From etroll@flash.net Wed May 27 21:30:20 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: etroll@flash.net (Eric O. Troldahl) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: RFD: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <896328708.21545@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 04:11:50 GMT Lines: 505 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10117 news.groups:284939 rec.autos.sport.nascar:138331 rec.autos.sport.f1:149618 rec.autos.sport.indy:75447 rec.autos.sport.misc:12288 rec.autos.sport.tech:14169 rec.autos.sport.info:11119 REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Newsgroup line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high-quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 10) Posts deemed by the moderators to risk legal action 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. While only a short list of swear words and racial/ethnic slurs will be specifically disallowed, posters are encouraged to write to the same standards that are applied to the Sunday comics, specifically changing the letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% in both original and quoted material. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML files. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. 10) Legal Risk - The moderators reserve the right to reject posts that, in their view, carry the potential risk of legal action being taken against any of the parties involved. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 11) Posts in languages other than English 12) Signatures over 6 lines 13) Posts with difficult to read formatting 14) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 15) Spoilers (posts revealing the winner of this weeks race without warning) 11) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, english is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 12) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. =46or r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 13) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 14) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the =46AQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. 15) Spoilers - Posts that reveal information about the current week's race that could 'spoil' another's viewing of the race, such as who won, who crashed, etc., should include the word SPOILER in the heading, and should not include the spoiler information itself in the heading. Posts that are spoilers will not be rejected, nor should the posters be harassed because of the post, but it is preferred if people use the proper SPOILER etiquette. Newsgroup readers are encouraged to watch the current race before reading r.a.s.n.m if they do not want the race discussion to reduce their viewing enjoyment. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. . These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto-approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted un-edited if they have followed the Charter criteria. 'Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the =46AQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: Eric O. Troldahl Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: Lisa A. Carbrey Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Chris Watkins Moderator: Rev. Martin X. Moleski, SJ Administrative contact address: TBA Article submission address: TBA 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 newsgroups should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, rec.autos.sport.nascar, rec.autos.sport.f1, rec.autos.sport.indy, rec.autos.sport.info, rec.autos.sport.misc, rec.autos.sport.tech And the following mailing lists: Lighter Side of NASCAR (submission address: semh@earthlink.net) StockCarFans (submission address: racecar3@bellsouth.net) Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken 'Poppy' Kraus Proponent: Jerry 'Tinadog' Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Chris Watkins Proponent: John 'DeliveryBoy' Sutphin -- Eric O. Troldahl, etroll@flash.net Lead Proponent, rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (sorry for the munged headers, I hate spam) From etroll@flash.net Fri Jun 5 10:46:37 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: etroll@flash.net (Eric O. Troldahl) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: RFD: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <897068790.18544@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 04:11:50 GMT Lines: 505 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10152 news.groups:286805 rec.autos.sport.nascar:140629 rec.autos.sport.f1:152253 rec.autos.sport.indy:77059 rec.autos.sport.misc:12387 rec.autos.sport.tech:14269 rec.autos.sport.info:11390 REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Newsgroup line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high-quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 10) Posts deemed by the moderators to risk legal action 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. While only a short list of swear words and racial/ethnic slurs will be specifically disallowed, posters are encouraged to write to the same standards that are applied to the Sunday comics, specifically changing the letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% in both original and quoted material. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML files. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. 10) Legal Risk - The moderators reserve the right to reject posts that, in their view, carry the potential risk of legal action being taken against any of the parties involved. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 11) Posts in languages other than English 12) Signatures over 6 lines 13) Posts with difficult to read formatting 14) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 15) Spoilers (posts revealing the winner of this weeks race without warning) 11) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, english is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 12) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. =46or r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 13) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 14) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the =46AQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. 15) Spoilers - Posts that reveal information about the current week's race that could 'spoil' another's viewing of the race, such as who won, who crashed, etc., should include the word SPOILER in the heading, and should not include the spoiler information itself in the heading. Posts that are spoilers will not be rejected, nor should the posters be harassed because of the post, but it is preferred if people use the proper SPOILER etiquette. Newsgroup readers are encouraged to watch the current race before reading r.a.s.n.m if they do not want the race discussion to reduce their viewing enjoyment. