CFV: comp.software.international

[asolovay@geoworks.com (Andrew Solovay)]

Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!lambda.msfc.nasa.gov!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bounce-back
From: asolovay@geoworks.com (Andrew Solovay)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.chinese.computing,bit.software.international,comp.std.internat,sci.lang.japan
Subject: CFV: comp.software.international
Followup-To: poster
Date: 22 Mar 1994 17:25:47 -0500
Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers (UVV)
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Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net
Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net
Expires: 13 Apr 1994 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <comp.software.international-CFV1@uunet.uu.net>
References: <comp.software.international-RFD1@uunet.uu.net>
Reply-To: votes@geoworks.com (Andrew Solovay's vote-taking alias)
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                     FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
            unmoderated group comp.software.international

NOTE: To vote, please use the ballot at the end of this CFV. Trim your
      response to just the ballot. Please make sure to send your vote to
      "votes@geoworks.com".

Newsgroups line:
comp.software.international     Finding, using, writing non-English software.


Votes must be received by 23:59:59 GMT, 12 Apr 1994.

This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party.  For voting
questions only contact asolovay@geoworks.com.  For questions about the
proposed group contact Dan Kegel <dank@alumni.caltech.edu>.

The vote-taker will send a copy of each CFV to the
<ISO10646@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu> (a mailing list for discussing multi-byte
character sets) and <ietf-charsets@INNOSOFT.COM> (a mailing list for
discussing how to represent plain text) shortly after it is posted to
news.announce.newgroups. After the official RESULTs are posted, he
will post an abridged copy of the RESULTs (without the full list of
voters) to those mailing lists.


CHARTER

    The unmoderated Usenet newsgroup comp.software.international will provide a 
    forum to discuss software that can handle 'international', i.e. 
    non-English, text.  The encouraged topics will include
    1) How to write, where to find, and how to use internationalized software
    2) What hardware/operating systems support internationalized software,
       (e.g. how do I do Asian word processing on MS-DOS/MacOS/MS-Windows-NT?
       what hardware/operating systems are available in other countries?
       what is DOS/V?  How do I read a font from BIOS?  How does X11R6
       support Asian keyboard input methods?)
    3) How to work with international de jure and de facto standards for 
       representation of text, e.g. ASCII, JIS, Shift-JIS, Big5, EUC, GB2312, 
       KSC5601, ISO2022, ISO10646, and Unicode, and why some standards are
       popular in some countries & not others.
    4) How to process text in various languages (e.g. how do you strip
       vowels from Hebrew to get the canonical spelling?  How does one
       sort Chinese?  What is a locale file?) 
    5) What magazines, books, and conferences deal with these issues?
    Legal and marketing issues are not expected to be a big part of the group;
    the intent is to help people find, write, and use non-English mono-
    and multi-lingual software.

RATIONALE (written by Dan Kegel <dank@alumni.caltech.edu>.)

    WHY WE NEED THIS GROUP:  There is a pressing need for modern software
    to be able to handle multiple languages- the user community is now 
    international- and existing forums are not adequate:

    ISO10646@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu, an unmoderated mailing list for discussing
    multi-byte character sets; it suffers from being a mailing list rather 
    than a newsgroup.  Perhaps it could be gatewayed to the new group
    for the benefit of those without Usenet access.

    bit.software.international, aka insoft-l@cis.vutbr.cz, a moderated mailing
    list with a very similar charter.  It has recently moved, but remains
    moderated, and has a slow response time.

    comp.std.internat, an unmoderated newsgroup, discusses all manner of 
    standards, and doesn't have much trafic about internationalized software.

    ietf-charsets@INNOSOFT.COM, an unmoderated mailing list for discussing how
    applications on the Internet should represent plain text.  It seems
    to have a very small, quiet readership prone to the occasional screaming
    fit :-)

HOW TO VOTE

Send MAIL to:   votes@geoworks.com
Just Replying should work if you are not reading this on a mailing
list, and if your newsreader honors the "reply-to" line. Double-check
the address before sending your ballot.

Use the ballot provided at the end of this CFV. Put the word "YES" or
"NO" between the brackets before the group name. Trim your response to
just the ballot, but make sure to send the whole ballot (i.e.
everything between the "=-=-=" lines).

You may also use the word ABSTAIN in place of YES/NO - this will not
affect the outcome.  Anything else may be rejected by the automatic
vote counting program.  The votetaker will respond to your received
ballots with a personal acknowledgement by mail - if you do not
receive one within several days, try again.  It's your responsibility
to make sure your vote is registered correctly.

Each person may vote only once, no matter how many accounts he or she
may have. Also, only one ballot will be accepted from any account, no
matter how many people may share it. If more than one vote is received
from any person or any account, only the last vote received will be
counted.

Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final
voting results list. All ballots received are kept in the UVV archives
(including "cancelled" and invalid ballots). The vote files are made
available to the moderator of news.announce.newgroups on request. They
may also, at the discretion of the UVV, be made more widely available
if there is a controversy concerning the vote.



BALLOT:
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comp.software.international Ballot    <CSI-0001> (Don't remove this marker)

Give your real name here:

[Your Vote]  Group
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[         ]  comp.software.international
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