For those of you who have access to Usenet newsgroups, you're invited to
comment or at least watch the progress of the proposal in news.groups for the
next month or so. If all goes well, it will be put to a vote sometime around
the 1st of the year.
The existence of a comp.sys.zoomer newsgroup doesn't have much consequence to
zoomer-list subscribers, since there's already a bunch of Zoomer discussion in
various newsgroups. However, it is possible to set up a gateway between the
newsgroup and the mailing list so that Usenet postings to comp.sys.zoomer would
also be mail to zoomer-list and mail to zoomer-list would also be posted to
comp.sys.zoomer. Such a gateway would have an effect on zoomer-list, and I
invite everyone's comments on that. Rather than clutter up everyone's mailboxes
with discussion of this, please direct your comments to brian@grot.starconn.com
and not to the mailing list as a whole. I'll periodically summarize the
comments and mail them to the list.
Here's that RFD:
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This is a Request for Discussion for a new newsgroup, comp.sys.zoomer.
It is being posted to news.announce.newgroups, comp.os.geos, comp.sys.pen,
comp.sys.laptops, comp.sys.palmtops, and comp.sys.handhelds. Follow-ups
should be directed to news.groups.
Proposed Name
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comp.sys.zoomer
Moderation Status
-----------------
Unmoderated.
Charter
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Discussion of all aspects of Zoomer personal digital assistants and related
products, including but not limited to the Casio Z-7000, Tandy Z-PDA,
AST/GRiDpad 2390, and Sharp PT-9000.
Rationale
---------
- The Casio, Tandy, and AST models are handheld (or is that palmtop?) PDAs.
The Sharp model is more of a subnotebook. As such, discussion of Zoomers
in general doesn't fit well in comp.sys.laptops, .palmtops, or .handhelds.
- Zoomers are primarily pen-based and all use the GEOS operating system,
but Zoomer discussions have a different scope than is served by the
charters of either comp.sys.pen or comp.os.geos.
- Other newsgroups for particular PDAs exist in the comp.sys hierarchy.
- There has been quite a bit of Zoomer-specific traffic in comp.sys.pen,
comp.sys.handhelds, comp.sys.palmtops, and comp.os.geos, and there is
an active "zoomer-list" mailing list. I believe that a dedicated newsgroup
is justified, but a whole hierarchy (such as comp.sys.zoomer.misc, .announce,
and .programmer) is probably not needed.
Process
-------
The normal newsgroup creation guidelines will be followed. Discussion will
continue for 30 days from this posting, and after that, a CFV will be
posted if appropriate.
-- -Brian Smithson brian@grot.starconn.com-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- -Brian Smithson brian@grot.starconn.com