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Newsgroups: news.groups,news.announce.newusers,news.answers Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!uunet!walter!qualcom.qualcomm.com!qualcom.qualcomm.com!rdippold From: rdippold@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) Subject: Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion Message-ID: <1993Jul3.000350.253@qualcomm.com> Followup-To: poster Summary: Help with the process of newsgroup proposal, voting, and creation Sender: news@qualcomm.com Nntp-Posting-Host: qualcom.qualcomm.com Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1993 00:03:50 GMT Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Expires: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 00:00:00 GMT Lines: 698 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu news.groups:75199 news.announce.newusers:1119 news.answers:9988 Archive-name: creating-newsgroups/helper Last-modified: 1993/06/29 Version: 1.0 [ JK: Please add me to the faq-maintainers list - thanks. Posted once a month, around the 16th. ] The Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted once a month - Comments to rdippold@qualcomm.com welcome! So you want to create a newsgroup... Wallace Sayre said, "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." He didn't know Usenet; Welcome to the next level. [ If you're more interested in the voting side than the creation side, a good guide for the interested party or voter is the User's Guide to the Changing USENET, maintained by stanley@skyking.oce.orst.edu (John Stanley). ] 1. What This is All About ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Usenet is a loosely knit anarchy - there is no controlling body which forces any site on the net to choose which newsgroups they can carry. Sites can create or remove groups at will - however, they can't expect that everyone else will honor their decisions. Obviously, this can be rather chaotic, so in time a set of customs has evolved to ease the confusion and keep the creation of new groups to a point just below critical mass. Here's how it works: there is a general agreement among Usenet news administrators that groups in the "big seven" (comp., misc., news., rec., sci., soc., talk.) hierarchies will only be honored at their sites if the group passes the "official" voting procedures defined in the Guidelines. Anyone can create a group if they figure out the correct message format to do so, but it will only be carried on a minuscule number of sites, and anyone posting to the group may be greeted to messages claiming that the group is bogus. The Guidelines, which you should read if you want to create a group, can be found in the periodic posting "How to Create a New Usenet Group" in news.announce.newusers, or ftp to ftp.uu.net, go to the directory usenet/news.announce.newusers and get the file "Guidelines". If you don't read this file and the group vote is canceled due to irregularities, you have only yourself to blame. But the Guidelines aren't the whole story. Another set of customs has sprung up around newsgroup votings - mostly because there has been an unfortunate number of vote-takers who have violated their trust. As with Caesar's wife, a vote-taker must be beyond reproach. If you even accidentally violate one of these customs, you may find yourself with a botched vote, a lot of wasted time, and a massive flamewar. The purpose of this document is to help you through this potential minefield. Quick Glossary --------------------------------------------------------------------- CFV Call for votes. See the Guidelines. FAQ Frequently Asked Questions list - many groups have a FAQ periodically posted to answer common questions. Flame A heated attack in a message. Like fires, they spread. Flamefest A general message war containing lots of flames. Mass Ack Mass Acknowledgment - a list of all the people who have voted so far without mentioning how they voted. RFD Request for discussion. See the Guidelines. News admin News administrator. Someone in charge of keeping Usenet news running at a site. These are the people you have to convince to carry your group. General Suggestions --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Why so sanctimonious? A: Because the politics can be so vicious. You can ignore all of this. But in a controversial group proposal, say involving politics, culture, or Star Trek, there are people just waiting for you to breathe wrong so they can call for a vote invalidation. You don't have to satisfy me, you have to satisfy them. These "rules" already exist. Read this now and you could save yourself a lot of hassle in the long run. Q: What's the best way to find out how to propose a group and run a vote? A: Read the guidelines as above, read this document, read news.groups for a few months - you're guaranteed at least one enlightening flamefest. You'll also see plenty of RFDs and CFVs, and see the reaction to them. Q: If I don't violate any of the "official" roles, how can my vote be invalidated? A: Remember, this is all by agreement between system administrators. Any news admin can declare that they will not be carrying a group for any reason. If it's a respected