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. . These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto-approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted un-edited if they have followed the Charter criteria. 'Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the =46AQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: Eric O. Troldahl Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: Lisa A. Carbrey Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Chris Watkins Moderator: Rev. Martin X. Moleski, SJ Administrative contact address: TBA Article submission address: TBA 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 newsgroups should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, rec.autos.sport.nascar, rec.autos.sport.f1, rec.autos.sport.indy, rec.autos.sport.info, rec.autos.sport.misc, rec.autos.sport.tech And the following mailing lists: Lighter Side of NASCAR (submission address: semh@earthlink.net) StockCarFans (submission address: racecar3@bellsouth.net) Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken 'Poppy' Kraus Proponent: Jerry 'Tinadog' Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Chris Watkins Proponent: John 'DeliveryBoy' Sutphin -- Eric O. Troldahl, etroll@flash.net Lead Proponent, rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (sorry for the munged headers, I hate spam) From etroll@flash.net Sun Jun 14 20:15:09 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: etroll@flash.net (Eric O. Troldahl) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: 2nd RFD: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <897880198.15596@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 03:09:58 GMT Lines: 567 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10195 news.groups:287976 rec.autos.sport.nascar:144533 rec.autos.sport.f1:155064 rec.autos.sport.indy:78454 rec.autos.sport.misc:12442 rec.autos.sport.tech:14343 rec.autos.sport.info:11647 REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This is the 2nd formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. CHANGES from previous RFD: 1. The paragraph relating to discouraging posting spoiler messages without the word SPOILER has been deleted, and a paragraph warning that SPOILER messages are likely to be posted without labelling as such, and people who do not want their tape-delayed races ruined should refrain from reading the newsgroup. 2. Language was added to clarify that all rejected posts will include instructions for appealing the rejection. 3. The "Profanity and Racial Slurs" paragraph was modified in order to clarify how many letters of a word could be used when blanking out profanity in the style of the Sunday comics. 4. Deleted the Mailing Lists from distribution. We decided that pointers to the RFD would be better than sending to mailing lists that cannot get the CFV. 5. The submission and administrative addresses are included. 6. The moderator email addresses are those intended to be used officially when the group is created. Our current email addresses are still listed in the "Proponents" section. Newsgroup line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high-quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 10) Posts deemed by the moderators to risk legal action 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to rasn-m are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. 10) Legal Risk - The moderators reserve the right to reject posts that, in their view, carry the potential risk of legal action being taken against any of the parties involved. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 11) Posts in languages other than English 12) Signatures over 6 lines 13) Posts with difficult to read formatting 14) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 11) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, english is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 12) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 13) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 14) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originator with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. . These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto-approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted un-edited if they have followed the Charter criteria. 'Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: "Bob Paxton" Moderator: "Deven Atkinson" Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: "John Martin" Moderator: "Martin Moleski" Moderator: "Chris Watkins" Article submission address: rasnm @carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin @carracing.com 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 newsgroups should be raised and resolved. Since the first RFD was posted over 11 days ago, the discussion period will continue for a minimum of 10 additional days (starting from when the last RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, rec.autos.sport.nascar, rec.autos.sport.f1, rec.autos.sport.indy, rec.autos.sport.info, rec.autos.sport.misc, rec.autos.sport.tech Proponent: "Eric O. Troldahl" Proponent: "Deven Atkinson" Proponent: "Rich Bemben" Proponent: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Proponent: "Tom Duwe" Proponent: "Ronnie Hiatt" Proponent: "Sue Horan-Phillips" Proponent: "Karen Jensen" Proponent: "Henry Kelley" Proponent: "Nancy Kendrick" Proponent: "Ken 'Poppy' Kraus" Proponent: "Jerry 'Tinadog' Kyte" Proponent: "John Martin" Proponent: "Lynwood Matteson" Proponent: "Mike McGuigan" Proponent: "Martin Moleski" Proponent: "Bob Paxton" Proponent: "John 'DeliveryBoy' Sutphin" Proponent: "Chris Watkins" Proponent: "Rob Batina" Proponent: "Jim Bragg" Proponent: "Anne 'Belldandy' Bulin" Proponent: "Susan Bowlin" Proponent: "Tim Bulin" Proponent: "Angela Campbell" Proponent: "George Cayro" Proponent: "Dave Champagne" Proponent: "Joyce N. Church" Proponent: "Alan J. Claffie" Proponent: "David L. Cook" Proponent: "Tom Dixon" Proponent: "Greg Eglinton" Proponent: "H.B. Elkins" Proponent: "Philip Flanagan" Proponent: "Jim Gable" Proponent: "Al Griffy" Proponent: "Sam L. Howell" Proponent: "Harry Krabbe" Proponent: "Lou Lauer" Proponent: "Shaun Lippy" Proponent: "Richard P. Ludwig" Proponent: "John McManus" <429tjet@exis.net> Proponent: "Scott Moore" Proponent: "Greg Nadeau" Proponent: "Mark and Beth Nielsen" Proponent: "Don Pettyjohn" Proponent: "Dennis P. Rose" Proponent: "Anthony Shambaugh" Proponent: "Paul M. Spegal" Proponent: "Kathy Ward" Proponent: "Craig Witkowski" Mentor: "Jonathan Grobe" From etroll@flash.net Sun Jun 21 21:45:15 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: etroll@flash.net (Eric O. Troldahl) Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: 3rd RFD: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <898490393.18097@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 04:39:53 GMT Lines: 602 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10217 news.groups:288399 rec.autos.sport.nascar:146502 rec.autos.sport.f1:156200 rec.autos.sport.indy:79064 rec.autos.sport.misc:12463 rec.autos.sport.tech:14400 rec.autos.sport.info:11831 REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This is the 3rd formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. CHANGES from 2nd RFD: 1. Deleted the paragraph about rejecting posts that carry the potential risk of legal action. The moderators are not lawyers and won't try to act like they are. 2. Added "Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material." to the paragraph talking about fair use of copyrighted material. 3. In the second paragraph of the moderation overview, clarified that rejected posts will be returned, but we cannot guarantee that the email will get through. 4. Added a disclaimer at the end of the charter similar to the ones used by some other recent USENET group proposals. 5. Separated the numbering sequence of the two sections: "The following are unacceptable:" and "The following are discouraged..." CHANGES from 1st RFD: 1. The paragraph relating to discouraging posting spoiler messages without the word SPOILER has been deleted, and a paragraph warning that SPOILER messages are likely to be posted without labeling as such, and people who do not want their tape-delayed races ruined should refrain from reading the newsgroup. 2. Language was added to clarify that all rejected posts will include instructions for appealing the rejection. 3. The "Profanity and Racial Slurs" paragraph was modified in order to clarify how many letters of a word could be used when blanking out profanity in the style of the Sunday comics. 4. Deleted the Mailing Lists from distribution. We decided that pointers to the RFD would be better than sending to mailing lists that cannot get the CFV. 5. The submission and administrative addresses are included. 