Julien ÉLIE wrote:

> And what for de.alt.*? Shouldn't it be considered as "unmanaged"?

It's not really unmanaged, as de.* (including de.alt.*) is a managed
hierarchy, so de.alt.* is included in checkgroups messages for de.*.
Historically, that was the only option, and after a spectacularly
unsuccessful attempt with a scoped checkgroups we never tried again.

Today, it's mostly moot, due to declining Usenet usage and even more
declining interest and participation in "hierarchy management" of any
kind.

> If I remember well, there's a possibility to create any newsgroup in
> de.alt.* (its control.ctl entry has a doit for a newgroup control
> article) and for the sake of not removing them with de.* PGP-signed
> checkgroups, they are included in de.* checkgroups.

Yes and no; only "legitimate" de.alt.* groups are included in the
checkgroups for de.*, i.e. new groups are not added automatically, but by
hand by someone reading de.alt.admin, the "administrative" group for
de.alt.*

Excluding de.alt.*, de.* is using a formalised RfD/CfV process modelled
after the Big 8 in the 90s while de.alt.* has a kind of consensus-based
process: when a proposal is posted and there is no "strong" protest in the
next week (or two weeks), the group may be created by a newgroup message
sent and signed by the proponent (or someone on his or her behalf, if the
proponent lacks the expertise to send those messages). Theoretically,
every news server operator can then decide for him- or herself whether
(s)he wants to add that group or not, which ultimately presupposes that
(s)he's either reading de.alt.admin or just listening to their users;
honoring every newgroup message is not a good idea (as in alt.*). In
practice, however, server operators usually simply follow the checkgroups
for de.* - be it by setting up de.alt.* groups only after the checkgroups
has been received or by removing them again if not included in the
checkgroups. So in fact the person sending out the checkgroups for .de*
decides which groups in de.alt.* are "legitimate", i.e. were rightly set
up due to a lack of "too strong" protest.

So we have, on one hand, de.* (excluding de.alt.*) with the moderator (or
moderation) of de.admin.news.announce as hierarchy maintainer (or a team
of hierarchy maintainers, since 1997) and strict rules, a formal process
of RfDs, discussion periods, CfV and votes, where all control messages are
sent by the hierarchy maintainer team and signed with their key - and, on
the other hand, de.alt.*, with a fairness based approach, where control
messages (new/rmgroups) are sent and signed by the proponent.
Theoretically, both systems co-exist; in fact, the hierarchy maintainer
team has the last say even on groups in de.alt.* due to their inclusion in
the checkgroups for the whole hierarchy. While mostly theoretical, there
were instances of "control message wars" when not all participants agreed
wether there was "strong protest" or not.

Today, that's mostly just of historical interest, as most people able to
send control messages or conduct votes (or even interested in discussing
changes in the list of newsgroups) that are still active _are_ members of
the hierarchy maintainer team. *shrug*

tl;dr: Technically and factually, de.* is a managed hierarchy; newgroup
(and rmgroup) messages for de.alt.* are vetted before inclusion in the
checkgroups to check that "due process" was followed.