From PaulH@computerbits.com Thu Feb 3 04:57:10 2000 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Paul Harwood Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: RFD: misc.writing.moderated moderated Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <949582684.21775@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 12:58:04 GMT Lines: 156 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11327 news.groups:342285 misc.writing:373849 rec.arts.sf.composition:71662 REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) moderated group misc.writing.moderated This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup misc.writing.moderated. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. Newsgroup line: misc.writing.moderated Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated) RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for discussions of writing: alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition. Of these, rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups; misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific; and both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-topic traffic. This off-topic traffic is an accepted and integral part of the culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related discussions. In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group, now getting upwards of 350 posts per day. In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business and creative process of writing in a non-threatening atmosphere, we propose to create misc.writing.moderated. Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's traffic would be considered on-topic in misc.writing.moderated. Similar rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged about 90 posts per day, shows that 63% of the traffic there would be considered on-topic in misc.writing.moderated. CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and profession of writing. It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated as peers. The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers, increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of writing. Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that all forms of writing are fair game for discussion, but it is exclusive in that all discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers, or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing ambitions. Questions of grammar and style are on-topic, but should be sought in the FAQ. Of greater interest are topics such as plotting techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent, techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript formatting, how to avoid RSI/CTS, and other such concerns with which writers struggle. Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial announcements are disallowed. For the purposes of this charter, "repetitive" is defined as more than once per month. While questions about writing problems are welcome in misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden. Participants are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion. This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing. Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available for critique. Messages that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks -- shall always be considered off-topic. This charter, or a URL pointing to it, will be posted once each week to misc.writing.moderated. Misc.writing.moderated will not accept messages cross-posted to any groups but misc.answers, news.groups, news.answers, and news.announce.newgroups. Moderation Misc.writing.moderated will be moderated by a Moderation Board, which shall consist of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. The current moderation procedures and policies are described in a Moderation Policy, which will be maintained by the Head Moderator. Any changes to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote of the Moderation Board, or by a simple majority vote of the readership of misc.writing.moderated. The details of the voting procedures are described in the Moderation Policy. Moderators are answerable to the readership of misc.writing.moderated, and can be removed by a majority vote of the readership. The removal process is detailed in the Moderation Policy. The Moderation Policy will be posted to the group whenever it changes, and at least once per month. It will be available at all times at a URL posted weekly in the group. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine Associate Moderators: Moderator: John V Ashby < J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk> Moderator: David M. Harris Moderator: Jen Jensen Moderator: Hound of Cullen Backup Moderators Moderator: Carol Flynt Moderator: Gerald Clough END MODERATOR INFO. PROCEDURE: This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup 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 distributed to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, alt.writing, misc.writing, news.groups, rec.arts.sf.composition Proponent: Paul Harwood Proponent: Anna Banana Proponent: Moira D. Proponent: Bob Pastorio Proponent: Sal Towse Mentor: Piranha From paulh@computerbits.com Thu Mar 16 17:41:04 2000 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Paul Harwood Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: 2nd RFD: misc.writing.moderated moderated Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <953256998.23349@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 01:36:41 GMT Lines: 691 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11396 news.groups:348323 misc.writing:385642 rec.arts.sf.composition:75203 REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) moderated group misc.writing.moderated This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup misc.writing.moderated. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. CHANGES from previous RFD: The charter and moderation policy have been expanded to define a Technical Administrator. The moderation policy has been expanded to cover the case that the size of the Moderation Board has dropped to one or zero members, and details concerning Board removal of a Moderator have been added. The charter has been revised to include a limitation on sig files. Winning an appeal of a rejected post has been made easier, and the requirement that a post from someone on the Watch List not be reviewed by the watch-listing Moderator has consequently been dropped. A provision for auto-rejecting articles from extreme abusers has been added. Explicit acceptance of crossposted RFD/CFV discussions has been added. A requirement for an ancillary mailing list for moderation feedback has been added, and the notion of readership votes has been dropped. There are several other minor wording changes and punctuation corrections in both the charter and the moderation policy. Newsgroup line: misc.writing.moderated Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated) RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for discussions of writing: alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition. Of these, rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter traffic. This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related discussions. In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group, now getting upwards of 350 posts per day. In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to create misc.writing.moderated. Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's traffic would be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. Similar rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged about 90 posts per day, shows that 63% of the traffic there would be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and profession of writing. It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated as peers. The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers, increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of writing. Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers, or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing ambitions. Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be sought in the FAQ. Of greater interest are topics such as plotting techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent, techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns with which writers struggle. Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial announcements are disallowed. For the purposes of this charter, "repetitive" is defined as more than once per month. While questions about writing problems are appropriate in misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden. Participants are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a post. This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing. Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available for critique. Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be. Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday greetings, and so on. Sig files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not contain personal attacks against other posters. A sig file may contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements. This charter, or a URL pointing to it, will be posted once each week to misc.writing.moderated. Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts that are not approved by the legitimate moderators of news.announce.newgroups or news.answers. Articles crossposted from news.groups as part of a valid RFD/CFV discussion relevant to misc.writing.moderated are excepted from this ban. Moderation Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the group pass through a review process before being posted. The purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. To this end, the moderators will strive to maintain both focus and cordiality. Certain material will always be unacceptable in misc.writing.moderated: In particular, encoded binary articles will always be unacceptable, and personal attacks against other posters will always be unacceptable. Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, which shall consist of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated shall call upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator shall be charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator shall have no hand-moderation duties, and shall not be a voting member of the board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet moderators' mailing list. The current moderation procedures and policies are described in a Moderation Policy, which will be maintained by the Head Moderator. Any changes to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote of the Moderation Board. General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about moderators or the moderation policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list mwm-problems@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established when group is created]. That list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the board. The Moderation Policy will be posted to the group whenever it changes, and at least once per month. It will be available at all times at a URL posted weekly in the group. END CHARTER. MODERATION POLICY. For the purpose of distributing the RFD and subsequent CFV, the moderation policy has been appended to this document in full. It is, however, not an integral part of the charter (which cannot be formally changed); it is meant to adjust to the needs of the readership of misc.writing.moderated -- which is why it is a separate document. Should the posting software the UVV uses not be able to post this appendix in full (or at all), the moderation policy can be found at http://ophelia.computerbits.com/~robby/ModPolicy.html. END MODERATION POLICY. MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine Associate Moderators: Moderator: John V Ashby < J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk> Moderator: David M. Harris Moderator: Jen Jensen Moderator: Hound of Cullen Technical Administrator: piranha Backup Moderators Moderator: Carol Flynt Moderator: Gerald Clough END MODERATOR INFO. PROCEDURE: This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup 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 distributed to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, alt.writing, misc.writing, news.groups, rec.arts.sf.composition Proponent: Paul Harwood Proponent: Anna Banana Proponent: Moira D. Proponent: Bob Pastorio Proponent: Sal Towse Mentor: piranha MODERATION POLICY: Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated Introduction Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the group pass through a review process before being posted. Currently, moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are forwarded to human moderators for review. The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week. 1. Structure of the Moderation Board Misc.writing.moderated shall be moderated by a Moderation Board, which shall consist of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of backup Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator. The Head Moderator shall maintain this moderation policy. The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a tie. 1.1 Board Membership The Board controls its own membership. It shall admit new members with a simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote. Board members (excepting the founding Board Members) must come from the active posters of misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant moderatorship should be solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged [ADMIN]. Backup Moderators will vote as Associate Moderators on all questions of electing or removing Board members. New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur: - Retirement of a Moderator; - Death of a Moderator; - Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days without prior announcement; - Expansion of the size of the Board; - Expulsion of a Moderator. The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence. The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board. 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board. Valid reasons for calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness, negligence, and lack of impartiality. Such a request should be made via e-mail directly to the Board at request@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established before CFV is issued]. There shall follow a discussion period not to exceed one full calendar week. All of this discussion shall be via a Moderators' mailing list, and shall be privileged. At the end of the discussion period, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote. Backup Moderators shall vote as Associate Moderators. A 2/3 vote of the Board is required to remove a Moderator. If the Board votes to remove the Moderator, its decision will be posted to the newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal of {moderator's name}". If the Moderator is not removed, the reader who called for removal will be informed via e-mail that the call failed, and each Moderator's vote will be listed. For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other Moderator. When the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the moderator with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties of the Head Moderator. 1.3 The Technical Administrator As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated shall call upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator shall be charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator shall have no hand-moderation duties, and shall not be a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or by an appeal to the Usenet moderators' mailing list. 1.4 Pathological Cases Since most of this moderation policy hinges on there being at least two Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following pathological cases: a. The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head Moderator: In this case, the Head Moderator will vote as a regular Board member. As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be decided as follows: When voting on a proposed change in moderation policy, the proposed change will be rejected. When voting to elect a new moderator, the moderator shall be elected. When voting to remove a moderator, the moderator shall not be removed. b. The case where there is only one Moderator: In this case, numerous segments of this policy become inoperable. The lone Moderator should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as possible while attempting to re-staff the Board. c. The case where there are no Moderators: In this case, prior to ending his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator shall ensure that the following occur: (1.) The Watch List shall be emptied. (2.) The moderation software shall be set to pass all posts that would otherwise require hand-moderation. Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new moderators. 2. Moderation Process All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which will take one of the following actions on each one: - Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection); - Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (See 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or - Post it immediately. As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's identity shall not be considered when determining if an article meets the requirements of the group's charter. A Moderator may place certain individuals or sites that repeatedly try to post off-charter material on a "Watch List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human moderator for review (See 10. The Watch List). A Moderator may also declare certain off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in that thread will be accepted. There is no avenue of appeal for the closure of a thread. Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue. Rejected articles will, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note of explanation. In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from a sender without attempting to return them (See 6.1 Extreme Abuse). Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address. The appeals address will appear in all letters of rejection, and is included here below in section 11, Rejection and Appeals. If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software shall insert an "approved" header, and may append a generic footer. See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and section 11, Rejection and Appeals. 3. Retromoderation An article will normally be subject to rejection only at the time it is submitted. Canceling an article after it has 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 the poster's Internet Service Provider; - When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel articles with forged approvals; - When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted articles ("spam"). 4. New Users / Approved Users The moderation software shall maintain a list of "approved" e-mail addresses, articles from which will be posted by the software without human moderation. When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation software will: - Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword. - If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list. - If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the keyword and repost the article. - Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects. The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to misc.writing.moderated. It shall not be sold, given away, or used as a mailing list. It starts empty, and is added to only as above. New posters shall be advised that their address has been listed. List entries may be aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating host, to be not less than one year. The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ and welcome message. The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host. The welcome message is also available by autoreplier. The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board. For 15 days after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are valid. They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10 letters long, not use case meaningfully, and be reasonably easy to spell and remember. An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed on the Watch List. See Section 10. 5. Statement of Respect Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers. The moderators will consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all posters with unfailing courtesy and respect. Additionally, as writers, we are bound to respect the words of others. Intolerance, unfairness, negligence, or lack of impartiality by a moderator toward a poster shall be grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator). Finally, other than appending a generic footer uniformly to all posts and inserting an 'approved' header as necessary, the moderators shall not modify the content of any posted article. 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of articles to their senders, without posting them. All returned articles will have appended a generic footer that contains a pointer to the group's FAQ: - Crossposted articles that are not approved by the legitimate moderators of news.announce.newgroups or news.answers. Articles crossposted from news.groups as part of a valid RFD/CFV discussion relevant to misc.writing.moderated are excepted from this ban. - Binary articles. (Note that this excepts small cryptographic signatures such as PGP) - Articles with an empty or missing Subject field. 6.1 Extreme Abuse While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup. To this end, the Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles from any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group. This is an extreme step, and shall only be taken under the following exceptional circumstances: - When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such attack is occurring. In this case, action shall be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group. - When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission. In this case, action shall be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group, and improperly canceled posts shall be resurrected. - When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup. Such a poster can only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board. Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse will not be returned to their sender. A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the Board after a minimum of three months. 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of articles to human moderators for review. Since most Moderators actually have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more before such articles are either posted or returned to their senders. - Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter articles in the past. See section 10 on the "Watch List" below. An article approved for posting by a human moderator shall not be modified, except that the moderation software shall insert an "approved" header, and may append a generic footer. The human moderator shall not otherwise modify the text of the article in any way. 8. Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. When approving an article, therefore, a moderator must determine how closely the article adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated. The criterion that should be applied uniformly to all articles is: Would a reasonable person agree that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup? Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be used to decide the approval status of a post. Each article must be judged on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the decision. An article rejected by a human moderator will be returned (subject to the limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with an e-mail detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the moderator responsible for rejecting the post. 9. Discarded Articles There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a human moderator) can discard an article without returning it to its sender. Articles should only be discarded when it is clear that the sender address has been faked; in this case, returns would simply "bounce" or, worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a faked address. The following type(s) of articles are currently being discarded without attempting to return them to their sender: - Advertisements that are submitted frequently (several times a day or more) with faked sender addresses, and which fit a pattern that establishes them as coming from the same source. - Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (See 6.1 Extreme Abuse) 10. The Watch List The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review. An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address. At the discretion of the Moderator who wishes to place the address on the Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to notify the poster: - The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the normal response. - The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person notified of this action privately and without delay. An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of at least six months. 11. Rejection and Appeals The moderation software shall try to return any rejected article to the sender via email, subject to the limitations in section 9. Discarded Articles. The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ. The current appeals address is mwm-request@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established before CFV is issued]. Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses. A moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad addresses and re-send such rejection notices. Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of the Board. If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article will be posted. If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal. There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles. 12. Adjunct Venues All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups. Appeals, complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of the moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit: - Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at mwm-request@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established before CFV is issued]. - General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about moderators or the moderation policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list mwm-problems@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established when group is created]. That list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the board. 13. Changes to This Policy Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority vote of the Board. Any proposed changes to this policy shall be discussed with the readership via the associated mailing list. 14. Moderator Contacts Send mail related to the moderation of the group to mwm-request@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established before CFV is issued]. The Moderation Board that controls the moderation of misc.writing.moderated is made up of: Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine Associate Moderators John V Ashby David M. Harris Jen Jensen Hound of Cullen Technical Administrator: piranha Backup Moderators Carol Flynt Gerald Clough END MODERATION POLICY From dave@dogwood.com Sun Apr 30 22:25:33 2000 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Dave Cornejo Reply-To: vote@dogwood.com Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: CFV: misc.writing.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster Message-ID: <957158311.20023@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 23 May 2000 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 05:18:32 GMT Lines: 223 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11461 news.groups:354527 misc.writing:396971 rec.arts.sf.composition:79548 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group misc.writing.moderated Newsgroups line: misc.writing.moderated Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 2000. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Paul Harwood Proponent: Anna Banana Proponent: Moira D. Proponent: Bob Pastorio Proponent: Sal Towse Mentor: piranha Votetaker: Dave Cornejo RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for discussions of writing: alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition. Of these, rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter traffic. This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related discussions. In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group, getting upwards of 350 posts per day. In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to create misc.writing.moderated. Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's traffic could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. Similar rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged about 90 posts per day, showed that 63% of the traffic there could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and profession of writing. It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated as peers. The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers, increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of writing. Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers, or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing ambitions. Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be sought in the FAQ. Of greater interest are topics such as plotting techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent, techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns with which writers struggle. Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial announcements are disallowed. For the purposes of this charter, "repetitive" is defined as more than once per month. While questions about writing problems are appropriate in misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden. Participants are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a post. This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing. Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available for critique. Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be. Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday greetings, and so on. Signature files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not contain personal attacks against other posters. A signature file may contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements. Binaries with the exception of small cryptographic authentication such as PGP signatures in non-binary messages are not acceptable. This charter, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to misc.writing.moderated. Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts, except: RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings crossposted only between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers). Moderation Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the group pass through a review process before being posted. The purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. To this end, the Moderators will strive to maintain both focus and cordiality. Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators is set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator is charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties, and is not a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet Moderators' mailing list. The current moderation procedures and policies are described in the Moderation Policy, which is maintained by the Head Moderator. Any changes to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote of the Moderation Board. The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group annually. General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the Moderation Policy can be aired on a public, unmoderated mailing list. That list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the Board. The Moderation Policy, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to misc.writing.moderated. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated Moderator: "Kelly Madeleine" Moderator: "John V Ashby" Moderator: "David M. Harris" Moderator: "Jen Jensen" Moderator: "Hound of Cullen" Administrative contact address: mwm-request@panix.com Article submission address: mwm@panix.com END MODERATOR INFO. HOW TO VOTE: Follow these instructions *exactly*! Votes are counted by computer. You should send E-MAIL (posts to a newsgroup are invalid) to: vote@dogwood.com Please do not assume that just replying to this message will work. Check the address before you mail your vote. Your mail message should contain one and only one of the following vote statements: I vote YES on misc.writing.moderated I vote NO on misc.writing.moderated Voter name: If your mail software does not indicate your real name (for example, AOL does not), include _exactly_ the statement above on a _separate_ line and add your name after the colon. Having your name in your signature line is NOT enough! Do NOT join the lines together or remove the words "Voter name"! You may also vote ABSTAIN (which records an empty vote) or CANCEL (which removes any earlier votes). ABSTAIN does not affect the final vote count in any way but is listed, whereas CANCEL is not. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: Standard Guidelines for voting apply. One vote per person, one account per voter. Votes must be mailed directly from the voter to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded or proxy votes are not valid. Votes mailed by WWW/HTML/CGI forms are considered to be anonymous votes. Votes from non-existent email addresses are not valid. Vote counting is automated. Failure to follow these directions may mean that your vote does not get counted. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly. Duplicate votes are resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Addresses, names and votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results post. The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest of persons who would read a proposed newsgroup. Soliciting votes from disinterested parties defeats this purpose. Please do not distribute this CFV. If you must, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing pre-marked or otherwise edited copies of this CFV is generally considered to be vote fraud. When in doubt, ask the votetaker. DISTRIBUTION: Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups: alt.fiction.original misc.writing.screenplays rec.arts.books rec.arts.mystery rec.arts.poems -- Voting question & problems: Dave Cornejo Voting address: vote@dogwood.com From dave@dogwood.com Tue May 2 14:55:35 2000 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: dave@dogwood.com (Dave Cornejo) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: CFV ADDITION: misc.writing.moderated moderated Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <957304298.4435@isc.org> Organization: Unknown Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 21:51:39 GMT Lines: 462 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11464 news.groups:354579 misc.writing:397526 rec.arts.sf.composition:79743 The following text mas accidently omitted from the original CFV - it will be added to the 2nd CFV when it is posted. [-- begin text --] Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated Introduction Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles submitted to the group pass through a review process before being posted. Currently, moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are forwarded to human moderators for review. The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week. 1. Structure of the Moderation Board Misc.writing.moderated is moderated by a Moderation Board, which consists of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of Backup Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator. The Head Moderator maintains this Moderation Policy. The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a tie. 1.1 Board Membership The Board controls its own membership. It shall admit new members with a simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote. Board members (excepting the founding Board members) must come from the active posters of misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant Moderatorship should be solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged [ADMIN]. Backup Moderators vote as Associate Moderators when electing Board members. New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur: - Retirement of a Moderator; - Death of a Moderator; - Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days without prior announcement; - Expansion of the size of the Board; - Expulsion of a Moderator. The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence. The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board. 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board. Valid reasons for calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness, negligence, and lack of impartiality. Such a request should be made via e-mail directly to the Board at mwm-request@panix.com. On receipt of such a request an article will be posted to the newsgroup titled "[ADMIN] Call for Removal of " announcing the start of a discussion period not less than 15 days. This discussion shall be public and take place only on the associated public mailing list . Discussion on the newsgroup itself will be grounds for a poster being placed on the watchlist. During this discussion all active Moderators should monitor the mailing list. At the end of the public discussion phase the Moderators shall consider the views of the readership via the Moderators' mailing list. At the end of this consideration period, not less than seven days or more than fourteen days, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote. A 2/3 vote of the Board is required to remove a Moderator. The Board's decision shall be posted to the newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal Vote Result of {Moderator's name}" stating whether the call for removal has been successful or not. Each Moderator's vote shall be listed. The reader who called for removal shall also be informed via e-mail of the result. For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other Moderator. If the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the Moderator with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties of the Head Moderator. Only one Moderator may be subject to recall at any one time. The Board reserves the right to summarily dismiss frivolous recalls, to forestall disruption of the group's functioning by malicious trolls issuing one call for removal after another. 1.3 The Technical Administrator As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator is charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties, and is not a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet Moderators' mailing list at . 1.4 Pathological Cases Since most of this Moderation Policy hinges on there being at least two Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following pathological cases: a. The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head Moderator: In this case, the Head Moderator votes as a regular Board member. As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be decided as follows: When voting on a proposed change in Moderation Policy, the proposed change will be rejected. When voting to elect a new Moderator, the Moderator will be elected. When voting to remove a Moderator, the Moderator will not be removed. b. The case where there is only one Moderator: In this case, numerous segments of this Moderation Policy become inoperable. The lone Moderator should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as possible while attempting to re-staff the Board. c. The case where there are no Moderators: In this case, prior to leaving his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator should ensure that the following occur: (1.) The Watch List should be emptied. (2.) The moderation software should be set to pass all posts that would otherwise require hand-moderation. If the final outgoing Moderator fails in those tasks, the Technical Administrator should see to them. Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new Moderators, possibly with the help of the Technical Administrator. 2. Moderation Process All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which takes one of the following actions on each article, in order of technical precedence: - Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection); - Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (see 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or - Post it immediately. As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's identity should not be considered when determining if an article meets the requirements of the group's charter. A Moderator may place certain individuals or sites that repeatedly post off-charter material on a "Watch List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human Moderator for review (see 10. The Watch List). A Moderator may also declare certain off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in that thread are to be posted. There is no avenue of appeal for the closure of a thread. Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue. An article approved for posting by a human Moderator may not be modified, except that an "approved" header must be inserted, and a generic header or footer may be appended. Rejected articles are, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note of explanation. In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from a sender without attempting to return them (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse). Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address. The appeals address appears in all rejection notices. If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software must insert an "approved" header, and may append a generic footer. See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and section 11, Rejection and Appeals. 3. Retromoderation An article is normally subject to rejection only when it is submitted. Canceling an article after it has been posted ("retromoderation") will not be used for general content control. Cancellations are permitted only under the following special circumstances: - When performed or requested by the original poster or by the poster's Internet Service Provider; - When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel articles with forged approvals; - When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted articles ("spam"). 4. New Users / Approved Users The moderation software maintains a list of "approved" e-mail addresses, articles from which are posted by the software without human moderation. When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation software will: - Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword. - If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list. - If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the keyword and repost the article. - Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects. The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to misc.writing.moderated. It must not be sold, given away, or used as a mailing list. It starts empty, and is added to only as above. New posters are advised that their address has been added. List entries may be aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating host, to be not less than one year. Posters may request removal of their address from the "approved" list if they no longer wish to post to the group, or have changed accounts. While posting with "munged" addresses is not encouraged, posters using such addresses can have themselves added to the "approved" list by following the instructions in the FAQ (since the moderation software will not be able to send any instructions to a munged address, onus is on the poster to seek out the instructions pre-posting). The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ and welcome message. The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host. The welcome message is also available by autoreplier. The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board. For 15 days after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are valid. They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10 letters long, not use case meaningfully, be reasonably easy to spell and remember, and not be very likely to occur normally in the subject of a post. An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed on the Watch List. See Section 10. 5. Statement of Respect Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers. The Moderators will consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all posters with unfailing courtesy and respect. Additionally, as writers, we should be bound to respect the words of others. Intolerance, unfairness, negligence, or lack of impartiality by a Moderator toward a poster are grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator). 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of articles to their senders, without posting them. All returned articles must have generic text appended or prepended containing a pointer to the group's FAQ, and the appeals process: - Crossposted articles, except: RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings if only crossposted between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers). - Binaries. (Note that this excepts cryptographic authentication such as PGP.) - Articles with an empty or missing Subject header. - Articles submitted via email with a missing Newsgroups header. 6.1 Extreme Abuse While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup. To this end, the Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles from any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group. This is an extreme step, and should only be taken under the following exceptional circumstances: - When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such attack is occurring. In this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group. - When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission. In this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group, and improperly cancelled posts will be reposted. - When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup. Such a poster can only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board. Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse are returned to their sender. A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the Board after a minimum of three months. 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of articles to human Moderators for review. Since most Moderators actually have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more before such articles are either posted or returned to their senders. - Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter articles in the past (see 10. The Watch List). 8. Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. When approving an article, therefore, a Moderator must determine how closely the article adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated. The criterion that should be applied uniformly to all articles is: Would a reasonable person agree that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup? Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a Moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be used to decide the approval status of a post. Each article must be judged on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the decision. An article rejected by a human Moderator is returned (subject to the limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with a footer or header detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the Moderator responsible for rejecting the post. 9. Discarded Articles There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a human Moderator) may discard an article without returning it to its sender. The following types of articles may currently be discarded without attempting to return them to their sender: - Articles with faked addresses (for which returns would simply "bounce", or worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a faked address), in cases where there are several rejections per day and in which there is a pattern that establishes a single real source for the rejected articles. - Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse). 10. The Watch List The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review. An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address. At the discretion of the Moderator who decides to place an address on the Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to notify the poster: - The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the normal response. - The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person notified of this action privately and without delay. An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of at least six months. 11. Rejection and Appeals The moderation software tries to return any rejected article to the sender via email, subject to the limitations in section 9. Discarded Articles. The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ. The current appeals address is: . Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses. A Moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad addresses and re-send such rejection notices. Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of the Board. If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article will be posted. If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal. There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles. 12. Adjunct Venues All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups. Appeals, complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of the Moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit: - Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at . - General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the Moderation Policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list . That list is open to all and is read by at least one member of the Board at all times. 13. Changes to This Policy The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group annually. Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority vote of the Board. Any proposed changes should be discussed via the associated mailing list . 14. Moderator Contacts Send mail related to the moderation of the group to . The Moderation Board in charge of moderation for misc.writing.moderated is made up of: Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine Associate Moderators: John V Ashby David M. Harris Jen Jensen Hound of Cullen Backup Moderators: Carol Flynt Gerald Clough Technical Administrator: piranha [-- end text --] -- Dave Cornejo - Dogwood Media, Fremont, California From dave@dogwood.com Thu May 11 12:55:34 2000 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Dave Cornejo Reply-To: vote@dogwood.com Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: 2nd CFV: misc.writing.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster Message-ID: <958074594.1543@isc.org> References: <957158311.20023@isc.org> Supersedes: <957158311.20023@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 23 May 2000 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 19:49:54 GMT Lines: 682 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11477 news.groups:354816 misc.writing:399691 rec.arts.sf.composition:80596 LAST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group misc.writing.moderated Newsgroups line: misc.writing.moderated Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 2000. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Paul Harwood Proponent: Anna Banana Proponent: Moira D. Proponent: Bob Pastorio Proponent: Sal Towse Mentor: piranha Votetaker: Dave Cornejo RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for discussions of writing: alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition. Of these, rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter traffic. This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related discussions. In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group, getting upwards of 350 posts per day. In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to create misc.writing.moderated. Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's traffic could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. Similar rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged about 90 posts per day, showed that 63% of the traffic there could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and profession of writing. It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated as peers. The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers, increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of writing. Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers, or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing ambitions. Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be sought in the FAQ. Of greater interest are topics such as plotting techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent, techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns with which writers struggle. Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial announcements are disallowed. For the purposes of this charter, "repetitive" is defined as more than once per month. While questions about writing problems are appropriate in misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden. Participants are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a post. This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing. Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available for critique. Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be. Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday greetings, and so on. Signature files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not contain personal attacks against other posters. A signature file may contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements. Binaries with the exception of small cryptographic authentication such as PGP signatures in non-binary messages are not acceptable. This charter, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to misc.writing.moderated. Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts, except: RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings crossposted only between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers). Moderation Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the group pass through a review process before being posted. The purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. To this end, the Moderators will strive to maintain both focus and cordiality. Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators is set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator is charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties, and is not a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet Moderators' mailing list. The current moderation procedures and policies are described in the Moderation Policy, which is maintained by the Head Moderator. Any changes to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote of the Moderation Board. The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group annually. General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the Moderation Policy can be aired on a public, unmoderated mailing list. That list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the Board. The Moderation Policy, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to misc.writing.moderated. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated Moderator: "Kelly Madeleine" Moderator: "John V Ashby" Moderator: "David M. Harris" Moderator: "Jen Jensen" Moderator: "Hound of Cullen" Administrative contact address: mwm-request@panix.com Article submission address: mwm@panix.com END MODERATOR INFO. MODERATION POLICY: Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated Introduction Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles submitted to the group pass through a review process before being posted. Currently, moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are forwarded to human moderators for review. The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week. 1. Structure of the Moderation Board Misc.writing.moderated is moderated by a Moderation Board, which consists of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of Backup Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator. The Head Moderator maintains this Moderation Policy. The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a tie. 1.1 Board Membership The Board controls its own membership. It shall admit new members with a simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote. Board members (excepting the founding Board members) must come from the active posters of misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant Moderatorship should be solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged [ADMIN]. Backup Moderators vote as Associate Moderators when electing Board members. New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur: - Retirement of a Moderator; - Death of a Moderator; - Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days without prior announcement; - Expansion of the size of the Board; - Expulsion of a Moderator. The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence. The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board. 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board. Valid reasons for calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness, negligence, and lack of impartiality. Such a request should be made via e-mail directly to the Board at mwm-request@panix.com. On receipt of such a request an article will be posted to the newsgroup titled "[ADMIN] Call for Removal of " announcing the start of a discussion period not less than 15 days. This discussion shall be public and take place only on the associated public mailing list . Discussion on the newsgroup itself will be grounds for a poster being placed on the watchlist. During this discussion all active Moderators should monitor the mailing list. At the end of the public discussion phase the Moderators shall consider the views of the readership via the Moderators' mailing list. At the end of this consideration period, not less than seven days or more than fourteen days, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote. A 2/3 vote of the Board is required to remove a Moderator. The Board's decision shall be posted to the newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal Vote Result of {Moderator's name}" stating whether the call for removal has been successful or not. Each Moderator's vote shall be listed. The reader who called for removal shall also be informed via e-mail of the result. For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other Moderator. If the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the Moderator with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties of the Head Moderator. Only one Moderator may be subject to recall at any one time. The Board reserves the right to summarily dismiss frivolous recalls, to forestall disruption of the group's functioning by malicious trolls issuing one call for removal after another. 1.3 The Technical Administrator As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator is charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties, and is not a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet Moderators' mailing list at . 1.4 Pathological Cases Since most of this Moderation Policy hinges on there being at least two Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following pathological cases: a. The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head Moderator: In this case, the Head Moderator votes as a regular Board member. As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be decided as follows: When voting on a proposed change in Moderation Policy, the proposed change will be rejected. When voting to elect a new Moderator, the Moderator will be elected. When voting to remove a Moderator, the Moderator will not be removed. b. The case where there is only one Moderator: In this case, numerous segments of this Moderation Policy become inoperable. The lone Moderator should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as possible while attempting to re-staff the Board. c. The case where there are no Moderators: In this case, prior to leaving his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator should ensure that the following occur: (1.) The Watch List should be emptied. (2.) The moderation software should be set to pass all posts that would otherwise require hand-moderation. If the final outgoing Moderator fails in those tasks, the Technical Administrator should see to them. Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new Moderators, possibly with the help of the Technical Administrator. 2. Moderation Process All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which takes one of the following actions on each article, in order of technical precedence: - Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection); - Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (see 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or - Post it immediately. As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's identity should not be considered when determining if an article meets the requirements of the group's charter. A Moderator may place certain individuals or sites that repeatedly post off-charter material on a "Watch List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human Moderator for review (see 10. The Watch List). A Moderator may also declare certain off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in that thread are to be posted. There is no avenue of appeal for the closure of a thread. Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue. An article approved for posting by a human Moderator may not be modified, except that an "approved" header must be inserted, and a generic header or footer may be appended. Rejected articles are, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note of explanation. In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from a sender without attempting to return them (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse). Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address. The appeals address appears in all rejection notices. If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software must insert an "approved" header, and may append a generic footer. See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and section 11, Rejection and Appeals. 3. Retromoderation An article is normally subject to rejection only when it is submitted. Canceling an article after it has been posted ("retromoderation") will not be used for general content control. Cancellations are permitted only under the following special circumstances: - When performed or requested by the original poster or by the poster's Internet Service Provider; - When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel articles with forged approvals; - When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted articles ("spam"). 4. New Users / Approved Users The moderation software maintains a list of "approved" e-mail addresses, articles from which are posted by the software without human moderation. When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation software will: - Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword. - If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list. - If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the keyword and repost the article. - Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects. The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to misc.writing.moderated. It must not be sold, given away, or used as a mailing list. It starts empty, and is added to only as above. New posters are advised that their address has been added. List entries may be aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating host, to be not less than one year. Posters may request removal of their address from the "approved" list if they no longer wish to post to the group, or have changed accounts. While posting with "munged" addresses is not encouraged, posters using such addresses can have themselves added to the "approved" list by following the instructions in the FAQ (since the moderation software will not be able to send any instructions to a munged address, onus is on the poster to seek out the instructions pre-posting). The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ and welcome message. The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host. The welcome message is also available by autoreplier. The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board. For 15 days after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are valid. They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10 letters long, not use case meaningfully, be reasonably easy to spell and remember, and not be very likely to occur normally in the subject of a post. An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed on the Watch List. See Section 10. 5. Statement of Respect Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers. The Moderators will consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all posters with unfailing courtesy and respect. Additionally, as writers, we should be bound to respect the words of others. Intolerance, unfairness, negligence, or lack of impartiality by a Moderator toward a poster are grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator). 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of articles to their senders, without posting them. All returned articles must have generic text appended or prepended containing a pointer to the group's FAQ, and the appeals process: - Crossposted articles, except: RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings if only crossposted between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers). - Binaries. (Note that this excepts cryptographic authentication such as PGP.) - Articles with an empty or missing Subject header. - Articles submitted via email with a missing Newsgroups header. 