6. The moderator email addresses are those intended to be used officially when the group is created. Our current email addresses are still listed in the "Proponents" section. Newsgroup line(s): rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high-quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to rasn-m are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. . These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto-approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. 'Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: "Bob Paxton" Moderator: "Deven Atkinson" Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: "John Martin" Moderator: "Martin Moleski" Moderator: "Chris Watkins" Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com 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 newsgroups should be raised and resolved. Since the first RFD was posted over 11 days ago, the discussion period will continue for a minimum of 10 additional days (starting from when the last RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, rec.autos.sport.nascar, rec.autos.sport.f1, rec.autos.sport.indy, rec.autos.sport.info, rec.autos.sport.misc, rec.autos.sport.tech Proponent: "Eric O. Troldahl" Proponent: "Deven Atkinson" Proponent: "Rich Bemben" Proponent: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Proponent: "Tom Duwe" Proponent: "Ronnie Hiatt" Proponent: "Sue Horan-Phillips" Proponent: "Karen Jensen" Proponent: "Henry Kelley" Proponent: "Nancy Kendrick" Proponent: "Ken 'Poppy' Kraus" Proponent: "Jerry 'Tinadog' Kyte" Proponent: "John Martin" Proponent: "Lynwood Matteson" Proponent: "Mike McGuigan" Proponent: "Martin Moleski" Proponent: "Bob Paxton" Proponent: "John 'DeliveryBoy' Sutphin" Proponent: "Chris Watkins" Proponent: "Rob Batina" Proponent: "Jim Bragg" Proponent: "Anne 'Belldandy' Bulin" Proponent: "Susan Bowlin" Proponent: "Tim Bulin" Proponent: "Angela Campbell" Proponent: "George Cayro" Proponent: "Dave Champagne" Proponent: "Joyce N. Church" Proponent: "Alan J. Claffie" Proponent: "David L. Cook" Proponent: "Tom Dixon" Proponent: "Greg Eglinton" Proponent: "H.B. Elkins" Proponent: "Philip Flanagan" Proponent: "Jim Gable" Proponent: "Al Griffy" Proponent: "Sam L. Howell" Proponent: "Harry Krabbe" Proponent: "Lou Lauer" Proponent: "Shaun Lippy" Proponent: "Richard P. Ludwig" Proponent: "John McManus" <429tjet@exis.net> Proponent: "Brian J. Merriman" Proponent: "Scott Moore" Proponent: "Jason Moreci" Proponent: "Greg Nadeau" Proponent: "Mark and Beth Nielsen" Proponent: "Don Pettyjohn" Proponent: "Dennis P. Rose" Proponent: "Anthony Shambaugh" Proponent: "Paul M. Spegal" Proponent: "Kathy Ward" Proponent: "Craig Witkowski" Mentor: "Jonathan Grobe" Eric O. Troldahl, etroll@flash.net Lead Proponent, rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated http://www.flash.net/~etroll/rasnm.txt From neilc@stanford.edu Fri Jul 17 01:15:13 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster Message-ID: <900663269.2407@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT Lines: 542 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10408 news.groups:291169 rec.autos.sport.f1:162939 rec.autos.sport.indy:81604 rec.autos.sport.misc:12645 rec.autos.sport.nascar:154275 rec.autos.sport.tech:14631 rec.autos.sport.info:12802 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu From neilc@stanford.edu Fri Jul 17 04:24:41 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster Message-ID: <900674663.22405@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT Lines: 542 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10414 news.groups:291189 rec.autos.sport.f1:162940 rec.autos.sport.indy:81605 rec.autos.sport.misc:12646 rec.autos.sport.nascar:154276 rec.autos.sport.tech:14632 rec.autos.sport.info:12803 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu From neilc@stanford.edu Fri Jul 17 06:33:06 1998 Path: news.isc.org!data.pa.vix.com!sonysjc!sanjose-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news1.bellglobal.com!news.uunet.ca!news1.ottawa.cyberus.ca!news.cyberus.ca!news-jammys.net!news.flora.ottawa.on.ca!nntp.igs.net!nott!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!hipcancel!despams.ocunix.on.ca!resurrector!not-for-mail Message-ID: X-Reposted-By: dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca X-Original-Path: ...!news3.bellglobal.com!news1.bellglobal.com!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news2.ais.net!jamie!ais.net!uunet!in4.uu.net!news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: REPOST: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster X-Original-Message-ID: <900674663.22405@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT X-Comments: DtR Repost: The following Usenet article was cancelled, X-Comments: more than likely by someone other than the original poster. X-Comments: Please see the end of this posting for a copy of the cancel. X-Comments: Dave the Resurrector can be contacted at dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Lines: 559 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10416 news.groups:291207 rec.autos.sport.f1:162984 rec.autos.sport.indy:81624 rec.autos.sport.misc:12647 rec.autos.sport.nascar:154301 rec.autos.sport.tech:14637 rec.autos.sport.info:12809 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu ========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======: Control: cancel <900674663.22405@isc.org> Subject: cmsg cancel <900674663.22405@isc.org> Message-ID: From: HipCrime@jlnif.gov Sender: Neil Crellin Approved: HipCrime@jlnif.gov Newsgroups: news.groups Date: 17 Jul 1998 12:47:34 GMT X-No-Archive: Yes Organization: HipCrime International, unLtd. NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.237.253.7 Lines: 2 Path: ...!news-peer.gip.net!news-raspail.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!rain.fr!194.250.238.3!nntp.HipCrime.new!cyberspam!hipcancel!usenet Cancelled by HipCrime's NewsAgent. From neilc@stanford.edu Fri Jul 17 06:33:08 1998 Control: cancel Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back Message-ID: From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: cmsg cancel Followup-To: poster References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: 17 Jul 98 13:33:07 GMT Lines: 2 Xref: news.isc.org control.cancel:2613777 Unapproved article for news.announce.newgroups auto-cancelled by daemon on behalf of moderator. From neilc@stanford.edu Sat Jul 18 16:05:32 1998 Path: news.isc.org!data.pa.vix.com!sonysjc!sanjose-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!la-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!news.idt.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!btnet-peer!btnet-feed2!btnet!bmdhh222.bnr.ca!bhars12c.bnr.co.uk!bcarh8ac.ca.nortel.com!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!hipcancel!despams.ocunix.on.ca!resurrector!not-for-mail Message-ID: X-Reposted-By: dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca X-Original-Path: zcarh46f.bnr.ca!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!hipcancel!despams.ocunix.on.ca!resurrector!not-for-mail X-Original-Message-ID: X-Reposted-By: dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca X-Original-Path: ...!news3.bellglobal.com!news1.bellglobal.com!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news2.ais.net!jamie!ais.net!uunet!in4.uu.net!news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: REPOST: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster X-Original-Message-ID: <900674663.22405@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT X-Comments: DtR Repost: The following Usenet article was cancelled, X-Comments: more than likely by someone other than the original poster. X-Comments: Please see the end of this posting for a copy of the cancel. X-Comments: Dave the Resurrector can be contacted at dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Lines: 577 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10436 news.groups:291507 rec.autos.sport.f1:163530 rec.autos.sport.indy:81887 rec.autos.sport.misc:12660 rec.autos.sport.nascar:154779 rec.autos.sport.tech:14659 rec.autos.sport.info:12877 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu ========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======: Control: cancel <900674663.22405@isc.org> Subject: cmsg cancel <900674663.22405@isc.org> Message-ID: From: HipCrime@jlnif.gov Sender: Neil Crellin Approved: HipCrime@jlnif.gov Newsgroups: news.groups Date: 17 Jul 1998 12:47:34 GMT X-No-Archive: Yes Organization: HipCrime International, unLtd. NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.237.253.7 Lines: 2 Path: ...!news-peer.gip.net!news-raspail.