Greetings,

A while back on the US MEMS mailing list there was discussion on creating a
Usenet newsgroup for MEMS and MST. For those who are not familiar with the
Usenet, it is a world-wide network of over 9000 discussion groups. A newsgroup
(with world-wide propagation) can have a readership of anywhere from 200 to
200,000 people. Most institutes have a Usenet news feed along with Internet
connectivity, and with news browsing software, you can search for, read and
subscribe to any group, world-wide, with a couple of key strokes.

With the existing mailing lists, discussion on MEMS topics are confined to
those who can find out about the lists and subscribe. In addition, information
discussed within each of these groups is typically independent of the other
groups. I'm sure there have been discussions that have taken place on one list
that everyone could have benefited from. A Usenet newsgroup would allow
everyone, world-wide, to participate in discussion concurrently.

Another reason I am attempting to start this newsgroup is to bring the science
further into the realm of the general public. By opening up discussion to
people with expertise in other areas who might have fresh new ideas it's
possible that these people will come up with a novel approach to a problem that
the experts dismissed out of hand due to established principles.

While the current mailing lists are crucial for exchange between people in our
field, I think starting this newsgroup will open up a whole new avenue for the
advancement of our science

In summary, creating a newsgroup for micromachining will help the science
develop in a number of ways. Firstly, it will allow a more uniform circulation
of knowledge amongst individuals and groups in our field. It will also make it
easier for so called "laymen" to learn about the existence of
micromachining. This, I feel, will be good for the development of our science
in the long run.

The first step in the process of creating a newsgroup is coming up with a
viable RFD (request for discussion). I have written the basic version of this
RFD and am posting it to three mailing lists related to micromachining, one
based in the USA, one in Europe and one in Canada. It will be a structured
version of much of what I've written here.

Normally one would post the RFD directly to the news groups:
news.announce.newgroups and news.groups where debate on the charter of the
group would take place for one month. Often there is much discussion of little
points and nuances that prolong the debate. Sometimes second and third RFDs
have to be issued.

By posting to these mailing lists first, I hope that we can all iron out the
charter of the group beforehand. This will greatly reduce any unnecessary or
counter productive debate on the Usenet. I have seen more than a couple
newsgroups fail to pass due to needless squabbling. Once we have polished the
RFD, I will post it on the appropriate Usenet newsgroups and a world-wide 30
day discussion can take place. Anyone with access to the Usenet can continue to
take part in the debate. Hopefully we will have reached a reasonable consensus
here and can be supportive of the resulting RFD during that discussion
period. I would estimate that over 99% of the people reading this message have
access to the Usenet.

After the 30 day discussion period has passed, if all the fine points of the
group charter have been ironed out (and presumably most will have been
previously dealt with in the mailing lists), then I will issue a CFV (call for
votes). This will include voting guidelines, the cutoff dates, the final
charter and an embryonic FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions about micromachining)
for the group (which I hope people here will be able to help me with).

Voting software run by a neutral party will then take votes by email for one
month. At the end of the month, if 2/3 of the votes are YES and there are 100
more YES votes than NO votes, then the group is created and propagated around
the world.

Here are a couple of major (perhaps) sticking points that I will bring up in
this introductory message that are reflected in the actual RFD that we will be
discussing.

1) Newsgroup name. I think out of the eight standard newsgroup hierarchies,
"sci." is reasonably evident. Since this is a fairly unique topic, I think it
should have its own hierarchy after that. In other words, I don't think we
should place it in the sci.engr. or the sci.physics. hierarchy.

The real question becomes what to name the group itself. sci.mems or sci.mst
are possibilities, but these acronyms won't be apparent to new comers. The name
should be as descriptive as possible, trying to encourage people who are not
knowledgeable of the science to take an interest and contribute to discussion.

sci.microsystems or sci.micromachines seems like two good
possibilities. Microsystems may be more accurate, micromachines might be more
descriptive for those who are newcomers.

2) Moderation. Moderation is a mechanism whereby each and every post can be
screened by a moderator for appropriateness. Posts not conforming to the
charter will typically be returned with an explanation. Unmoderated groups are
an open architecture in which each person posting is responsible for his own
content.

I have the following reasons to present the group as unmoderated. As this is a
developing science in many ways, I feel we could benefit with the "stream of
consciousness" that is common on unmoderated newsgroup discussion
threads. Admittedly there is often a high "signal to noise" ratio on many
threads, but most news browsing software allows for a certain amount of
filtering.

I have seen some unmoderated scientific or professional newsgroups become too
crowded with junk posts, but in cases where that happened, the solution was
fairly simple. A moderated group was added to the hierarchy. In our case it
would be sci.microsystems.research or sci.microsystems.moderated, two common
themes on the Usenet.

Historically, successful newsgroups increase in volume of posts and expand to
develop their own sub-hierarchies. Over time our sci.microsystems (or
sci.micromachines) hierarchy might develop the following groups:

        sci.microsystems.research
        sci.microsystems.mems
        sci.microsystems.bio
        sci.microsystems.chem
        sci.microsystems.materials
        sci.microsystems.packaging
        sci.microsystems.processing
etc.

3) The newsgroup description. This is a one-line description that associates
with the group and will be shown on some news readers. It shouldn't be longer
than 50 characters. I propose: "Devices enabled by microstructures."

Finally, unrelated to the actual newsgroup creation, here are directions on how
to subscribe to the various mailing lists that I have sent this message to.

USA
---
Send email to: [email protected]
providing your e-mail address.
Name of list: [email protected] (moderated)

Europe
------
Send email to: [email protected]
containing the phrase: subscribe mstnet
Name of list: [email protected]
(not moderated?)

Canada
------
Send email to Dan Gale at [email protected] with the request to join the MEMS
mailing list.
Name of list: [email protected] (moderated)



Best regards,

-Chris Raum

--
.+'''+.  Christopher Raum - [email protected]
R A U M  Faculty of Engineering, University of Regina
`+.,.+'  Regina, Saskatchewan, S4S-0A2, Canada
         Tel: (306)565-2960 Fax: (306)585-4855