6.1 Extreme Abuse While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup. To this end, the Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles from any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group. This is an extreme step, and should only be taken under the following exceptional circumstances: - When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such attack is occurring. In this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group. - When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission. In this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group, and improperly cancelled posts will be reposted. - When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup. Such a poster can only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board. Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse are returned to their sender. A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the Board after a minimum of three months. 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of articles to human Moderators for review. Since most Moderators actually have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more before such articles are either posted or returned to their senders. - Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter articles in the past (see 10. The Watch List). 8. Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. When approving an article, therefore, a Moderator must determine how closely the article adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated. The criterion that should be applied uniformly to all articles is: Would a reasonable person agree that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup? Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a Moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be used to decide the approval status of a post. Each article must be judged on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the decision. An article rejected by a human Moderator is returned (subject to the limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with a footer or header detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the Moderator responsible for rejecting the post. 9. Discarded Articles There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a human Moderator) may discard an article without returning it to its sender. The following types of articles may currently be discarded without attempting to return them to their sender: - Articles with faked addresses (for which returns would simply "bounce", or worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a faked address), in cases where there are several rejections per day and in which there is a pattern that establishes a single real source for the rejected articles. - Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse). 10. The Watch List The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review. An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address. At the discretion of the Moderator who decides to place an address on the Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to notify the poster: - The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the normal response. - The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person notified of this action privately and without delay. An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of at least six months. 11. Rejection and Appeals The moderation software tries to return any rejected article to the sender via email, subject to the limitations in section 9. Discarded Articles. The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ. The current appeals address is: . Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses. A Moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad addresses and re-send such rejection notices. Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of the Board. If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article will be posted. If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal. There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles. 12. Adjunct Venues All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups. Appeals, complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of the Moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit: - Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at . - General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the Moderation Policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list . That list is open to all and is read by at least one member of the Board at all times. 13. Changes to This Policy The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group annually. Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority vote of the Board. Any proposed changes should be discussed via the associated mailing list . 14. Moderator Contacts Send mail related to the moderation of the group to . The Moderation Board in charge of moderation for misc.writing.moderated is made up of: Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine Associate Moderators: John V Ashby David M. Harris Jen Jensen Hound of Cullen Backup Moderators: Carol Flynt Gerald Clough Technical Administrator: piranha END MODERATION POLICY. HOW TO VOTE: Follow these instructions *exactly*! Votes are counted by computer. You should send E-MAIL (posts to a newsgroup are invalid) to: vote@dogwood.com Please do not assume that just replying to this message will work. Check the address before you mail your vote. Your mail message should contain one and only one of the following vote statements: I vote YES on misc.writing.moderated I vote NO on misc.writing.moderated Voter name: If your mail software does not indicate your real name (for example, AOL does not), include _exactly_ the statement above on a _separate_ line and add your name after the colon. Having your name in your signature line is NOT enough! Do NOT join the lines together or remove the words "Voter name"! You may also vote ABSTAIN (which records an empty vote) or CANCEL (which removes any earlier votes). ABSTAIN does not affect the final vote count in any way but is listed, whereas CANCEL is not. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: Standard Guidelines for voting apply. One vote per person, one account per voter. Votes must be mailed directly from the voter to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded or proxy votes are not valid. Votes mailed by WWW/HTML/CGI forms are considered to be anonymous votes. Votes from non-existent email addresses are not valid. Vote counting is automated. Failure to follow these directions may mean that your vote does not get counted. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly. Duplicate votes are resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Addresses, names and votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results post. The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest of persons who would read a proposed newsgroup. Soliciting votes from disinterested parties defeats this purpose. Please do not distribute this CFV. If you must, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing pre-marked or otherwise edited copies of this CFV is generally considered to be vote fraud. When in doubt, ask the votetaker. DISTRIBUTION: Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups: alt.fiction.original misc.writing.screenplays rec.arts.books rec.arts.mystery rec.arts.poems -- Voting question & problems: Dave Cornejo Voting address: vote@dogwood.com From dave@dogwood.com Mon May 29 12:40:24 2000 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Dave Cornejo Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: RESULT: misc.writing.moderated moderated passes 155:45 Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <959629242.15903@isc.org> References: <957158311.20023@isc.org> <958074594.1543@isc.org> Supersedes: <958074594.1543@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 19:40:43 GMT Lines: 877 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11481 news.groups:355052 misc.writing:404583 rec.arts.sf.composition:82378 RESULT moderated group misc.writing.moderated passes 155:45 There were 155 YES votes and 45 NO votes, for a total of 200 valid votes. There were 11 abstentions. For a group to pass, YES votes must be at least 2/3 of all valid (YES and NO) votes. There must also be at least 100 more YES votes than NO votes. A five day discussion period follows this announcement. If no serious allegations of voting irregularities are raised, the moderator of news.announce.newgroups will create the group shortly thereafter. Newsgroups line: misc.writing.moderated Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated) Voting closed at 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 2000. This vote was conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Paul Harwood Proponent: Anna Banana Proponent: Moira D. Proponent: Bob Pastorio Proponent: Sal Towse Mentor: piranha Votetaker: Dave Cornejo RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for discussions of writing: alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition. Of these, rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter traffic. This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related discussions. In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group, getting upwards of 350 posts per day. In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to create misc.writing.moderated. Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's traffic could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. Similar rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged about 90 posts per day, showed that 63% of the traffic there could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and profession of writing. It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated as peers. The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers, increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of writing. Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers, or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing ambitions. Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be sought in the FAQ. Of greater interest are topics such as plotting techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent, techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns with which writers struggle. Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial announcements are disallowed. For the purposes of this charter, "repetitive" is defined as more than once per month. While questions about writing problems are appropriate in misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden. Participants are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a post. This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing. Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available for critique. Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be. Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday greetings, and so on. Signature files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not contain personal attacks against other posters. A signature file may contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements. Binaries with the exception of small cryptographic authentication such as PGP signatures in non-binary messages are not acceptable. This charter, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to misc.writing.moderated. Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts, except: RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings crossposted only between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers). Moderation Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the group pass through a review process before being posted. The purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. To this end, the Moderators will strive to maintain both focus and cordiality. Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators is set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator is charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties, and is not a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet Moderators' mailing list. The current moderation procedures and policies are described in the Moderation Policy, which is maintained by the Head Moderator. Any changes to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote of the Moderation Board. The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group annually. General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the Moderation Policy can be aired on a public, unmoderated mailing list. That list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the Board. The Moderation Policy, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to misc.writing.moderated. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated Moderator: "Kelly Madeleine" Moderator: "John V Ashby" Moderator: "David M. Harris" Moderator: "Jen Jensen" Moderator: "Hound of Cullen" Administrative contact address: mwm-request@panix.com Article submission address: mwm@panix.com END MODERATOR INFO. MODERATION POLICY: Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated Introduction Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles submitted to the group pass through a review process before being posted. Currently, moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are forwarded to human moderators for review. The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week. 1. Structure of the Moderation Board Misc.writing.moderated is moderated by a Moderation Board, which consists of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of Backup Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator. The Head Moderator maintains this Moderation Policy. The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a tie. 1.1 Board Membership The Board controls its own membership. It shall admit new members with a simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote. Board members (excepting the founding Board members) must come from the active posters of misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant Moderatorship should be solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged [ADMIN]. Backup Moderators vote as Associate Moderators when electing Board members. New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur: - Retirement of a Moderator; - Death of a Moderator; - Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days without prior announcement; - Expansion of the size of the Board; - Expulsion of a Moderator. The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence. The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board. 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board. Valid reasons for calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness, negligence, and lack of impartiality. Such a request should be made via e-mail directly to the Board at mwm-request@panix.com. On receipt of such a request an article will be posted to the newsgroup titled "[ADMIN] Call for Removal of " announcing the start of a discussion period not less than 15 days. This discussion shall be public and take place only on the associated public mailing list . Discussion on the newsgroup itself will be grounds for a poster being placed on the watchlist. During this discussion all active Moderators should monitor the mailing list. At the end of the public discussion phase the Moderators shall consider the views of the readership via the Moderators' mailing list. At the end of this consideration period, not less than seven days or more than fourteen days, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote. A 2/3 vote of the Board is required to remove a Moderator. The Board's decision shall be posted to the newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal Vote Result of {Moderator's name}" stating whether the call for removal has been successful or not. Each Moderator's vote shall be listed. The reader who called for removal shall also be informed via e-mail of the result. For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other Moderator. If the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the Moderator with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties of the Head Moderator. Only one Moderator may be subject to recall at any one time. The Board reserves the right to summarily dismiss frivolous recalls, to forestall disruption of the group's functioning by malicious trolls issuing one call for removal after another. 