Nan:2010-08-09-mvi-rec.arts.startrek.reviews

From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
From: Alexander Bartolich <alexander.bartolich@gmx.at>
Subject: Moderator Vacancy Investigation: rec.arts.startrek.reviews
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 02:21:02 EDT
Message-ID: <i3o4p5$tm7$1@news.albasani.net>

              MODERATOR VACANCY INVESTIGATION (MVI)
              moderated group rec.arts.startrek.reviews

This is a formal Moderator Vacancy Investigation (MVI), begun because
moderated newsgroup rec.arts.startrek.reviews is not functioning,
and may have been abandoned by its moderator(s).

This investigation will attempt to verify the reasons for non-function,
and may result in the removal of the group or the selection and instal-
lation of a new moderator.  In practice, the Big-8 Management Board
considers the third alternative--changing the status of the group from
moderated to unmoderated--as likely to cause more harm than good.

RATIONALE:

According to Google's archive the last regular post was approved on
2005-06-12. A probe message resulted in a bounce.

<rec-arts-startrek-reviews@moderators.isc.org>: host
    moderators.switch.ch[130.59.1.10] said: 550 Unrouteable address
    (in reply to RCPT TO command)

NEWSGROUPS LINE:

rec.arts.startrek.reviews	Reviews of Star Trek books, episodes, films, &c. (Moderated)

DISTRIBUTION:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
rec.arts.startrek.reviews
rec.arts.startrek.misc

CHARTER OF REC.ARTS.STARTREK.REVIEWS

Rec.arts.startrek.reviews is a moderated newsgroup exclusively for reviews
of "Star Trek" episodes, books, comics, and related items (just "episodes"
in the rest of the charter, for brevity).  It is open to all incarnations
of Star Trek: the original series, the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and
any others that pop up in the future.

A "review" is defined as an original (non-followup) article that expresses
and justifies an opinion about a particular episode.  The moderator has the
power to reject articles that aren't appropriate for the group.  Articles
may not be rejected on the basis of the opinions expressed, but might be
rejected for either of the following reasons, among others:

- The article states an opinion ("I hated the episode") without any
  discussion of WHY the poster thinks that, or with so little discussion
  ("because it had awful FX") that it's not useful to others seeking
  insight into the episode.
- The article is very poorly written.  The moderator would be expected to
  be generous here, but has the power to reject completely incoherent
  messages that don't convey any clear opinion.  

Followups will be directed to r.a.s.current or r.a.s.misc, or to other
more appropriate groups in the r.a.s. heirarchy should any appear in the
future.

Reviews will be crossposted to the appropriate rec.arts.startrek.* group
(e.g. rec.arts.startrek.current) so that readers of those groups will still
enjoy the same reviews they always have.  Reviewers may request that their
reviews not be crossposted, but followups will be directed to the appropriate
discussion group in any case.

All reviews will include proper spoiler protection, and will have descriptive
Subject lines containing the name of the episode in question, as well as
standard abbreviations, listed below, identifying the subject of the review.

The moderator has the power (but is not required) to allow regular reviewers
to post directly to the moderated group, provided they agree to adhere to
this charter.  This will help keep the group timely and reduce the impact of
the moderator going on vacation.  A regular reviewer is anyone who has
submitted six consecutive articles to the group without rejections.  If one
of those people posts an article that doesn't belong in r.a.s.reviews (as
determined by the moderator), the moderator may cancel the article in
question.

Subject lines will look like this:

>Subject: <show> <type> Review: <title>

Where <show> is one of TOS, TAS, TNG, or DS9, <type> is one of EPISODE, MOVIE,
BOOK, COMIC, MERCHANDISE, or EVENT, and <title> is the title of the article,
which must include the name of the episode.  The moderator may add keywords
to the list as appropriate, for example if another TV series starts or if
another <type> is needed.  Review: may be omitted if it appears in the title
(Subject: TNG MOVIE Clinton's Spoiler Review: "Yesterday's Enterprise Zone").

HISTORY OF THE GROUP:

rec.arts.startrek.reviews is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for
creation by 466:114 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 4 Mar 1993.

PROPONENT:

Alexander Bartolich <alexander.bartolich@gmx.at>

PROCEDURE:

Those who wish to comment on this moderator vacancy investigation should
subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate in the relevant
threads in that newsgroup.  

To this end, the followup header of this MVI has been set to 
news.groups.proposals.

For more information on the MVI process, please see 

http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Moderator_Vacancy_Investigations

CHANGE HISTORY:

2010-05-20	Probe post
2010-08-09	Moderator Vacancy Investigation