back to my rail trivia pageAt that time, I suggested a name of 'aus.models.railway', however this quickly changed to the current name of 'aus.rail.models' before the initial CFV (Call For Votes) was circulated in the then-very-new 'aus.rail' newsgroup (I'd played the primary role in creating 'aus.rail' a couple of years earlier).
Following this is the text of my original RFC, and it's included here to act as a marker point to show how things have progressed compared to my original proposal:
Newsgroups: aus.general,aus.rail Distribution: aus Subject: RFC - creation of 'aus.models.railway' newsgroup? I know this is probably not the right place to post this article, but it seems the most appropriate to me. 8-) What I would to do is to propose the creation of a new newsgroup, 'aus.models.railway', that will cater for the needs of Australian model railway enthusiasts. I am basing my proposal on a similar one put forward and accepted for creation of 'rec.models.railroad' in the past. Why create a seperate group? Well, as there is no charter for 'aus.rail' (at least not that I have seen?) stating it's scope, I will define the scope of 'aus.rail', and that of the proposed 'aus.models.railway'. 'aus.rail', by inference, covers all aspects of discussion about Australian prototype railways, including rail preservation. This seems to be the accepted definition, since I have not yet seen many postings on railway modelling topics (at least not that I've noticed) in this newsgroup. 'aus.models.railway', by being created, would fill a void and provide an avenue for modellers of Australian railways to discuss matters appropriate to the modelling field. Of course, there is naturally some overlap between prototype and model issues when it comes to discussion of detailing, research, etc., but I feel that there is sufficient distinction between prototype and modelling discussion to warrant the creation of 'aus.models.railway' as a seperate newsgroup. At present, using the 'rec.railroad' and 'rec.models.railroad' example, the users of these two groups seem happy with their progress so far as acceptence by the wider Usenet community is concerned. With the 'aus.xxx' groups, this wider Usenet community is not necessarily a good base on which to judge acceptence, since these groups are specifically created to cater for a majority-Australian audience on majority-Australian topics. Also, many 'aus.xxx' groups do not travel outside of the .au domain, although those that do (I believe that 'aus.rail' does?) do not seem to be attracting any complaints. I therefore propose that a group be created for Australian model railway enthusiasts. I propose that it be called either 'aus.rail.modelling', or, to follow the Usenet method used by the rec.xxx newsgroup series, 'aus.models.railway'. I would expect that the second suggested name would be more appropriate, because it allows for the creation of other newsgroups under the 'aus.models.xxx' series at a later date if other modelling groups wish to have their own newsgroup to cater for their area of interest.It's interesting to compare this RFC to the current 'aus.rail.models' newsgroup and see what's changed, but I think the basic thrust of the newsgroup has retained it's core direction...
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this link doesn't work for you, my email address is
'craigd@lios.apana.org.au'.