1.3 The Technical Administrator As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator is charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties, and is not a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet Moderators' mailing list at . 1.4 Pathological Cases Since most of this Moderation Policy hinges on there being at least two Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following pathological cases: a. The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head Moderator: In this case, the Head Moderator votes as a regular Board member. As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be decided as follows: When voting on a proposed change in Moderation Policy, the proposed change will be rejected. When voting to elect a new Moderator, the Moderator will be elected. When voting to remove a Moderator, the Moderator will not be removed. b. The case where there is only one Moderator: In this case, numerous segments of this Moderation Policy become inoperable. The lone Moderator should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as possible while attempting to re-staff the Board. c. The case where there are no Moderators: In this case, prior to leaving his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator should ensure that the following occur: (1.) The Watch List should be emptied. (2.) The moderation software should be set to pass all posts that would otherwise require hand-moderation. If the final outgoing Moderator fails in those tasks, the Technical Administrator should see to them. Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new Moderators, possibly with the help of the Technical Administrator. 2. Moderation Process All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which takes one of the following actions on each article, in order of technical precedence: - Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection); - Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (see 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or - Post it immediately. As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's identity should not be considered when determining if an article meets the requirements of the group's charter. A Moderator may place certain individuals or sites that repeatedly post off-charter material on a "Watch List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human Moderator for review (see 10. The Watch List). A Moderator may also declare certain off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in that thread are to be posted. There is no avenue of appeal for the closure of a thread. Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue. An article approved for posting by a human Moderator may not be modified, except that an "approved" header must be inserted, and a generic header or footer may be appended. Rejected articles are, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note of explanation. In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from a sender without attempting to return them (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse). Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address. The appeals address appears in all rejection notices. If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software must insert an "approved" header, and may append a generic footer. See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and section 11, Rejection and Appeals. 3. Retromoderation An article is normally subject to rejection only when it is submitted. Canceling an article after it has been posted ("retromoderation") will not be used for general content control. Cancellations are permitted only under the following special circumstances: - When performed or requested by the original poster or by the poster's Internet Service Provider; - When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel articles with forged approvals; - When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted articles ("spam"). 4. New Users / Approved Users The moderation software maintains a list of "approved" e-mail addresses, articles from which are posted by the software without human moderation. When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation software will: - Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword. - If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list. - If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the keyword and repost the article. - Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects. The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to misc.writing.moderated. It must not be sold, given away, or used as a mailing list. It starts empty, and is added to only as above. New posters are advised that their address has been added. List entries may be aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating host, to be not less than one year. Posters may request removal of their address from the "approved" list if they no longer wish to post to the group, or have changed accounts. While posting with "munged" addresses is not encouraged, posters using such addresses can have themselves added to the "approved" list by following the instructions in the FAQ (since the moderation software will not be able to send any instructions to a munged address, onus is on the poster to seek out the instructions pre-posting). The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ and welcome message. The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host. The welcome message is also available by autoreplier. The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board. For 15 days after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are valid. They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10 letters long, not use case meaningfully, be reasonably easy to spell and remember, and not be very likely to occur normally in the subject of a post. An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed on the Watch List. See Section 10. 5. Statement of Respect Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers. The Moderators will consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all posters with unfailing courtesy and respect. Additionally, as writers, we should be bound to respect the words of others. Intolerance, unfairness, negligence, or lack of impartiality by a Moderator toward a poster are grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator). 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of articles to their senders, without posting them. All returned articles must have generic text appended or prepended containing a pointer to the group's FAQ, and the appeals process: - Crossposted articles, except: RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings if only crossposted between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers). - Binaries. (Note that this excepts cryptographic authentication such as PGP.) - Articles with an empty or missing Subject header. - Articles submitted via email with a missing Newsgroups header. 6.1 Extreme Abuse While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup. To this end, the Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles >from any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group. This is an extreme step, and should only be taken under the following exceptional circumstances: - When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such attack is occurring. In this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group. - When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission. In this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group, and improperly cancelled posts will be reposted. - When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup. Such a poster can only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board. Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse are returned to their sender. A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the Board after a minimum of three months. 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of articles to human Moderators for review. Since most Moderators actually have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more before such articles are either posted or returned to their senders. - Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter articles in the past (see 10. The Watch List). 8. Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. When approving an article, therefore, a Moderator must determine how closely the article adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated. The criterion that should be applied uniformly to all articles is: Would a reasonable person agree that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup? Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a Moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be used to decide the approval status of a post. Each article must be judged on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the decision. An article rejected by a human Moderator is returned (subject to the limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with a footer or header detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the Moderator responsible for rejecting the post. 9. Discarded Articles There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a human Moderator) may discard an article without returning it to its sender. The following types of articles may currently be discarded without attempting to return them to their sender: - Articles with faked addresses (for which returns would simply "bounce", or worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a faked address), in cases where there are several rejections per day and in which there is a pattern that establishes a single real source for the rejected articles. - Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse). 10. The Watch List The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review. An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address. At the discretion of the Moderator who decides to place an address on the Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to notify the poster: - The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the normal response. - The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person notified of this action privately and without delay. An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of at least six months. 11. Rejection and Appeals The moderation software tries to return any rejected article to the sender via email, subject to the limitations in section 9. Discarded Articles. The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ. The current appeals address is: . Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses. A Moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad addresses and re-send such rejection notices. Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of the Board. If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article will be posted. If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal. There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles. 12. Adjunct Venues All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups. Appeals, complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of the Moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit: - Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at . - General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the Moderation Policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list . That list is open to all and is read by at least one member of the Board at all times. 13. Changes to This Policy The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group annually. Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority vote of the Board. Any proposed changes should be discussed via the associated mailing list . 14. Moderator Contacts Send mail related to the moderation of the group to . The Moderation Board in charge of moderation for misc.writing.moderated is made up of: Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine Associate Moderators: John V Ashby David M. Harris Jen Jensen Hound of Cullen Backup Moderators: Carol Flynt Gerald Clough Technical Administrator: piranha END MODERATION POLICY. DISTRIBUTION: Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups: alt.fiction.original misc.writing.screenplays rec.arts.books rec.arts.mystery rec.arts.poems misc.writing.moderated Final Voter list Voted YES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kwrected#bigpond.com.au Andrew Csonka toivo#ucs.uwa.edu.au Toivo Pedaste thompson#chariot.net.au Paul Thompson chris#stallion.oz.au Christopher Biggs metatron#escape.ca Sylvia Li feistywriter#netcom.ca JL Senatore trevort#vianet.on.ca Trevor Tymchuk randywatt#4autos.com Randall Watt simblet#acmecity.com Carla Simblet rallen#plaza.ds.adp.com Rob Allen kemnunn#americamail.com Kem Nunn AnWinEsp#aol.com Anne Winthrop Coinlord#aol.com Cynth91183#aol.com Cynthia Damiano DenaJo#aol.com Gizmophreax#aol.com Jason Dimmelstein MWyck0828#aol.com Malia McCawley Wyckoff WoofWoofWoofWoof#aol.com Gina Andresen vitavitavegamin#axoskate.com Ted Borkowski enigma#BayView.COM Holly L. Ward hermit#BayView.COM William R. Ward damien#bernafamily.com Eric Damien Berna cowboystud#bigger.com Joseph D. Smith mschiffer#birdmail.com Mike Schiffer brookter#btinternet.com David Bertenshaw ichard#cadence.com Ian Chard stef#cat-and-dragon.com Stef Maruch carol#cflynt.com Carol A. Flynt clif#cflynt.com Clif Flynt jdudley#chequemail.com Jane Dudley 72027.3605#compuserve.com paulh#computerbits.com Paul Harwood jzh#cyberscience.com Jon Huxtable hollyholly#dotcool.com Holly Pulaski howdyhowdy#dotcool.com Rick Hammond kittybobitty#dotcool.com Katherine Bittman mcclenon#erols.com Bob McClenon gae#esworthy.com George Alan Esworthy pbowne#execpc.com Patricia S. Bowne biow#ezmort.com Christopher Biow david#farrar.com David Farrar dave#frackit.com Dave Ratcliffe starswirler#geocities.com Paine Ellsworth dougob55#go.com D. David Oberthroogd dilickjm#home.com John Dilick kmadeleine#home.com Kelly Madeleine Carterj98#HOTMAIL.COM Carter Jefferson gethorny1#hotmail.com Andy Cohen lostpuppy3#hotmail.com Bradley Pitt shrao#hotmail.com Shrisha Rao toejam_78#hotmail.com Toejammn Mann mulveyk#iname.com Katy Mulvey pziselberger#iname.com Hound of Cullen dietz#interaccess.com Paul F. Dietz whytcrow#io.com Jennifer Brinn zephyn#io.com Keith E. Peyton lavina#islandnet.com Lavina Galbraith iceberg#iw3p.com William Thomas Quick chris#kzim.com Christopher Robin Zimmerman mdoherty#mac.com Miche Doherty kindall#manual.com Jerry Kindall bglake#mindspring.com Barbara Grace Lake chyla#mindspring.com Cindy Hyland olav#viking.mv.com Olav Nieuwejaar the_guy_at_node3#my-deja.com Burt Kendall aahz#netcom.com Aahz fi#oceanstar.com Fiona Webster sleepy#os.com Alexander Pennace gaillard#panix.com Ed Gaillard tindall#panix.com Bruce Tindall jensen#peavine.com Jennifer Jensen buff#pobox.com William Denton piranha#pobox.com piranha tybalt#prime-online.com Craig Burley gloriamralak#purpleturtle.com Gloria Mralak rootbeer#redcat.com Tom Phoenix rjuliano#cfl.rr.com Bob Juliano serenebabe#serenebabe.com Heather Santmire kurtullman#sprintmail.com Kurt Ullman nsmith#micro.ti.com Neal Smith entropy#timestreamer.com anna halbert davidsen#tmr.com Bill Davidsen rickychang#torchmail.com Ricky Chang self#towse.com Sal Towse tyrichards#truckracers.com Tyrone Richards dsgood#visi.com Dan Goodman bjf#wavefront.com Beth Friedman brad#whidbey.com Bradley E. Robertson davidhoag#workmail.com David Hoag kmeyer360#yahoo.com Kathie Meyer stonebugdotnet#yahoo.com Scott Elyard jase.innez#yeehaa.com Jase Innez torex#kholdan.in-berlin.de tobias erle naddy#mips.inka.de Christian Weisgerber bouvin#daimi.au.dk Niels Olof Bouvin jthomas#aug.edu Jenna Thomas-McKie hough#gps.caltech.edu Susan Hough pm39#andrew.cmu.edu P Mazaitis dsr#mail.lns.cornell.edu Daniel S. Riley harvey#iupui.edu James Harvey cmclaugh#mcw.edu Chris McLaughlin bmoses#stanford.edu Brooks Moses rufinus#mbe.ece.wisc.edu J Rufinus kwelch#facstaff.wisc.edu Kevin Welch kristian.liimatainen#helsinki.fi Lauri Liimatainen ts#UWasa.Fi Timo Salmi llehmann#club-internet.fr Laurent Lehmann porter.clark#msfc.nasa.gov J. Porter Clark popstar#mail.lv cemanuel#accs.net Curt Emanuel doc#america.net Rob Wynne annabanana#annabanana.net Anna Banana joyseymour#worldnet.att.net Joyleen E. Seymour willowbrookemill#worldnet.att.net Genna Reeney dfdoyle#bellsouth.net Donna F. Doyle baird#gate.net Baird Stafford Aspsusa#gmx.net Antonia Palmén jmh#gmx.net Jan Haar tlhise#inav.net Tom Hise alexdw#locl.net Alex LaHurreau aslan#magicforest.net Mark Holtz