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!rain.fr!194.250.238.3!nntp.HipCrime.new!cyberspam!hipcancel!usenet Cancelled by HipCrime's NewsAgent. ========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======: Path: ...!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!208.134.241.18!newsfeed.internetmci.com!194.67.2.106!newsfeed.sovam.com!sovam!mtu.ru!Pollux.Teleglobe.net!orion.cst.tpsa.pl!news.tpnet.pl!not-for-mail Control: cancel Subject: cmsg cancel Message-ID: From: HipCrime@qqjiniytivh.com Sender: Neil Crellin Approved: HipCrime@qqjiniytivh.com Newsgroups: news.groups X-No-Archive: Yes Organization: HipCrime International, unLtd. Lines: 2 Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 19:19:34 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.237.253.133 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 21:19:34 MET DST Cancelled by HipCrime's NewsAgent. From neilc@stanford.edu Sat Jul 18 16:05:37 1998 Control: cancel Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back Message-ID: From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: cmsg cancel Followup-To: poster References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: 18 Jul 98 23:05:32 GMT Lines: 2 Xref: news.isc.org control.cancel:2624591 Unapproved article for news.announce.newgroups auto-cancelled by daemon on behalf of moderator. From neilc@stanford.edu Sat Jul 18 16:20:48 1998 Path: news.isc.org!data.pa.vix.com!sonysjc!sanjose-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!195.99.66.215!news-feed1.eu.concert.net!btnet-peer!btnet-feed2!btnet!bmdhh222.bnr.ca!bhars12c.bnr.co.uk!bcarh8ac.ca.nortel.com!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!hipcancel!despams.ocunix.on.ca!resurrector!not-for-mail Message-ID: X-Reposted-By: dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca X-Original-Path: ...!news3.bellglobal.com!news1.bellglobal.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.idt.net!mr.net!data.pa.vix.com!news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: REPOST: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster X-Original-Message-ID: <900663269.2407@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT X-Comments: DtR Repost: The following Usenet article was cancelled, X-Comments: more than likely by someone other than the original poster. X-Comments: Please see the end of this posting for a copy of the cancel. X-Comments: Dave the Resurrector can be contacted at dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Lines: 560 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10438 news.groups:291527 rec.autos.sport.f1:163535 rec.autos.sport.indy:81888 rec.autos.sport.misc:12661 rec.autos.sport.nascar:154781 rec.autos.sport.tech:14660 rec.autos.sport.info:12878 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu ========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======: Path: ...!news.icm.edu.pl!orion.cst.tpsa.pl!news.tpnet.pl!not-for-mail Control: cancel <900663269.2407@isc.org> Subject: cmsg cancel <900663269.2407@isc.org> Message-ID: From: HipCrime@rwmeftgn.org Sender: Neil Crellin Approved: HipCrime@rwmeftgn.org Newsgroups: news.groups X-No-Archive: Yes Organization: HipCrime International, unLtd. Lines: 2 Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 19:22:48 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.237.253.133 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 21:22:48 MET DST Cancelled by HipCrime's NewsAgent. From neilc@stanford.edu Sat Jul 18 16:20:49 1998 Control: cancel Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back Message-ID: From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: cmsg cancel Followup-To: poster References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: 18 Jul 98 23:20:48 GMT Lines: 2 Xref: news.isc.org control.cancel:2624744 Unapproved article for news.announce.newgroups auto-cancelled by daemon on behalf of moderator. From neilc@stanford.edu Tue Jul 21 00:58:27 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster Message-ID: <901007906.10160@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT Lines: 542 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10469 news.groups:292094 rec.autos.sport.f1:164000 rec.autos.sport.indy:82217 rec.autos.sport.misc:12672 rec.autos.sport.nascar:155203 rec.autos.sport.tech:14675 rec.autos.sport.info:13014 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu From neilc@stanford.edu Tue Jul 21 01:00:42 1998 Path: news.isc.org!data.pa.vix.com!sonysjc!sanjose-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news1.bellglobal.com!news.uunet.ca!news1.ottawa.cyberus.ca!news.cyberus.ca!news-jammys.net!news.flora.ottawa.on.ca!nntp.igs.net!nott!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!hipcancel!despams.ocunix.on.ca!resurrector!not-for-mail Message-ID: <901008028.10473@isc.org> X-Reposted-By: dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca X-Original-Path: ...!news3.bellglobal.com!news1.bellglobal.com!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news2.ais.net!jamie!ais.net!uunet!in4.uu.net!news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: REPOST: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster X-Original-Message-ID: <900674663.22405@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT X-Comments: DtR Repost: The following Usenet article was cancelled, X-Comments: more than likely by someone other than the original poster. X-Comments: Please see the end of this posting for a copy of the cancel. X-Comments: Dave the Resurrector can be contacted at dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Lines: 559 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10471 news.groups:292096 rec.autos.sport.f1:164001 rec.autos.sport.indy:82218 rec.autos.sport.misc:12673 rec.autos.sport.nascar:155204 rec.autos.sport.tech:14676 rec.autos.sport.info:13015 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu ========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======: Control: cancel <900674663.22405@isc.org> Subject: cmsg cancel <900674663.22405@isc.org> Message-ID: <901008028.10473@isc.org> From: HipCrime@jlnif.gov Sender: Neil Crellin Approved: HipCrime@jlnif.gov Newsgroups: news.groups Date: 17 Jul 1998 12:47:34 GMT X-No-Archive: Yes Organization: HipCrime International, unLtd. NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.237.253.7 Lines: 2 Path: ...!news-peer.gip.net!news-raspail.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!rain.fr!194.250.238.3!nntp.HipCrime.new!cyberspam!hipcancel!usenet Cancelled by HipCrime's NewsAgent. From neilc@stanford.edu Tue Jul 21 01:00:44 1998 Control: cancel <901008028.10473@isc.org> Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back Message-ID: From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: cmsg cancel <901008028.10473@isc.org> Followup-To: poster References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: 21 Jul 98 08:00:42 GMT Lines: 2 Xref: news.isc.org control.cancel:2648186 Unapproved article for news.announce.newgroups auto-cancelled by daemon on behalf of moderator. From neilc@stanford.edu Tue Jul 21 01:01:15 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster Message-ID: <901008072.10701@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT Lines: 542 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10473 news.groups:292098 rec.autos.sport.f1:164002 rec.autos.sport.indy:82219 rec.autos.sport.misc:12674 rec.autos.sport.nascar:155205 rec.autos.sport.tech:14677 rec.autos.sport.info:13016 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu From neilc@stanford.edu Tue Jul 21 10:31:20 1998 Path: news.isc.org!data.pa.vix.com!sonysjc!sanjose-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!la-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!news.idt.