admin, others may join. This can snowball to where you have an "official" group that nobody carries. And if the news.announce.newgroups moderator(s) decide you violated the spirit of the rules, you're dead in the water. Q: What's the best policy in order to avoid any minefields? A: Full honesty, full disclosure, adherence to the rule and spirit of the Guidelines. If you're going to do something, such as send the CFV to a mailing list, _say so_ in your CFV! It's amazing how much pain something like this can avoid. Don't campaign, period, while taking the vote. Anything that could even be perceived as campaigning can mess up the vote. Be beyond reproach. Q: This document doesn't tell me what I need to know! A: group-advice@uunet.uu.net is a mailing list of administrators who can help you on the tough questions, if neither this or news.groups helps. Thinking about a Group Vote --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Do I really want to do this? A: That depends - it's a lot of effort, even with some help from programs. It's a lot of time - initial discussion, a month for RFD, a month for CFV, some time for results and creation. All told, from two to three months of your time. Q: What are some alternatives? A: Consider a mailing list. This can be set up instantly, and has the advantages of being fairly focused and having a smaller number of people out to cause chaos. See [!!!] for information on this. Q: What about reorganizing existing groups instead of just creating a group for a new subject? A: This is hairy - it's a whole level of magnitude above just creating a new group. There is only one standard reason for splitting or reorganizing an existing set of groups - overwhelming traffic. This usually means about 200 messages a day, which can make it tough even for someone using a good newsreader. Alternative: try getting people to use keywords in subjects, such as U7 for Ultima VII in a games group. If most people are considerate this way, killfiles can easily kill or select desired articles. Not having a newsreader with killfile capability is not generally viewed with sympathy. Who's going to take charge? You really shouldn't take on the responsibilities of a reorganization unless you've fully handled at least one group vote. If you _really_ want to consider splitting, thoroughly discuss the possible split on the affected groups before even thinking about an RFD. Work out what you think the new groups should be. You want enough of a split to divide up the traffic, but you don't want too many new groups, and you don't want the subject matter of groups to overlap. Do you need to remove any existing groups? Because of the complex nature of reorganizations, this should be worked out in advance. Then do the RFD if there's a consensus for it. If one group is especially opposed to the reorganization, or there is lots of opposition to one group, leave it out, unless you want to get a lot of all-NO spite votes. And remember, each group creation or removal is a separate vote, even though they can all be on the same ballot. If some things pass and others don't, weird results can result. Remember, you can always do things in two or more steps (votes). Suggestions on RFDs --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What should I know about the group name? A: Check existing groups for hints on appropriate names. Especially check to see if a group already meets your needs! Also, although few systems are affected anymore, each component of the group name should be 14 characters or less. For example, foo.bar.bletch has three components, "foo", "bar", and "bletch", all less than 15 characters, so no problem. sci.physics.particle-accelerators, on the other hand, is out, as the last component is 21 characters. Shorten it down. The naming is very important - it should be hierarchical, with each extension in the hierarchy further subdividing the subject. Don't add a period just as punctuation (for example, foo.bar.don.rippold is bad, use foo.bar.don-rippold)! Most new groups fit in nicely at three levels deep... usually comp.sys.something or rec.arts.something. See if your subject fits nicely under existing hierarchies. New second level hierarchies, such as rec.something, are usually frowned on unless somehow Usenet has managed to overlook a group for a major subject, such as rec.toys. The "big 7" hierarchies covered by these rules are: comp Computer related. misc Anything that doesn't go somewhere else - not used much news Dealing with Usenet itself. rec Recreational. Fun stuff. sci Related to the sciences. soc Social issues - for discussion of such issues, or certain social backgrounds, such as soc.culture.italian. talk Heated debate about controversial issues - politics and religion, for instance. There are also the "other hierarchies" such as bit. and bionet. The most important of these is alt., which operates on different and much looser "rules." Read alt.config for information about this. If you just can't come up with something, group-advice@uunet.uu.net is a mailing list of administrators who can help you. Q: Where should I post the RFD? A: All RFDs _must_ be crossposted to news.announce.newgroups. Any which