From:	sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu (Charles Sandmann)
Subject:	News Group Results
To:	djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu (DJGPP Mailing List)
Date:	Mon, 27 Feb 1995 10:11:22 -0600 (CST)
Cc:	dj AT ctron DOT com (DJ Delorie)

Thanks to all of you who took the time to send me a note.  The results:

27 Votes Yes
 1 Vote No
 6 Information/No vote

Most comments related to disadvantages of a newsgroup and stated a strong
desire to maintain a mailing list linked to any newsgroup that might be
created.

After some discussion, comp.os.msdos.djgpp seemed to be a better fit,
since there are many non-programming issues which get surfaced on the list.

There are currently 548 subscribers to djgpp, which means around 6% of the
people bothered to reply.  It is probably reasonable to assume that 
most of the other 94% do not have a strong opinion.

To create such a group, we must have AT LEAST a 100 votes for creation
of a comp. area group.

According to guidelines, mailing lists ripe for expansion should have
200+ articles per day or 1000+ subscribers.  Our mailing list averages
26 messages a day and has 548 subscribers (there are an additional 440
djgpp-announce subscribers, which shows some interest, however).  The 
lack of a complete plan for a mail gateway would also be viewed negatively
by some people in a vote.

In summary, there is weakness in the proposal, and it is unlikely to
gain substantial support outside this mailing list.  The current mailing
list interest does not seem adequate to generate the needed votes.

Possible plans of action:
1) Ignore the problem and hope it goes away (move the mailing list)
2) Create an RFD for comp.os.msdos.djgpp, and it if fails, so be it.
3) Create alt.djgpp and see if it gets used at all
4) Inquire about a gnu. group

Once again, this discussion is *NOT* appropriate for the list, so 
send mail directly to this email address (sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu) if
you have any strong opinions or brilliant ideas.  Thanks.

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