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!btnet-peer!btnet-feed2!btnet!bmdhh222.bnr.ca!bhars12c.bnr.co.uk!bcarh8ac.ca.nortel.com!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!hipcancel!despams.ocunix.on.ca!resurrector!not-for-mail Message-ID: <901042273.21762@isc.org> X-Reposted-By: dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca X-Original-Path: zcarh46f.bnr.ca!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!hipcancel!despams.ocunix.on.ca!resurrector!not-for-mail X-Original-Message-ID: X-Reposted-By: dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca X-Original-Path: ...!news3.bellglobal.com!news1.bellglobal.com!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news2.ais.net!jamie!ais.net!uunet!in4.uu.net!news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: REPOST: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster X-Original-Message-ID: <900674663.22405@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT X-Comments: DtR Repost: The following Usenet article was cancelled, X-Comments: more than likely by someone other than the original poster. X-Comments: Please see the end of this posting for a copy of the cancel. X-Comments: Dave the Resurrector can be contacted at dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Lines: 577 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10476 news.groups:292158 rec.autos.sport.f1:164164 rec.autos.sport.indy:82299 rec.autos.sport.misc:12676 rec.autos.sport.nascar:155308 rec.autos.sport.tech:14680 rec.autos.sport.info:13022 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu ========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======: Control: cancel <900674663.22405@isc.org> Subject: cmsg cancel <900674663.22405@isc.org> Message-ID: <901042273.21762@isc.org> From: HipCrime@jlnif.gov Sender: Neil Crellin Approved: HipCrime@jlnif.gov Newsgroups: news.groups Date: 17 Jul 1998 12:47:34 GMT X-No-Archive: Yes Organization: HipCrime International, unLtd. NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.237.253.7 Lines: 2 Path: ...!news-peer.gip.net!news-raspail.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!rain.fr!194.250.238.3!nntp.HipCrime.new!cyberspam!hipcancel!usenet Cancelled by HipCrime's NewsAgent. ========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======: Path: ...!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!208.134.241.18!newsfeed.internetmci.com!194.67.2.106!newsfeed.sovam.com!sovam!mtu.ru!Pollux.Teleglobe.net!orion.cst.tpsa.pl!news.tpnet.pl!not-for-mail Control: cancel Subject: cmsg cancel Message-ID: <901042273.21762@isc.org> From: HipCrime@qqjiniytivh.com Sender: Neil Crellin Approved: HipCrime@qqjiniytivh.com Newsgroups: news.groups X-No-Archive: Yes Organization: HipCrime International, unLtd. Lines: 2 Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 19:19:34 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.237.253.133 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 21:19:34 MET DST Cancelled by HipCrime's NewsAgent. From neilc@stanford.edu Tue Jul 21 10:31:22 1998 Control: cancel <901042273.21762@isc.org> Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back Message-ID: From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: cmsg cancel <901042273.21762@isc.org> Followup-To: poster References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: 21 Jul 98 17:31:21 GMT Lines: 2 Xref: news.isc.org control.cancel:2651047 Unapproved article for news.announce.newgroups auto-cancelled by daemon on behalf of moderator. From neilc@stanford.edu Tue Jul 21 12:50:54 1998 Path: news.isc.org!data.pa.vix.com!sonysjc!sanjose-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!195.99.66.215!news-feed1.eu.concert.net!btnet-peer!btnet-feed2!btnet!bmdhh222.bnr.ca!bhars12c.bnr.co.uk!bcarh8ac.ca.nortel.com!bcarh189.bnr.ca!nrchh45.us.nortel.com!hipcancel!despams.ocunix.on.ca!resurrector!not-for-mail Message-ID: <901050639.911@isc.org> X-Reposted-By: dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca X-Original-Path: ...!news3.bellglobal.com!news1.bellglobal.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.idt.net!mr.net!data.pa.vix.com!news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: REPOST: CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster X-Original-Message-ID: <900663269.2407@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 08:14:29 GMT X-Comments: DtR Repost: The following Usenet article was cancelled, X-Comments: more than likely by someone other than the original poster. X-Comments: Please see the end of this posting for a copy of the cancel. X-Comments: Dave the Resurrector can be contacted at dave@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Lines: 560 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10479 news.groups:292172 rec.autos.sport.f1:164221 rec.autos.sport.indy:82323 rec.autos.sport.misc:12678 rec.autos.sport.nascar:155354 rec.autos.sport.tech:14681 rec.autos.sport.info:13024 FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu ========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======: Path: ...!news.icm.edu.pl!orion.cst.tpsa.pl!news.tpnet.pl!not-for-mail Control: cancel <900663269.2407@isc.org> Subject: cmsg cancel <900663269.2407@isc.org> Message-ID: <901050639.911@isc.org> From: HipCrime@rwmeftgn.org Sender: Neil Crellin Approved: HipCrime@rwmeftgn.org Newsgroups: news.groups X-No-Archive: Yes Organization: HipCrime International, unLtd. Lines: 2 Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 19:22:48 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.237.253.133 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 21:22:48 MET DST Cancelled by HipCrime's NewsAgent. From neilc@stanford.edu Tue Jul 21 12:50:56 1998 Control: cancel <901050639.911@isc.org> Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back Message-ID: From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.f1,rec.autos.sport.indy,rec.autos.sport.misc,rec.autos.sport.nascar,rec.autos.sport.tech,rec.autos.sport.info Subject: cmsg cancel <901050639.911@isc.org> Followup-To: poster References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: 21 Jul 98 19:50:55 GMT Lines: 2 Xref: news.isc.org control.cancel:2651619 Unapproved article for news.announce.newgroups auto-cancelled by daemon on behalf of moderator. From neilc@stanford.edu Mon Jul 27 17:30:11 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Reply-To: voting@uvv.stanford.edu Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.info,rec.autos.sport.nascar Subject: 2nd CFV: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated Followup-To: poster Message-ID: <901585710.21818@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> <900663269.2407@isc.org> Supersedes: <900663269.2407@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Expires: 8 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 00:28:31 GMT Lines: 562 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10507 news.groups:292777 rec.autos.sport.info:13318 rec.autos.sport.nascar:157444 LAST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated This CFV is to be distributed only by the votetaker. It is not to be posted to newsgroups, or mailed to mailing lists or individuals, except by the votetaker. Ballots or CFVs provided by anyone else will be invalid. Newsgroups line: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES: READ THIS BEFORE VOTING The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest in reading the proposed newsgroup, and soliciting votes from uninterested parties defeats this purpose. Do *not* distribute this CFV; intead, direct people to the official CFV as posted to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing specific voting instructions or pre-marked copies of this CFV is considered vote fraud. This is a public vote: All email addresses, names and votes will be listed in the final RESULT post. The name used may be either a real name or an established Usenet handle. At most one vote is allowed per person or per account. Duplicate votes will be resolved in favor