don't do this are invalid, which can cause problems when you try to start a CFV. It's not required, but you should also crosspost to news.groups. Also crosspost to groups which might be interested, but don't go overboard. Set followups to news.groups. A good way to avoid confusion here and when you post the CFV is to just list the groups in the body of the RFD. Make sure you set "Followup-To: news.groups" so discussion can take place there. If your site won't let you post to a moderated group, send your RFD to announce-newgroups@uunet.uu.net. Since news.announce.newgroups is moderated, your posting will not appear in _any_ of the groups until the moderator approves the posting. Be patient. Don't go posting it to the other groups yourself, this will irritate people. Also, the moderator may notice problems in your proposal, and can help you correct them before they get posted. Q: How long does the RFD discussion go on? The minimum period of RFD discussion before you can issue the CFV, even if the consensus of all posters is "good idea, lets do it!" is 21 days by preference of the news.announce.newgroups moderator. If the RFD takes much longer than 30 days, the discussion should be taken offline until a consensus can be reached. Suggestions on Moderation ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Who should moderate a group, if it is moderated? A: It should be someone respected, who has a fast news connection (no leaf nodes), and has the time to do a good job of it. The moderator kills or nurtures the moderated group, choose wisely. In addition, the moderator should be able to set up a separate account or mailing address just for moderation purposes. Q: How about getting rid of the moderator? A: There is _no_ official way to get rid of a moderator without their consent! Even if they turn out to be a bum who never does anything, you can't replace them. Hence, I suggest that the CFV have a section in the charter on replacing the moderator without their consent in case he/she disappears or fails the responsibility. The same rules as required for the creation of the group are a good suggestion (formal RFD and CFV, 100 more YES than NO votes, 2/3 of the votes must be YES). With this in the charter, at least your group stands a chance of changing a moderator, although at this time this charter clause has never been tested. Suggestions on CFVs ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Where should I post the CFV? A: All CFV's _must_ be crossposted to news.announce.newgroups. Any which don't do this are invalid and all votes must be discarded. It's not required, but you should also crosspost to news.groups. Also crosspost to other interested groups, but don't go overboard - the groups you posted the RFD to are a good guide. This is in the Guidelines, but is violated so often it is worth repeating. If your site won't let you post to a moderated group, send your CFV to announce-newgroups@uunet.uu.net. Set followups to be sent to you via mail ("Followup-To: poster" in the header) instead of posted to a group in case someone accidentally hits the "post" key instead of the "mail" key. Since news.announce.newgroups is moderated, your posting will not appear in _any_ of the groups until the moderator approves the posting. Be patient. Don't go posting it to the other groups yourself, this will irritate people. Also, the moderator may notice problems in your proposal, and can help you correct them before they get posted. If you post a CFV with a serious problem, you've just blown the entire vote. Q: What if I forget an appropriate group when I post the CFV? A: This is hard to fix, as it could be that the vote-taker, knowing how the vote is going, is trying to change the vote by looking for a sympathetic audience. You have two choices. First, if you are sending out multiple CFVs, just add the group for the remaining CFVs - but make sure you leave a note for the news.announce.newgroups moderator at the top of the CFV explaining what happened. He may overrule your addition. Or, you can follow up to your own CFV, noting that you forgot a group and mentioning in the forgotten group that a CFV is going on. Don't just go and post the CFV there. It's effectively the same thing, but appearances are everything. The above suggestions should work just fine, assuming that the forgotten group is an appropriate group. Q: How many times can I post the CFV? A: One to three times. All three times you need to follow the rules above. Generally, more CFVs mean more votes, which can be useful for getting at least 100 more YES votes than NO votes. On the other hand, if the group is guaranteed to pass, it's less work for everyone with only one or two CFVs. In either case, your initial CFV should state how many CFVs there will be. Remember, you can _not_ modify the important substance of the CFV, such as the charter or end of voting period, at this time - if you do so, the vote is invalid. Q: How long should the vote be? A: 21 days to 31 days are the official limits. Again, a longer period gives more time for votes to trickle in, and if you are doing 3 CFVs, give yourself the extra time. On the other hand, if the vote is sure to pass, get it