ErinBarrett#pacbell.net Erin Barrett mingo#pacbell.net Jack Mingo greyhosky#physicist.net Barbara "Babs" Greyhosky wakelyn#pinn.net N. T. Wakelyn Pastorio#rica.net Bob Pastorio (pastorio#rica.net) evert#royal.net Evert Meulie esq laurel#sff.net Laurel Amberdine b.nachison#snet.net Beth Nachison dfreeman#sonic.net Dan Freeman clough#texas.net Gerald Clough clough#texas.net critic#these-survive.net Joe Bernstein tclarke#tiac.net Timothy Clarke algernonbeckwith#usa.net Algernon Beckwith doctorsmut#usa.net Jerry Feinberg judithrascoe#usa.net Judith Rascoe kenyonpyle#usa.net Kenyon Pyle misspancake#usa.net Mary Marciniak bdonovan#wightman.net Willondon Donovan terje27#online.no Terje=20 John_David_Galt#acm.org John David Galt mooring#acm.org Ed Mooring chessler#capaccess.org David Chessler clore#columbia-center.org Dan Clore berniex#efn.org Bernard Rogge goddess#peak.org Marg Petersen djb#v2000.scream.org Dan Birchall D.W.H.McNair#durham.ac.uk Duncan jva#inf.rl.ac.uk John V Ashby jibberwigs#020.co.uk Alan Bennett Jo#bluejo.demon.co.uk Jo Walton chriseb#ukshells.co.uk Chris Ebenezer steve#spelbind.demon.co.uk Steve Pritchard talacko#yarn.demon.co.uk Paul Talacko ian#lastime.freeserve.co.uk Ian Neeson Voted NO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ing.blueyes#sympatico.ca ingrid gadsden AutmDragon#aol.com Kaichi Satake LAWunder#aol.com Linda Wunderlich kimdv#best.com Kim DeVaughn stainles#bga.com Dwight Brown dchigley#bigfoot.com D. C. Higley eae#bigfoot.com Eric=20 momblanche#bigfoot.com Blanche Nonken reverie#clarityconnect.com Smokey SSipes#comsoltx.com Sonya M. Sipes tjmc#enteract.com tjmc smeghead#erols.com Alex Jay Berman fouts#fogey.com Martin Fouts dwyman#home.com Doug Wyman stan_kid#hotmail.com Stan Kid tamara_bradley#hotmail.com Tamara Bradley ajcarol#mindspring.com Carol Schmidt blnadri#mindspring.com B.L. Nadri gprrspw#mindspring.com G.P. Ryan illbegood#mindspring.com Lily jmartalo#mindspring.com John Martalo rainfield#mindspring.com Andy Elfway r5555c#email.sps.mot.com Alan Chapman tgm#netcom.com Thomas G. McWilliams Laura#nitelinks.com Laura Higley john1#world.std.com john1#world.std.com (Fred Cherry) julian#tele.com Julian Macassey Abhay.Natu#wcom.com Abhay Natu silly#well.com Thomas Armagost jkent#writelinks.com Janet Kent Ekkehard.Uthke#gmx.de Ekkehard Uthke Hugh_Watkins#net.dialog.dk Hugh Watkins rick#bcm.tmc.edu Richard H. Miller bblair#aa.net Bruce Blair arjanz#worldnet.att.net Arleen Janz aobensam#concentric.net Arlene Bensam deck#gate.net Deck Deckert kneecap#netnet.net Neal Cappel mmontcha#OregonVOS.net Matthew Montchalin patm7#prodigy.net Pat Marcello billo#Radix.Net William R. Oliver anghara#ihug.co.nz Alma Hromic katepc#ihug.co.nz Kate Parker-Corney ari.cword#mbox304.swipnet.se Ari Nordström jon#thomson2273.freeserve.co.uk Jon Thomson Abstained ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ahope#skynet.be Alan Hope yan#storm.ca Yves Bellefeuille sforsell#aol.com Scott Forsell wcgreen#cris.com Wendy Chatley Green moira_d#iname.com moira d wiz#lart.com Mike Craig glynne#mindspring.com Glynne Gilmore kathy#newsreaders.com Kathy I. Morgan rra#stanford.edu Russ Allbery bard#digital-marketplace.net Bard r.vanette#pink.nl Robert-Jan van Ette Invalid ballots ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No invalid votes To restore the email addresses above, pipe the ack list through the following command: sed -e 's/#/@/g' -- Voting question & problems: Dave Cornejo Voting address: vote@dogwood.com From dave@dogwood.com Mon Apr 29 15:15:03 2002 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Dave Cornejo Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition Subject: RESULT: misc.writing.moderated moderated passes 155:45 Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <1020117647.67601@isc.org> References: <957158311.20023@isc.org> <958074594.1543@isc.org> <959629242.15903@isc.org> Supersedes: <959629242.15903@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 22:00:47 UTC Lines: 892 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11771 news.groups:406691 misc.writing:598824 rec.arts.sf.composition:157895 RESULT moderated group misc.writing.moderated passes 155:45 [ Note: This result is being reposted for two reasons -- to force the creation of a new control message because tale is currently not available to submit manual control messages, and because it's been nearly 2 years since the group actually passed, and reminding interested people that it is finally going live seems like a good idea after that much time. Errata: There won't be a five day discussion period after this repost. The public mailing list on which issues with the moderation can be discussed has changed from to . - piranha, for the n.a.n moderation team ] There were 155 YES votes and 45 NO votes, for a total of 200 valid votes. There were 11 abstentions. For a group to pass, YES votes must be at least 2/3 of all valid (YES and NO) votes. There must also be at least 100 more YES votes than NO votes. A five day discussion period follows this announcement. If no serious allegations of voting irregularities are raised, the moderator of news.announce.newgroups will create the group shortly thereafter. Newsgroups line: misc.writing.moderated Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated) Voting closed at 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 2000. This vote was conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Paul Harwood Proponent: Anna Banana Proponent: Moira D. Proponent: Bob Pastorio Proponent: Sal Towse Mentor: piranha Votetaker: Dave Cornejo RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for discussions of writing: alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition. Of these, rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter traffic. This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related discussions. In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group, getting upwards of 350 posts per day. In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to create misc.writing.moderated. Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's traffic could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. Similar rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged about 90 posts per day, showed that 63% of the traffic there could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated. CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and profession of writing. It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated as peers. The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers, increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of writing. Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers, or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing ambitions. Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be sought in the FAQ. Of greater interest are topics such as plotting techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent, techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns with which writers struggle. Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial announcements are disallowed. For the purposes of this charter, "repetitive" is defined as more than once per month. While questions about writing problems are appropriate in misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden. Participants are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a post. This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing. Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available for critique. Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be. Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday greetings, and so on. Signature files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not contain personal attacks against other posters. A signature file may contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements. Binaries with the exception of small cryptographic authentication such as PGP signatures in non-binary messages are not acceptable. This charter, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to misc.writing.moderated. Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts, except: RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings crossposted only between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers). Moderation Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the group pass through a review process before being posted. The purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. To this end, the Moderators will strive to maintain both focus and cordiality. Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators is set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator is charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties, and is not a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet Moderators' mailing list. The current moderation procedures and policies are described in the Moderation Policy, which is maintained by the Head Moderator. Any changes to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote of the Moderation Board. The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group annually. General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the Moderation Policy can be aired on a public, unmoderated mailing list. That list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the Board. The Moderation Policy, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to misc.writing.moderated. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated Moderator: "Kelly Madeleine" Moderator: "John V Ashby" Moderator: "David M. Harris" Moderator: "Jen Jensen" Moderator: "Hound of Cullen" Administrative contact address: mwm-request@panix.com Article submission address: mwm@panix.com END MODERATOR INFO. MODERATION POLICY: Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated Introduction Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles submitted to the group pass through a review process before being posted. Currently, moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are forwarded to human moderators for review. The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week. 1. Structure of the Moderation Board Misc.writing.moderated is moderated by a Moderation Board, which consists of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts. The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of Backup Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator. The Head Moderator maintains this Moderation Policy. The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a tie. 1.1 Board Membership The Board controls its own membership. It shall admit new members with a simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote. Board members (excepting the founding Board members) must come from the active posters of misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant Moderatorship should be solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged [ADMIN]. Backup Moderators vote as Associate Moderators when electing Board members. New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur: - Retirement of a Moderator; - Death of a Moderator; - Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days without prior announcement; - Expansion of the size of the Board; - Expulsion of a Moderator. The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence. The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board. 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board. Valid reasons for calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness, negligence, and lack of impartiality. Such a request should be made via e-mail directly to the Board at mwm-request@panix.com. On receipt of such a request an article will be posted to the newsgroup titled "[ADMIN] Call for Removal of " announcing the start of a discussion period not less than 15 days. This discussion shall be public and take place only on the associated public mailing list . Discussion on the newsgroup itself will be grounds for a poster being placed on the watchlist. During this discussion all active Moderators should monitor the mailing list. At the end of the public discussion phase the Moderators shall consider the views of the readership via the Moderators' mailing list. At the end of this consideration period, not less than seven days or more than fourteen days, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote. A 2/3 vote of the Board is required to remove a Moderator. The Board's decision shall be posted to the newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal Vote Result of {Moderator's name}" stating whether the call for removal has been successful or not. Each Moderator's vote shall be listed. The reader who called for removal shall also be informed via e-mail of the result. For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other Moderator. If the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the Moderator with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties of the Head Moderator. Only one Moderator may be subject to recall at any one time. The Board reserves the right to summarily dismiss frivolous recalls, to forestall disruption of the group's functioning by malicious trolls issuing one call for removal after another. 1.3 The Technical Administrator As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator is charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and participants. The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties, and is not a voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet Moderators' mailing list at . 1.4 Pathological Cases Since most of this Moderation Policy hinges on there being at least two Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following pathological cases: a. The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head Moderator: In this case, the Head Moderator votes as a regular Board member. As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be decided as follows: When voting on a proposed change in Moderation Policy, the proposed change will be rejected. When voting to elect a new Moderator, the Moderator will be elected. When voting to remove a Moderator, the Moderator will not be removed. b. The case where there is only one Moderator: In this case, numerous segments of this Moderation Policy become inoperable. The lone Moderator should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as possible while attempting to re-staff the Board. c. The case where there are no Moderators: In this case, prior to leaving his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator should ensure that the following occur: (1.) The Watch List should be emptied. (2.) The moderation software should be set to pass all posts that would otherwise require hand-moderation. If the final outgoing Moderator fails in those tasks, the Technical Administrator should see to them. Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new Moderators, possibly with the help of the Technical Administrator. 2. Moderation Process All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which takes one of the following actions on each article, in order of technical precedence: - Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection); - Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (see 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or - Post it immediately. As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's identity should not be considered when determining if an article meets the requirements of the group's charter. A Moderator may place certain individuals or sites that repeatedly post off-charter material on a "Watch List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human Moderator for review (see 10. The Watch List). A Moderator may also declare certain off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in that thread are to be posted. There is no avenue of appeal for the closure of a thread. Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue. An article approved for posting by a human Moderator may not be modified, except that an "approved" header must be inserted, and a generic header or footer may be appended. Rejected articles are, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note of explanation. In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from a sender without attempting to return them (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse). Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address. The appeals address appears in all rejection notices. If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software must insert an "approved" header, and may append a generic footer. See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and section 11, Rejection and Appeals. 