of the most recent valid vote. Voters must mail their ballots directly to the votetaker. Anonymous, forwarded, or proxy votes are not valid, nor are votes mailed from WWW/HTML/CGI forms (which should not exist). Votes from nonexistent accounts are also invalid, and the votetaker will reject any "munged" address he cannot decipher immediately. Please direct any questions to the votetaker at . HOW TO VOTE: Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me! Fill in the ballot as shown below. Please provide your REAL NAME and indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot. Examples of how to properly indicate your vote: [ YES ] example.yes.vote [ NO ] example.no.vote [ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention [ CANCEL ] example.cancellation DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot! If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot. When finished, MAIL the ballot to: < voting@uvv.stanford.edu > Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line. If you do not receive an acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker about the problem. You are responsible for reading your ack and making sure your vote is registered correctly. If these instructions are unclear, please consult the Introduction to Usenet Voting or the Usenet Voting FAQ at http://www.stanford.edu/~neilc/uvv. ======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line ======= .----------------------------------------------------------------------- | 2ND CALL FOR VOTES: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated | Official Usenet Voting Ballot (Do not remove this line!) |----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place | ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other | information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line: Voter name: | Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name): Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (moderated) ======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ============== rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Bounce List - Contact me about your vote. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- bherdman_nospam [at] efni.com Bryan Herdman bweidnerSPAM [at] mindspring.com Bill Weidner nospam [at] together.net Tom Suitor rsteve [at] spam.this.iquest.net Ron Steve samjo [at] bellsouth.net Sam Johnson samjo [at] REMOVETHISbellsouth.net Sam Johnson tsuitor [at] together.net Tom Suitor twdixon [at] usa.net Tom Dixon DISTRIBUTION: Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups: rec.autos.sport.f1 rec.autos.sport.indy rec.autos.sport.misc rec.autos.sport.tech This CFV was created with uvpq 1.0 (Aug 14 1997). PQ datestamp: 980322 -- Voting address: voting@uvv.stanford.edu From neilc@stanford.edu Wed Aug 12 09:15:13 1998 Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back From: Neil Crellin Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,rec.autos.sport.info,rec.autos.sport.nascar Subject: RESULT: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated moderated passes 216:32 Followup-To: news.groups Message-ID: <902877632.20468@isc.org> References: <896328708.21545@isc.org> <897880198.15596@isc.org> <898490393.18097@isc.org> <900663269.2407@isc.org> <901585710.21818@isc.org> Supersedes: <901585710.21818@isc.org> Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org Archive-Name: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 23:20:33 GMT Lines: 748 Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:10537 news.groups:293730 rec.autos.sport.info:13943 rec.autos.sport.nascar:163092 RESULT moderated group rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated passes 216:32 There were 216 YES votes and 32 NO votes, for a total of 248 valid votes. There were 3 abstentions and 4 invalid ballots. 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: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and Stockcar Racing. (Moderated) The voting period closed at 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Aug 1998. This vote was conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent. Proponent: Eric O. Troldahl Proponent: Bob Paxton Proponent: Deven Atkinson Proponent: Rich Bemben Proponent: Lisa A. Carbrey Proponent: Tom Duwe Proponent: Ronnie Hiatt Proponent: Sue Horan-Phillips Proponent: Karen Jensen Proponent: Henry Kelley Proponent: Nancy Kendrick Proponent: Ken (Poppy) Kraus Proponent: Jerry (Tinadog) Kyte Proponent: John Martin Proponent: Lynwood Matteson Proponent: Mike McGuigan Proponent: Martin Moleski Proponent: John (DeliveryBoy) Sutphin Proponent: Chris Watkins Mentor: Jonathan Grobe Votetaker: Neil Crellin RATIONALE: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated NASCAR and stockcar racing, as well as other motorsports, have been the subjects of Usenet discussion for many years. The existing rec.autos.sport.nascar newsgroup (RASN) gets a total of well over a hundred messages a day during the off-season and that number can increase to two to four times that figure during the season, peaking at over 1000 a day during speedweeks. Much of this traffic is relevant and of high- quality, but there are also significant problems with spam, advertisements, Driver/Team/Sponsor/Car-Make/Media abuse, and attacks aimed at other posters to the newsgroup. Many former posters to RASN have left because of this situation. Rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated is intended to be a forum where all topics related to NASCAR and stockcar racing can be discussed without these distractions. The primary focus of the group will be NASCAR's top 3 series: Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, and Craftsman Trucks. Questions and answers about this sport will be welcomed and a FAQ will be maintained. CHARTER: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated The unmoderated newsgroup rec.autos.sport.nascar has always been fairly relaxed about what is on-topic. The moderated newsgroup will be the same way. Basically anything related to NASCAR or stock car racing will be considered on-topic. Posts about other types of motorsports (Indycar, F1, etc.) should be directed to the appropriate newsgroup, unless they are comparing stockcar racing to the other motorsport. For example, a comparison of the point systems of F1 and Winston Cup, and how using the F1 system would change the Winston Cup championship standings, is on-topic. The goal of rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated (r.a.s.n.m) is to provide its participants with a degree of free expression approaching that found in unmoderated groups while maintaining an environment free of the spam, commercial and money-making posts, personal harassment, vulgarity and blatantly off topic material found in most unmoderated forums. The philosophy of r.a.s.n.m is that responsible people should be trusted to post like responsible adults. Therefore, the moderation effort will focus primarily on dealing with problems as they occur, not on screening every post. All posters will be initially trusted with auto-approve status, which will enable their subsequent articles to be posted immediately to the newsgroup without the involvement of a human moderator. They will retain auto-approve status unless they demonstrate cause for its revocation. Newsgroup readers are warned that since this is a discussion group about racing, people here will want to talk about racing, even during the televised races. If you want your tape-delayed viewing to be unspoiled by knowing who won, crashed, etc., it is best to keep yourself away from all sources of racing information, including newsgroups, cable TV, racing radio shows, newspapers, coworkers, etc. It is considered polite to include the word SPOILER in the subject of posts about races less than 48 hours old, leaving discussion of the details out of the header, but this WILL NOT be enforced. Appropriate posts will meet one of the following criteria: 1. It would effectively start a new discussion. Examples: - What is the current points system? - How do provisionals work? - How did Ricky Craven get an 8th provisional? - Discussions of actual Race or Qualifying action. - Questions about the mechanics of race cars and engines. 