over with quickly. Q: Should I use one address or two for collecting votes? A: It's totally up to you. The most common method is just to have votes go to the vote-taker's personal address, such as rdippold@foobar.com. Then each vote is examined for a yes or no vote. The alternative is to set up two separate addresses for voting, one for no votes and one for yes votes. The advantage of this is that you shouldn't have to separate the votes. The disadvantages are that it's effort to set up the accounts, and that the voter has to make an effort to reply to the correct address, and somebody(s) are bound to mess it up. The format of the addresses in this case should be like yes@foobar.com and no@foobar.com (or whatever your site is), and they must be on the same machine. You can use fbm-yes and fbm-no or such addresses, but they should have "yes" and "no" in the name. Q: Can I send the CFV to mailing lists? A: Yes, but see the next question. And since the purpose is to create a Usenet newsgroup, the people on the mailing list should be able to read the new group, if created, or else you have people voting on something they'll never see, which may cause some raised eyebrows. Q: How should I send the CFV to a mailing list? A: First, use the full disclosure tactic. State in your CFV which mailing lists you will be mailing the CFV to. Also, any votes sent before the official CFV appears in news.announce.newgroups (n.a.n) are invalid. Since this can be tough to handle, the best method is not to mail the CFV to any mailing lists until the official CFV appears in n.a.n. Q: What's the deal about mailing lists? A: One of the best ways to get your vote canceled is to send the CFV to a mailing list without following the above procedures. The worry is that the vote taker, knowing how the vote is going, panics and tries to garner more YES votes by mailing the CFV to a sympathetic audience. Disclose in advance! Q: Can I send the CFV to people? A: You can send it to individuals _if_ they ask you for it. Don't send it out unsolicited. Q: Any other hints? A: A good CFV nips many problems in the bud. Read a few in news.announce.newgroups to get an idea of how it should be done. Taking the Vote -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Can the vote-taker be biased? A: Yes. In most cases, the vote-taker for a group is someone who supports the creation of the group. As long as your actions are neutral, this is fine. In the case of a very controversial group, a neutral vote-taker may be desirable. In such a case, post to news.groups before the CFV - there are masochists there who will do it for you. Q: Can I vote for or against the group? A: Yes, you get one vote just like everybody else. This may be considered bad form if you're acting as a supposedly unbiased vote- taker for a controversial group, but otherwise no problem. Q: What other qualifications should a vote-taker have? A: Because of the time-sensitive nature of the vote, the vote-taker should have fast mail - someone on a primary Internet site should be able to send mail and have it get to you in a day or so. Hence, someone at a far removed leaf site should not be a vote-taker. In addition, people who have trouble with their mail at times, such as lost messages, should not be vote-takers. People whose votes get "lost" can get angry, and the specter of fraud can appear. Then there's the personal side. Can you handle attacks on your character and the vote without flaming? Even if you run a perfectly tight vote on a innocuous group, you may get some bozo who goes public with an imagined complaint in news.groups. If you can't handle responding with just a simple factual response, find someone else to do the vote-taking. Q: Can I campaign for or against the group? A: Before voting begins, okay. Once the voting begins, absolutely not. Not even to your friends or at work. Anything you have to say about the group should be neutral and consist of factual information about the vote. Even giving the CFV to friends or other people you know will vote your preferred way and saying "Vote Yes or No, whatever you want" with an implied <wink> <wink> <nudge> <nudge> violates the spirit of the rules. Remember - if the group has any interest at all, there should be people who will campaign for it and against it. You don't need to do it. Q: What can I reveal about the vote in progress? A: Nothing. Don't hint how the vote is going, don't even mention how many people have voted, to anyone, even to your friends in email. The one exception to this rule is the official Mass Acks, which will tell anyone who can count the number of voters so far. But don't go posting any unofficial mass acks. Q: Which votes can I reject? A: The Guidelines are the bottom line - the vote must contain the name of the group and an unambigious statement of intent. If you really care to, you can reject votes for spelling the name of the group wrong (as an automated system will do). If you will do that, then a) mention this in the CFV, b) notify the voters that their vote was rejected, and why, and c) do this for _all_ such votes - no yes/no partiality. Votes sent to the wrong address or posted to the net are invalid. You can