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REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group rec.sport.freediving

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the
group rec.sport.freediving. This is not a Call For Votes (CFV). You
cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below.

Newsgroups line:
rec.sport.freediving   The sport of Freediving and Apnea and related topics.

RATIONALE: rec.sport.freediving

Freediving is expanding worldwide in numbers of practitioners. The sport
of freediving is related to scuba diving, but is deemed as old as
humankind. The freediver dives without the use of compressed air
supply. Freediving is also called apnea, which relates to the Latin phrase
for holding one's breath. Freedivers conducts a number of activities under
water, such as deep dives with flippers or assisted by weights and
inflatable balloons, they shoot fish with harpunes, they dive long
distances in pools, they hold their breath for time or they play
underwater team sports in pool such as UW hockey and UW rugby. Using
weights and inflatable balloons, it is possible to freedive to more than
500 feet depth.

Deep freediving derived as an organized competition sport in the early
1990's after having been a series of deep diving record attempts since the
early 1950's. The modern day deep diving competitions only allows the use
of flippers. Pool competitions are frequent, particularly across Europe
and the Americas. The first freediving world championship was held in 1996
and returns every 2 years with participants from all 5 continents.
Harpuning fish, or Spearfishing, as well as the team sports have their own
international events, UW rugby across Europe, UW hockey across the
Americas. There is estimated to be some 10000 freedivers around the world
practising the above mentioned activities.

Currently there is no specific group to discuss freediving issues. This
discourages some people from using Usenet as a medium for discussion of
this area, causes others to cross/multi-post throughout various groups
meant for scuba diving, and means that newcomers have no obvious place to
search for relevant answers or discussions.

In addition, much current discussion of freediving and apnea is driven off
of Usenet to fragmented mailing lists and web-based forums. For example,
the Freedivelist and Apneadiver mailing lists as well as the
DeeperBlue.net forums are frequently recommended to newcomers within the
web community asking about freediving topics, due to the lack of relevant
forums within Usenet. A Google search on 'freediving' provided on
2003-06-25 21,900 results.

The proposed group will serve to be the gathering center of discussions of
freediving issues, including but not limited to: techniques, equipment,
safety procedures, education procedures, competition stories and folk
stories in general.

CHARTER: rec.sport.freediving

An unmoderated newsgroup for discussing the sport of freediving and apnea
and various related topics herein.

Examples of welcome topics include:

o Recommended techniques
o Discussions on equipment
o Training tips
o Diet experiences
o Discussions on safety procedures
o Discussions on education of freedivers
o Discussions on environment issues
o Discussions on governing and other political issues
o News and stories from competitions, including announcing competitions
to the competitors
o Stories from dives, folk tales in general

Examples of inappropriate topics include:

o Cross posting about scuba diving, unless it is related to freediving
safety issues. (Use the specific group.)
o Cross posting and spam of any other kind o Personal attacks or
accusations aimed at individuals

Standard language for the group is English. However, one can post messages
in other languages for specific groups if the topic line is clearly
labeled with the language, f.i. [Francais], [Espanol], etc.

Encoded binaries (e.g. pictures, compressed files, etc.) are not
allowed. Such material belongs on a web or FTP site to which a
pointer may be posted. Cryptographic signatures (e.g. PGP) may be used
where authentication is important and should be as short as possible.

It is asked to keep posts somewhat short and to the point, and to be civil
and constructive in the wording of the posts. Particularly in political
discussions one is asked to be polite in his/her criticism towards the
relevant parties.

Relevant commercial posts are acceptable, but should be limited to one per
month per product.

END CHARTER.

PROCEDURE:

This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of
the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroups should be
raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of
21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to
news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted
by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not
attempt to vote until this happens.

All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD
attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines
outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and
Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available
in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups
rec.scuba
uk.rec.scuba
dk.fritid.dykning

Pointers to this RFD will be posted to the following mailing lists:

Apneadiver <apneadiver@yahoogroups.com>,
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apneadiver/>
Freedivelist <freedivelist@freediver.net>,
<http://www.freediver.net/freedivelist/mb_letter.html>
Chat_AIDA <chat_AIDA@yahoogroups.com>,
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chat_AIDA/>

Proponent: Chris Engelbrecht <chrisengeldk@dkik.dk>