2. It adds content to an existing discussion. Examples: - Points breakdown itself. - Actual NASCAR policy on provisionals. - Web site addresses of teams, drivers, or Fan Clubs. - Answers to questions posed by others. - Clarification of questions previously asked. 3. It is informative to the r.a.s.n.m community. Examples: - Announcements of r.a.s.n reunions. - Announcements of upcoming TV schedules for racing. - Testing times. - Announcements of NASCAR events or schedules. - Announcements of driver appearances. While examples are given wherever possible, it is impossible to anticipate every attempt at finding a loophole. Therefore, the spirit of all the rules should be followed as opposed to looking for leaks and loopholes. For example, strange spellings or formats of profanity would still be considered profanity. Posters will be treated like responsible adults and expected to act accordingly. The following are unacceptable: 1) Bashing 2) Flames 3) Trolls 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs 6) Crossposts 7) Binaries 8) Posts without a respondable email address 9) Quotes of more than a few lines of copyrighted material 1) Bashing - defined as posts or portions of posts that verbally attack others in an insulting or malicious manner to an extent that would reasonably be considered libelous or slanderous. In other words: "Do not post anything that would make the driver or team you support cringe or be embarrassed to have you as a fan." This does NOT mean that negative comments will be moderated out. The expression of negative opinions is a legitimate part of any discussion and the right to express them in a non-malicious fashion shall not be abridged. 2) Flames - defined as inflammatory posts or portions of posts whose primary purpose is to induce an intense emotional response. 3) Trolls - Trolls are defined as posts that do not have substance to their content, primarily meant to incite disruptive threads or distract posters from the main intent of the newsgroup. 4) Commercial and Money-Making Posts are defined as posts whose primary purpose is to solicit a benefit for the poster. This would include, but is not limited to, advertisements of businesses, direct advertisements of goods and/or services for sale, posts advertising the availability of goods and/or services for sale through another medium, promotion of business opportunities, money-making schemes, and chain letters. Simply listing a business name, address, phone number, URL, etc. in one's signature is not considered commercial use of the newsgroup. However, signatures that are in fact advertisements, or which solicit readers to patronize a for-profit venture or visit a commercial web site fall under the definition of commercial or money-making posts. Posts bearing such signatures are subject to rejection as such. Posts promoting newsgroup related activities are not considered commercial or money-making posts since there is no financial benefit to any of the individuals involved. These activities would include but are not limited to the RASN Sponsorship Fund, raffles, and RASN reunions. Posts advising the group of charitable racing-related events or offering NASCAR event or NASCAR/stockcar race tickets at or below face value are also permitted. 5) Profanity/Racial Slurs - Posters should view r.a.s.n.m as polite mixed company and watch their language accordingly. Only a short list of words will be disallowed. Nevertheless, posters to RASNM are advised and encouraged to use the same standards that apply in the Sunday comics. Specifically, changing all letters in profanity to special characters like !@#$% . However, when quoting material such as scanner bites, interviews etc.., the first letter of the word may be left in place so that readers can deduce what was actually said. 6) Crossposts - defined as posts also directed to any other newsgroup. Exceptions to this limit are made for Usenet Administrative purposes (as from news.announce.newgroups) and for posts from rec.autos.sport.info. 7) Binaries - Binary posts are defined as posts that include UUencoded, MIME-encoded, or any other form of binary message in the body or signature other than Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) signatures. This includes, but is not limited to, pictures, audio files, executables, and HTML. Binaries should be posted to an appropriate binaries newsgroup or a web page. A brief informative notice should then be sent to the newsgroup. The FAQ for this group will list any web sites that have volunteered to have binaries posted from r.a.s.n.m readers, and how to get the binary posted. 8) Email Addresses - Since an author's first post to r.a.s.n.m generates an auto-response detailing the registration procedure, it is strongly recommended that at least the first submission to the group carry a valid return e-mail address. This will avoid a delay in the registration process that would result if the auto-response bounces. A person may register to post under a "munged" address to defeat spambots, but the altered address must be readily decipherable into the poster's valid address by a human. This does not cut off the use of pseudonymous remailers or munged headers, both of which are allowable. 9) Copyrighted material - Quoting a line or two of copyrighted material is not against the law. However, quoting entire articles is a copyright violation (unless the poster has permission from the copyright holder). If articles are available on the web, a short summary of the article with a URL is the accepted method of posting. Proper credit must be given to all copyrighted material. The following are discouraged, but will not be rejected outright. 1) Posts in languages other than English 2) Signatures over 6 lines 3) Posts with difficult to read formatting 4) Posts only containing questions answered completely in the FAQ 1) Non-English - At this time, 100% of the readers of the group know English, with English being the only language of most readers. Therefore, English is strongly recommended as the posting language of choice for r.a.s.n.m. Posts in languages other than English will be examined for approval if any of the moderators can read the language in question. There is no guarantee of approval for posts in any language other than English. 2) Signatures - USENET netiquette limits signatures to four lines. For r.a.s.n.m, posters are encouraged to keep their signatures to six lines or less. PGP signature data and additional lines automatically added by services such as hotmail and Deja News are not included in the count, but all other text, including boxes around the signature, is included. 3) Readability - USENET Netiquette says that for everyone's enjoyment, all posts should have right margins in the 60-70 range. The range from 60-70 is for unquoted text. Quoted text may continue to expand to the right. Also, over 2/3 text quoted from previous posters is strongly discouraged. If a poster regularly fails to meet these simple rules, a moderator will contact the person to find out if they can fix the problem. 