, no one has ever accused us of this. In
controversial cases where we could not identify a relatively strong
community consensus, we have decided for the status quo.

Some hierarchies (IIRC big-8 too in the past) have a voting system
where interested users can directly vote. Not many people are
participating.

In case of this RfD, only a few people ever replied back to the RfD.
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1760609683muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 15.10.2025 14:26 Uhr ReK2 Hispagatos wrote:

[in reply to ReK2 Hispagatos <rek2@usenet_reborn.tui>]

My 2 cents on this,
Nobody uses Solaris/AIX/.....

A customer of the company I work at uses AIX. Some discussions happen
in those groups.

and there are plenty of Linux/BSD
newsgroups already, so I do not mind if this if really dead to be
removed..

Certain dead operating systems are really dead. SysV is from the 80s -
and no one in the last years has posted in the groups.

Like in the future "if someone decides to pick on this
OS..." who? if we do not already use a classic Unix OS who is going
to do it? most people who will actually run this OS's already use
usenet for most part

And those people didn't even reply to the RfD - we didn't receive even
one reply that someone was interested in discussing the topics of the
groups I proposed to delete.
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1760531161muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

On 16.10.2025 09:38 Uhr John D Groenveld wrote:

In article <10coosn$l42m$2@matrix.hispagatos.org>,
ReK2 Hispagatos <rek2@usenet_reborn.tui> wrote:

Nobody uses Solaris/AIX/.....

Not much discussed in comp.unix.solaris, but...
$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Oracle Solaris"
PRETTY_NAME="Oracle Solaris 11.4"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:oracle:solaris:11:4"
ID=solaris
VERSION=11.4
VERSION_ID=11.4
BUILD_ID=11.4.85.0.1.201.2
HOME_URL="https://www.oracle.com/solaris/" SUPPORT_URL="https://support.oracle.com/"
VARIANT_ID=sru
VARIANT="Support Update"

I am curious:
Is that your home system or a system at work?

On which architecture?
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1760600309muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2