use other criteria, but be sure to specify these in the CFV. The most common additional requirement, usually in a controversial CFV, is that a real name be given by a voter in the text of their message, if it's not in their address field. Remember, you may to have to justify your rejections later, especially if you don't notify the voter immediately. Q: Should I send mail acknowledgments of received votes? A: It's not required, but is an excellent idea. It lets the person know that their vote has been recorded, so they will be less likely to vote again the next time they see the CFV. In addition, if you include an indication of how you think they voted, they can correct it if necessary. Q: What can I put in mail acknowledgments? A: Factual information and platitudes only. For example, "We got your YES vote on foo.bar.misc, thank you for voting." If you include anything such as "Thanks for your YES vote, we really need them!" or "Why did you vote NO? Are you afraid people might talk about x?" and someone posts this, your vote may be over with quickly. Don't do it. Your acks for YES and NO votes should be as similar as possible, lest you be accused of trying to influence voters. In addition, your ack should, if possible, indicate how the vote was counted (YES or NO). Sample good acks: "Your YES vote on foo.bar.misc was received." "Your NO vote on foo.bar.misc was recieved." And something like this is useful if the vote is bad: "If your mail was intended as a vote on foo.bar.misc, it was not counted as such. Please reread the CFV and re-vote." If you have the inclination you can say why the vote was rejected, but it's not required. Q: Can I reveal the voting results after the voting period is over but before the official tally appears in news.announce.newgroups? A: While this is legal, it is frowned upon. Usually, waiting an extra day or two for the results to appear isn't going to ruin anyone's life. Q: Any other hints? A: Save the entire text of every single vote message sent to you. Pack them if you are short on space. You can't believe how useful this can be until you suddenly need the information later. If nothing else, it can help you determine in some cases if a vote is a duplicate. Suggestions After the Vote ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: The group passed! My job is over, right? A: Wrong. Don't be caught napping. Your new group will be visited by plenty of people who never saw the RFD or CFV and want to know what's up. Even people who know what the group is for may not be familiar with proper etiquette. Q: How about a FAQ? A: Good idea. It's a Good Thing to have a embryonic Frequently Asked Questions list which can be posted as soon as the group is created that explains the nature of the group, including the charter. It will grow, but it's good to have one to start with. In fact, if you create a FAQ before the CFV is posted, and include it in the CFV, it may answer the questions of those who are unsure whether or not they want to vote for the group - it's an indicator that the group may be of similar high quality. Your FAQ should definitely encourage the use of keywords in the subject line, for help with killfiles. For example, in rec.arts.comics, MARVEL, DC, or INDY in the subject, as in "Subject: DC: Sandman #92", are suggested. These will depend on the nature of your group. Q: It's going to be moderated, is there anything special to do? A: Yes. Read the Guidelines, and as soon as the vote passes, follow the instructions on mailing the moderator's addresses to the specified people who maintain the official moderators lists. Whoever is moderating should have another account or mailing address created which is for nothing but postings to the moderated group. This way, there is no possibility of confusion as to personal mail and potential posts, among other advantages. This may take some time to set up, and should be done as soon as possible. Q: The group failed! When can I try again? A: In six months. Consider the results, though, so you don't waste your time again. If it failed miserably, you might try a mailing list instead. If it was a close vote, consider any flaws in the proposal. Miscellaneous Questions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Is this going to be a lot of work? A: Going through the entire RFD, CFV, and voting process can take quite a bit of time. Just sorting and removing duplicates from the final list can take a bit of time if you don't have the right tools. You've got to meet all your deadlines - give yourself some spare time. Q: Is there any help for this? A: If you're running on a Unix machine with a C compiler, Ron Dippold, rdippold@qualcomm.com has written a package called UseVote which can automate quite a bit of the drudgery, although there's still plenty left for you to do. Send mail for information. Also, Jonathan Kamens has a vote server running, which has been used quite successfully in the past for controversial votes. I'll let him tell you about it: " People who want to use my server to collect votes for a Usenet vote should contact me by sending mail to jik@gza.com. I need to know what the name of the newsgroup(s) being voted on are, when