Removal of microsoft.* newsgroups (was: Re: Other servers)

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi Steve,

Looking at my own active file, their groups don't appear to be moderated
so articles are accepted from any newsserver they are posted to. If
Microsoft decides to withdraw their contribution to those groups, that
is of course their choice but without moderation they can't dictate
their choice to anyone else.
According to my control file, I've delegated authority for the creation

Which corresponds to a simple mirror of the msnews.microsoft.com active file.

As the FAQ for these control articles mentions:
http://www.trigofacile.com/divers/usenet/clefs/microsoft-faq.txt


Who administers the « microsoft.* » hierarchy?
----------------------------------------------

The hierarchy is administered by Microsoft and their public news server
<news://msnews.microsoft.com/> is available from everywhere and allows
a bidirectional feed of articles within « microsoft.* ».

Besides, their news administrators often add and remove groups from
their news server. However, they do not send control articles to
propagate such changes. In fact, they used to; but it has been years
since they last did that. That is why, I made up my mind in April 2007
and decided to send such control articles myself.


Where can I find the current list of Microsoft newsgroups?
----------------------------------------------------------

The current list of valid Microsoft newsgroups can be found either in
their news server <news://msnews.microsoft.com/> (the only official
and authoritative source) or in the checkgroups file I maintain
<http://usenet.trigofacile.com/microsoft-checkgroups.txt>.
The current list is also monthly posted in « news.lists.misc ».


(N.B.: News Guy, it is useless asking questions about the notion of
"official" or "authoritative" list. Already answered. The notion
here for these control articles is to reflect the list available from
the *syncable server* msnews.microsoft.com.)


As I already told, if somebody wants to go on "maintaining" the hierarchy
and give it another life that it never was my intent on doing (I am just
mirroring the current list of newsgroups in msnews.microsoft.com),
he has to speak up now, provide a public PGP key and send control articles.

I can mention his PGP key in the checkgroups (in news.lists.misc)
and rmgroup control articles I will send, so that it could be known to
news administrators who currently follow my control messages.

As I know who that is and hold them in very high regard, I see no reason
to change it. I would though hope for plenty of warning should deletion
of the hierarchy be planned.

Do you have ideas of how to send proper warnings that would suit you
and other news administrators?

Initial checkgroups (and not the final one). Then sending only a few rmgroup
control articles at the beginning? For instance one per day during a couple
of weeks? The text contained in the control article will explain what
is happening.

Followup to news.admin.hierarchies.

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi Steve,

It interests me too. Of course if MS decide to make an issue of it then
I'll probably comply with their wishes but I can't see that there's any
harm up until that point in continuing to run a bunch of Newsgroups for
people who have an interest in using them. Hopefully MS will be big
enough to see that discussion about their products is a good thing,
wherever it happens.

The problem is that we would then need to create new microsoft.public.*
newsgroups so as to have proper discussions about new Microsoft products.
Otherwise, the hierarchy, as it currently is, is obsolescent.

The right move for people would currently be to use comp.* or any
local hierarchies (fr.*, de.*). They would be able to speak about
their Microsoft products there.
And, as it was already mentioned before by Tim, groups could be
created on comp.* if need be (or current ones used).

[Steve Crook]

On Sat, 22 May 2010 15:13:29 +0200, Julien ÉLIE wrote in

Post by Julien ÉLIE
The problem is that we would then need to create new microsoft.public.*
newsgroups so as to have proper discussions about new Microsoft products.
Otherwise, the hierarchy, as it currently is, is obsolescent.

Yes, which comes back to the question of hierarchy maintenance once
more. If nobody is prepared to take on the task and grant it the time
it requires, then there's little point in preserving it.

Post by Julien ÉLIE
The right move for people would currently be to use comp.* or any
local hierarchies (fr.*, de.*). They would be able to speak about
their Microsoft products there.
And, as it was already mentioned before by Tim, groups could be
created on comp.* if need be (or current ones used).

In many respects I like this idea best of all. I don't really see why
microsoft needs a hierarchy in its own right when all its groups would
fit nicely in comp.microsoft. Of course this will mean a lot of effort
on somebodies part to get the required groups through the B8MB but
that's not such a bad thing. It's certainly a good opportunity for
weeding out the dead groups and reorganising the good stuff.

[Whiskers]

Post by Julien ÉLIE
Hi Steve,

It interests me too. Of course if MS decide to make an issue of it then
I'll probably comply with their wishes but I can't see that there's any
harm up until that point in continuing to run a bunch of Newsgroups for
people who have an interest in using them. Hopefully MS will be big
enough to see that discussion about their products is a good thing,
wherever it happens.

The problem is that we would then need to create new microsoft.public.*
newsgroups so as to have proper discussions about new Microsoft products.
Otherwise, the hierarchy, as it currently is, is obsolescent.
The right move for people would currently be to use comp.* or any
local hierarchies (fr.*, de.*). They would be able to speak about
their Microsoft products there.
And, as it was already mentioned before by Tim, groups could be
created on comp.* if need be (or current ones used).

It's started:

From: "Jeff Gaines" <***@yahoo.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.config, microsoft.public.windows.64bit.general
Subject: alt Group For 64 Bit Windows
Date: 20 May 2010 15:34:14 GMT
Message-ID: <***@news.individual.net>

There have been a few Windows groups in alt.os.* for years.

I don't see any insuperable difficulty with letting the existing
microsoft.public.* groups to continue, ideally with someone acting as a
recognised source of control messages to remove defunct groups as
necessary; any new groups that people seem to want could be created in
(eg) alt.os.* or a new alt.os.windows.* or alt.os.microsoft.*

Given Microsoft's corporate decision to phase out its own NNTP server, it
seems to me to be precipitate to remove microsoft.public.* groups from all
other servers purely on the basis of the groups no longer listed on
Microsoft's server - after all, no-one seems to be suggesting that all the
groups listed on the vanishing Duke news-server should be removed
everywhere else just because they are being removed from that one server
;))