3. Retromoderation An article is normally subject to rejection only when it is submitted. Canceling an article after it has been posted ("retromoderation") will not be used for general content control. Cancellations are permitted only under the following special circumstances: - When performed or requested by the original poster or by the poster's Internet Service Provider; - When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel articles with forged approvals; - When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted articles ("spam"). 4. New Users / Approved Users The moderation software maintains a list of "approved" e-mail addresses, articles from which are posted by the software without human moderation. When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation software will: - Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword. - If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list. - If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the keyword and repost the article. - Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects. The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to misc.writing.moderated. It must not be sold, given away, or used as a mailing list. It starts empty, and is added to only as above. New posters are advised that their address has been added. List entries may be aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating host, to be not less than one year. Posters may request removal of their address from the "approved" list if they no longer wish to post to the group, or have changed accounts. While posting with "munged" addresses is not encouraged, posters using such addresses can have themselves added to the "approved" list by following the instructions in the FAQ (since the moderation software will not be able to send any instructions to a munged address, onus is on the poster to seek out the instructions pre-posting). The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ and welcome message. The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host. The welcome message is also available by autoreplier. The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board. For 15 days after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are valid. They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10 letters long, not use case meaningfully, be reasonably easy to spell and remember, and not be very likely to occur normally in the subject of a post. An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed on the Watch List. See Section 10. 5. Statement of Respect Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers. The Moderators will consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all posters with unfailing courtesy and respect. Additionally, as writers, we should be bound to respect the words of others. Intolerance, unfairness, negligence, or lack of impartiality by a Moderator toward a poster are grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator). 6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of articles to their senders, without posting them. All returned articles must have generic text appended or prepended containing a pointer to the group's FAQ, and the appeals process: - Crossposted articles, except: RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings if only crossposted between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers). - Binaries. (Note that this excepts cryptographic authentication such as PGP.) - Articles with an empty or missing Subject header. - Articles submitted via email with a missing Newsgroups header. 6.1 Extreme Abuse While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup. To this end, the Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles >from any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group. This is an extreme step, and should only be taken under the following exceptional circumstances: - When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such attack is occurring. In this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group. - When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission. In this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group, and improperly cancelled posts will be reposted. - When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup. Such a poster can only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board. Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse are returned to their sender. A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the Board after a minimum of three months. 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of articles to human Moderators for review. Since most Moderators actually have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more before such articles are either posted or returned to their senders. - Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter articles in the past (see 10. The Watch List). 8. Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. When approving an article, therefore, a Moderator must determine how closely the article adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated. The criterion that should be applied uniformly to all articles is: Would a reasonable person agree that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup? Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a Moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be used to decide the approval status of a post. Each article must be judged on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the decision. An article rejected by a human Moderator is returned (subject to the limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with a footer or header detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the Moderator responsible for rejecting the post. 9. Discarded Articles There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a human Moderator) may discard an article without returning it to its sender. The following types of articles may currently be discarded without attempting to return them to their sender: - Articles with faked addresses (for which returns would simply "bounce", or worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a faked address), in cases where there are several rejections per day and in which there is a pattern that establishes a single real source for the rejected articles. - Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse). 10. The Watch List The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review. An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address. At the discretion of the Moderator who decides to place an address on the Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to notify the poster: - The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the normal response. - The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person notified of this action privately and without delay. An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of at least six months. 11. Rejection and Appeals The moderation software tries to return any rejected article to the sender via email, subject to the limitations in section 9. Discarded Articles. The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ. The current appeals address is: . Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses. A Moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad addresses and re-send such rejection notices. Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of the Board. If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article will be posted. If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal. There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles. 12. Adjunct Venues All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups. Appeals, complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of the Moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit: - Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at . - General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the Moderation Policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list . That list is open to all and is read by at least one member of the Board at all times. 13. Changes to This Policy The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group annually. Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority vote of the Board. Any proposed changes should be discussed via the associated mailing list . 14. Moderator Contacts Send mail related to the moderation of the group to . The Moderation Board in charge of moderation for misc.writing.moderated is made up of: Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine Associate Moderators: John V Ashby David M. Harris Jen Jensen Hound of Cullen Backup Moderators: Carol Flynt Gerald Clough Technical Administrator: piranha END MODERATION POLICY. DISTRIBUTION: Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups: alt.fiction.original misc.writing.screenplays rec.arts.books rec.arts.mystery rec.arts.poems misc.writing.moderated Final Voter list Voted YES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kwrected#bigpond.com.au Andrew Csonka toivo#ucs.uwa.edu.au Toivo Pedaste thompson#chariot.net.au Paul Thompson chris#stallion.oz.au Christopher Biggs metatron#escape.ca Sylvia Li feistywriter#netcom.ca JL Senatore trevort#vianet.on.ca Trevor Tymchuk randywatt#4autos.com Randall Watt simblet#acmecity.com Carla Simblet rallen#plaza.ds.adp.com Rob Allen kemnunn#americamail.com Kem Nunn AnWinEsp#aol.com Anne Winthrop Coinlord#aol.com Cynth91183#aol.com Cynthia Damiano DenaJo#aol.com Gizmophreax#aol.com Jason Dimmelstein MWyck0828#aol.com Malia McCawley Wyckoff WoofWoofWoofWoof#aol.com Gina Andresen vitavitavegamin#axoskate.com Ted Borkowski enigma#BayView.COM Holly L. Ward hermit#BayView.COM William R. Ward damien#bernafamily.com Eric Damien Berna cowboystud#bigger.com Joseph D. Smith mschiffer#birdmail.com Mike Schiffer brookter#btinternet.com David Bertenshaw ichard#cadence.com Ian Chard stef#cat-and-dragon.com Stef Maruch carol#cflynt.com Carol A. Flynt clif#cflynt.com Clif Flynt jdudley#chequemail.com Jane Dudley 72027.3605#compuserve.com paulh#computerbits.com Paul Harwood jzh#cyberscience.com Jon Huxtable hollyholly#dotcool.com Holly Pulaski howdyhowdy#dotcool.com Rick Hammond kittybobitty#dotcool.com Katherine Bittman mcclenon#erols.com Bob McClenon gae#esworthy.com George Alan Esworthy pbowne#execpc.com Patricia S. Bowne biow#ezmort.com Christopher Biow david#farrar.com David Farrar dave#frackit.com Dave Ratcliffe starswirler#geocities.com Paine Ellsworth dougob55#go.com D. David Oberthroogd dilickjm#home.com John Dilick kmadeleine#home.com Kelly Madeleine Carterj98#HOTMAIL.COM Carter Jefferson gethorny1#hotmail.com Andy Cohen lostpuppy3#hotmail.com Bradley Pitt shrao#hotmail.com Shrisha Rao toejam_78#hotmail.com Toejammn Mann mulveyk#iname.com Katy Mulvey pziselberger#iname.com Hound of Cullen dietz#interaccess.com Paul F. Dietz whytcrow#io.com Jennifer Brinn zephyn#io.com Keith E. Peyton lavina#islandnet.com Lavina Galbraith iceberg#iw3p.com William Thomas Quick chris#kzim.com Christopher Robin Zimmerman mdoherty#mac.com Miche Doherty kindall#manual.com Jerry Kindall bglake#mindspring.com Barbara Grace Lake chyla#mindspring.com Cindy Hyland olav#viking.mv.com Olav Nieuwejaar the_guy_at_node3#my-deja.com Burt Kendall aahz#netcom.com Aahz fi#oceanstar.com Fiona Webster sleepy#os.com Alexander Pennace gaillard#panix.com Ed Gaillard tindall#panix.com Bruce Tindall jensen#peavine.com Jennifer Jensen buff#pobox.com William Denton piranha#pobox.com piranha tybalt#prime-online.com Craig Burley gloriamralak#purpleturtle.com Gloria Mralak rootbeer#redcat.com Tom Phoenix rjuliano#cfl.rr.com Bob Juliano serenebabe#serenebabe.com Heather Santmire kurtullman#sprintmail.com Kurt Ullman nsmith#micro.ti.com Neal Smith entropy#timestreamer.com anna halbert davidsen#tmr.com Bill Davidsen rickychang#torchmail.com Ricky Chang self#towse.com Sal Towse tyrichards#truckracers.com Tyrone Richards dsgood#visi.com Dan Goodman bjf#wavefront.com Beth Friedman brad#whidbey.com Bradley E. Robertson davidhoag#workmail.com David Hoag kmeyer360#yahoo.com Kathie Meyer stonebugdotnet#yahoo.com Scott Elyard jase.innez#yeehaa.com Jase Innez torex#kholdan.in-berlin.de tobias erle naddy#mips.inka.de Christian Weisgerber bouvin#daimi.au.dk Niels Olof Bouvin jthomas#aug.edu Jenna Thomas-McKie hough#gps.caltech.edu Susan Hough pm39#andrew.cmu.edu P Mazaitis dsr#mail.lns.cornell.edu Daniel S. Riley harvey#iupui.edu James Harvey cmclaugh#mcw.edu Chris McLaughlin bmoses#stanford.edu Brooks Moses rufinus#mbe.ece.wisc.edu J Rufinus kwelch#facstaff.wisc.edu Kevin Welch kristian.liimatainen#helsinki.fi Lauri Liimatainen ts#UWasa.Fi Timo Salmi llehmann#club-internet.fr Laurent Lehmann porter.clark#msfc.nasa.gov J. Porter Clark popstar#mail.lv cemanuel#accs.net Curt Emanuel doc#america.net Rob Wynne annabanana#annabanana.net Anna Banana joyseymour#worldnet.att.net Joyleen E. Seymour willowbrookemill#worldnet.att.net Genna Reeney dfdoyle#bellsouth.net Donna F. Doyle baird#gate.net Baird Stafford Aspsusa#gmx.net Antonia Palmén jmh#gmx.net Jan Haar tlhise#inav.net Tom Hise alexdw#locl.net Alex LaHurreau aslan#magicforest.net Mark Holtz ErinBarrett#pacbell.net Erin Barrett mingo#pacbell.net Jack Mingo greyhosky#physicist.net Barbara "Babs" Greyhosky wakelyn#pinn.net N. T. Wakelyn Pastorio#rica.net Bob Pastorio (pastorio#rica.net) evert#royal.net Evert Meulie esq laurel#sff.net Laurel Amberdine b.nachison#snet.net Beth Nachison dfreeman#sonic.net Dan Freeman clough#texas.net Gerald Clough clough#texas.net critic#these-survive.net Joe Bernstein tclarke#tiac.net Timothy Clarke algernonbeckwith#usa.net Algernon Beckwith doctorsmut#usa.net Jerry Feinberg judithrascoe#usa.net Judith Rascoe kenyonpyle#usa.net Kenyon Pyle misspancake#usa.net Mary Marciniak bdonovan#wightman.net Willondon Donovan terje27#online.no Terje=20 John_David_Galt#acm.org John David Galt mooring#acm.org Ed Mooring chessler#capaccess.org David Chessler clore#columbia-center.org Dan Clore berniex#efn.org Bernard Rogge goddess#peak.org Marg Petersen djb#v2000.scream.org Dan Birchall D.W.H.McNair#durham.ac.uk Duncan jva#inf.rl.ac.uk John V Ashby jibberwigs#020.co.uk Alan Bennett Jo#bluejo.demon.co.uk Jo Walton chriseb#ukshells.co.uk Chris Ebenezer steve#spelbind.demon.co.uk Steve Pritchard talacko#yarn.demon.co.uk Paul Talacko ian#lastime.freeserve.co.uk Ian Neeson Voted NO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ing.blueyes#sympatico.ca ingrid gadsden AutmDragon#aol.com Kaichi Satake LAWunder#aol.com Linda Wunderlich kimdv#best.com Kim DeVaughn stainles#bga.com Dwight Brown dchigley#bigfoot.com D. C. Higley eae#bigfoot.com Eric=20 momblanche#bigfoot.com Blanche Nonken reverie#clarityconnect.com Smokey SSipes#comsoltx.com Sonya M. Sipes tjmc#enteract.com tjmc smeghead#erols.com Alex Jay Berman fouts#fogey.com Martin Fouts dwyman#home.com Doug Wyman stan_kid#hotmail.com Stan Kid tamara_bradley#hotmail.com Tamara Bradley ajcarol#mindspring.com Carol Schmidt blnadri#mindspring.com B.L. Nadri gprrspw#mindspring.com G.P. Ryan illbegood#mindspring.com Lily jmartalo#mindspring.com John Martalo rainfield#mindspring.com Andy Elfway r5555c#email.sps.mot.com Alan Chapman tgm#netcom.com Thomas G. McWilliams Laura#nitelinks.com Laura Higley john1#world.std.com john1#world.std.com (Fred Cherry) julian#tele.com Julian Macassey Abhay.Natu#wcom.com Abhay Natu silly#well.com Thomas Armagost jkent#writelinks.com Janet Kent Ekkehard.Uthke#gmx.de Ekkehard Uthke Hugh_Watkins#net.dialog.dk Hugh Watkins rick#bcm.tmc.edu Richard H. Miller bblair#aa.net Bruce Blair arjanz#worldnet.att.net Arleen Janz aobensam#concentric.net Arlene Bensam deck#gate.net Deck Deckert kneecap#netnet.net Neal Cappel mmontcha#OregonVOS.net Matthew Montchalin patm7#prodigy.net Pat Marcello billo#Radix.Net William R. Oliver anghara#ihug.co.nz Alma Hromic katepc#ihug.co.nz Kate Parker-Corney ari.cword#mbox304.swipnet.se Ari Nordström jon#thomson2273.freeserve.co.uk Jon Thomson Abstained ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ahope#skynet.be Alan Hope yan#storm.ca Yves Bellefeuille sforsell#aol.com Scott Forsell wcgreen#cris.com Wendy Chatley Green moira_d#iname.com moira d wiz#lart.com Mike Craig glynne#mindspring.com Glynne Gilmore kathy#newsreaders.com Kathy I. Morgan rra#stanford.edu Russ Allbery bard#digital-marketplace.net Bard r.vanette#pink.nl Robert-Jan van Ette Invalid ballots ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No invalid votes To restore the email addresses above, pipe the ack list through the following command: sed -e 's/#/@/g' -- Voting question & problems: Dave Cornejo Voting address: vote@dogwood.com