the voting period will start, and when the voting period will end. I will send back voting instructions to include in the CFV, and then the vote organizer should send me back the CFV so that I can check it before it is submitted to news.announce.newgroups. If the vote organizer wants a list of voters during the vote to post a mass ACK, he/she should contact me when he/she wants the list. He/she should also contact me when the vote is over to get a final tally of who voted which way." Q: Anything else? A: Save everything related to the vote on floppy somewhere, or other form of backup. It might be useful the next time you need to run a group vote. Sample CFV ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the CFV I ran for comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos. This is the 2nd CFV. Addresses have been changed so that nobody actually mails it in. Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games,comp.os.msdos.programmer,rec.games.programmer Path: bar.foo.com!bar!rdippold From: rdippold@foo.com (Ron Dippold) Subject: 2nd CFV: comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos Followup-To: poster Sender: news@foo.com Nntp-Posting-Host: bar.foo.com Organization: Foo, Inc., San Diego, CA CALL FOR VOTES (Second of Three) and VOTE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Create an UNMODERATED newsgroup called comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos If you have already voted on this issue, do NOT vote again unless ou've changed your mind - but you should check the list of posters at he end of this note to see if you are in there. This announcement is cross-posted to newsgroups whose readers may have nterest in the candidate group; follow-ups are sent to the original oster. If you must discuss something here in public, it should take lace in 'news.groups' Read below for the group charter. VOTING You should send MAIL (posts to a group are invalid) to rdippold@foo.com (just replying by MAIL to this message should work). Your mail essage should contain one and only one of the following statements: I vote YES on comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos or I vote NO on comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos You may add a comment, but anything other than a definite statement nvolving "comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos" will be ignored as far as voting oes, and any vote that states "I vote xxx on comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos f..." will not be counted. One vote per person. If you change your mind, your last vote received ill be the vote that counts. Multiple votes from multiple accounts or one person are ineligible. VOTING RESULTS The voting period will run from the time of this posting till 11:59:59 M, Tuesday, March 23, 1993. Anything recieved after this time will be neligible. Results will be posted on Friday, March 26. Within this period I will be making two additional Call For Vote ostings. At these times I will list all voters (without indicating heir votes). For the final results, the votes will be listed by vote. f the group passes by at least 100 votes and if at least two thirds of he votes are for group creation, and there are no questions raised bout the vote, the group will be created by the newsgroups moderator fter the prescribed period of 5 days. VOTE TAKER NOTES I RFDed, CFVed, and am now taking the votes for this group. This is ot unusual, but can lead to potentially nasty situations. As I want o avoid any impropriety in the vote, any lengthy flamewars, or nything else that might tangle the group in controversy: As of the time this CFV is posted, I will cease to campaign for or gainst this group, in public or in private. I will answer uestions about the group and point interested parties to the CFVs, ut will not advocate that they vote for or against it. Rationale and Charter This group will exist for the purpose of discussing group demos and the roups behind these demos. This involves membership issues, demo atings, discussion of special techniques, new demo announcements, and nything else pertaining to them. [ Lengthy explaination of demos deleted ] They're not everybody's cup of tea, but the existence of so many demo roups and those who follow them indicate quite a large following, which he RFD for this group confirmed. The Amiga demos group is quite ctive, and we hope this one will be as well. This is the current list of people I think have voted: [List of voters deleted] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thus Endeth Ye Documente Thanks To: [your name could be here] Andrew Hackard <andy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu> nick@sunburn.uwaterloo.ca (Nick Fitzpatrick) linimon@lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) sharp@sparc2b.hfab1.sc.ti.com (Al Sharp) barrett@lucy.ee.und.ac.za (Alan Barrett) dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal) "Jonathan I. Kamens" <jik@GZA.COM> Emma Pease <emma@russell.stanford.edu> emcguire@intellection.com (Ed McGuire) roder@cco.caltech.edu (Brenda J. Roder) J Lee Jaap <J.L.Jaap@LaRC.NASA.Gov> -- If the universe is expanding, why can't I find a parking space?.