View source for Charter for news.newusers.questions

NEWS.NEWUSERS.QUESTIONS (n.n.q) is for questions, answers and advice about using Usenet news and other Internet newsgroups and services. Articles which do not contribute to educating or informing new users about Usenet are inappropriate for this newsgroup.

Some examples of inappropriate posts include:

* Chain letters, including "Make Money Fast" articles
* Known hoaxes (like the "Good Times Virus")
* Announcements of non-relevant Web pages
* Announcements of non-relevant services
* Personal introductions or requests for e-mail
* Irrelevant questions or conversation
* Articles offering items for sale
* Commercial advertisements
* Test articles


These posts may be rejected regardless of their topic:

* Articles which aren't primarily text in a standard alphabet (e.g. binaries, pictures, Rot13).
* Articles cross-posted to several newsgroups (except proper FAQs)
* Articles posted as separate copies to many newsgroups ("spam")
* Excessively long articles (more than ~200 lines or ~10K bytes)
* Articles containing significantly more quoted than new content
* Articles with no subject
* Duplicate/rapidly reposted messages
* Disruptive articles (articles that disrupt commonly-used newsreading systems, such as articles that contain scripts or hyper-links that exploit newsreading or web-browsing software problems, or that contain computer viruses)


The newsgroup will be moderated by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and a pool of Backup Moderators. The moderation process will be overseen by the Head Moderator. The Head Moderator may delegate responsibilities and authority to any of the Backup Moderators as the need arises. The Head Moderator may also withdraw such delegation and/or reassign it to another Backup Moderator. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to judge posts.

The current moderation procedures and policies will be described in an Administrative Statement, which will be maintained by the Head Moderator, with any changes subject to veto by the Board. The Statement will be posted to the group whenever it changes, and at least once per month. It will be available at all times at an address posted regularly in the group.

All posts to the group may be processed through moderation software which will take one of the following actions on each article:

# Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria;
# Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria; or
# Post it immediately.


The criteria being used by either the moderation software or human moderators will be described in the Administrative Statement. They will not refer to the source of the articles except that the Head Moderator, or another moderator designated by the Head Moderator, may place certain individuals or sites which repeatedly try to post off-topic material on a "watch list," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human moderator for review. The Head Moderator may also declare certain off-topic discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in that thread will be accepted.

Rejected articles will, if possible, be returned to the sender along with a letter of explanation. If a sender repeatedly ignores the return of an inappropriate posting, or cannot be notified because of an invalid address, and continues to try to re-post the same (or substantially the same) material, the Head Moderator may configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings of that type from that sender, without attempting to return them. Since his actions are subject to veto by the Board membership, the Head Moderator must notify the other Board members of any such action.

Rejected articles may be appealed to an address specified in the Administrative Statement and in any letter of rejection. If an article was rejected by a human moderator, the appeal will be judged by a different moderator. In the event of abuse of the appeals process, the Moderation Board will decide what action will be taken to deal with the abuse.

An article will normally be subject to rejection only at the time it is submitted. Canceling of articles after they have been posted ("retromoderation") will not be used for general content control. Cancellations will be permitted only under the following special circumstances:

# When performed or requested by the original poster or by his/ her Internet Service Provider;
# When performed by the Head Moderator, or another moderator designated by the Head Moderator, to cancel articles with forged approvals;
# When performed by the Head Moderator, or another moderator designated by the Head Moderator, to cancel disruptive articles as described above under "These posts may be rejected regardless of their topic:"; or
# When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the Head Moderator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted articles ("spam").


In addition to rejecting inappropriate articles, the moderators may take measures to discourage users from submitting such articles in the first place, including:

# Appending short "footers" to all posted articles, informing newcomers of the purpose of the newsgroup and providing references to more detailed information about the newsgroup, the Usenet community, and the Internet in general; and
# E-mailing "welcome" messages to all first-time posters, containing similar information as in (1).


Other than appending a footer or adding headers, the moderators will not modify the content of a posted article.

The Head Moderator will submit a report to the Moderation Board at least every three months, providing statistics on the number of articles processed and their disposal. He will inform the Moderation Board of any appeals of rejected articles, and their disposition, as they occur. He will also inform the Moderation Board of any substantive changes to the moderation software. The Board may instruct the Head Moderator to eliminate any automatic rejection or forwarding criterion from the moderation software.

The Board may elect a new Head Moderator if the position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board may appoint a Backup Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence.

The Board also has the power to remove a Head Moderator. It may remove a Head Moderator who has been in office for less than six weeks through a simple majority vote of all members. A Head Moderator who has been in office for more than six weeks may only be removed by a 2/3 majority vote of those who have been on the Board for at least six weeks.

The Board controls its own membership. It may admit new members with a simple majority vote, or remove members who have served for less than six weeks with a simple majority vote. Members who have served longer than six weeks may only be removed by a 2/3 vote of those who have been on the Board for at least six weeks. The Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three persons.

The working charter for the group may be modified by a 2/3 vote of those who have been members of the Moderation Board for at least six weeks. A copy of the current charter will be available at a location given in the Administrative Statement.

END CHARTER.

[[Category:news.newusers.questions]]