4) FAQ - Posters asking questions that are covered completely in the FAQ will be sent a copy of the FAQ and the post will be accepted. Other posters are encouraged to welcome the user, respond to the post, or remain silent. Moderation overview: Moderation procedure - To reduce their workload and expedite the posting of articles to the group, the moderation team will employ automated moderation software (robo-moderation). As much of the work as possible will be turned over to the moderation software. This software will scan each incoming article, then either post it directly to the group without human review, return it to the author with an appropriate explanation, or forward it to a human moderator. Posts will either be accepted in whole, or rejected. The moderators will NEVER modify them at all. All rejected posts will be returned to the originating email address with an explanation for the rejection and instructions for appealing the rejection. The moderators cannot be held accountable for internet failures or undeliverable email. Auto-rejection: binaries, crossposts, profanity, racial slurs, and articles from authors on the auto-reject list will be automatically rejected. The moderation team will maintain a list of words that will cause a post to be automatically rejected. In the spirit of allowing as much free expression as possible, the list will be as short as possible while still insuring a civil environment within the group. Auto-kickout: There will be another short list of potentially offensive words that will cause a post to be kicked out for human moderation. These lists can be modified as needed by a simple majority vote of the moderators. Posters may explicitly request human moderation of an article by placing the special phrase MOD-HUMAN in the subject line. This may be desirable if the author feels there may be something in the article that would cause the moderation software to automatically reject it. The moderators can also add this tag to a thread. Auto-approve: Provided an article does not trigger an auto-rejection or auto-kickout, articles from authors on the auto-approve list will be posted directly to the group without human review. Moderation sequence: All incoming articles will be moderated according to the following sequence with steps 1-4 being performed by the moderation software. 1. Is the author a first time poster? Yes - Initiate the registration process (see below) No - Continue 2. Is there an auto-kickout? Yes - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) No - Continue 3. Are there grounds for auto-rejection? Yes - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. No - Continue 4. Is the author on the auto-approve list? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Forward the article to a human moderator (goto step 5) 5. Does the article meet the charter guidelines? Yes - Post the article to the newsgroup No - Return the article to the author with an explanation for the rejection. r.a.s.n.m registration: When the moderation software detects an article from a first time poster, an auto-response containing the charter, FAQ and instructions for completing the registration are returned to the author. The article is forwarded to a human moderator. Should the auto-response bounce back to a moderator and a valid reply-to address for the author cannot be determined, the registration cannot be completed and the initial article will not be posted. If the moderator can determine a valid address, they will forward the registration information to the author's valid address. When the author acknowledges by return e-mail that he/she has read the material and agrees to abide by the charter, he/she is placed on the auto- approve list. If the initial article is on charter, it is posted at that time. Human moderation: Individual moderators will have the authority to reject articles that are clearly off-charter (commercial or money-making posts, etc.), and to accept articles that are clearly on-charter. Should there be any question about an article being reviewed, it will be forwarded to another moderator for a second opinion. If the first two moderators to review an article agree, it will be accepted or rejected accordingly. If the first two moderators to review an article disagree, the article will be forwarded to a third moderator for a deciding vote. Moderators will execute the above procedure as rapidly as possible in order to minimize the delay in getting human moderated articles posted. Key to the moderation philosophy, articles will not be rejected because of the author's opinion or position on an issue, nor will any human moderated post be rejected because of the author of the post. Moderator's opinions will be expressed only within their own posts, not within their moderation activities. Anyone who is willing to follow the Charter guidelines is welcome to post to r.a.s.n.m, and their posts will be accepted unedited if they have followed the Charter criteria. Posts will never be edited by moderators. If a moderator discovers off-charter material posted in the group, he/she has three options: 1) Ignore it if it isn't blatant 2) Send an e-mail reminder of charter guidelines to the poster 3) Temporary removal of the poster's auto-post status How the off-charter post is handled will be determined by what response the situation warrants, but the moderator should use restraint whenever possible and use removal of auto-post status only as a last resort. In the event that the moderator feels the situation is severe enough to warrant temporarily suspending the author's auto-approve privilege, the moderator must immediately notify the other moderators and forward a copy of the post to the rest of the moderation team. The moderation team must then decide within one week whether to restore the author to auto-approve or continue the suspension. A two-thirds majority is required to maintain the suspension. Posters suspended from auto-approve may continue to post, but all their articles will be subject to human moderation while the suspension is in effect. Auto-approve may be restored at any time by a simple majority vote of the moderators. A poster who consistently submits off-charter material may be placed on the auto-reject list by a two-thirds majority vote of the moderators. Posters placed on auto-reject for this reason will be sent a copy of the charter, FAQ and instructions on how to petition for reinstatement. Individuals who engage in threatening or abusive behavior toward a moderator, or who attempt to interfere with the normal operation of the newsgroup or the internet accounts supporting the newsgroup or it's members, other than reporting net-abuse, will be placed on auto-reject for not less than one year. Moderator administration and changes: The moderation team will initially plan to include 5 to 7 moderators. They will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and reviewing articles that are neither auto-approved nor auto-rejected. New moderators can be added as deemed appropriate upon the approval of two-thirds of the existing moderators. Candidates for new moderators will only be taken from those people who have been on the auto-approve list continuously for 3 months. During the first 3 months of the newsgroup, the 3 month requirement will be waived. A special call for volunteers can be posted when an existing moderator steps down or when the workload on the moderators is deemed sufficient that they feel it is appropriate to increase their number. There will be an administrative mailing list, on which the moderators can discuss the enforcement and modification of the guidelines given here. A thread may be marked for human attention upon agreement of a majority of the moderators. This overrides normal auto-approval and content based auto-rejection, and brings all posts in the thread to moderator attention so potential problems can be dealt with before measures as drastic as removal of auto-approval status are called for. Notice of thread marking may be posted to the newsgroup, but is not required. Appeals: A poster who feels that a rejected post was within the charter can appeal to the administrative list. If a majority of the moderators agree that the post should be approved, it will be posted as usual. If the poster's auto-approve status was suspended as a result of an article that is successfully appealed, auto-approve will be restored. Complaints or compliments about moderator judgments, and other matters related to the running of the newsgroup are welcome on the administrative list, but not on the newsgroup. No post relating to such discussions will be approved for the newsgroup. Any decision made about action to take (or not to take) is final. Posters who persist in pressing the issue will be subject to auto-rejection. Charter revisions: Any discussion on revision of the charter must include "CHARTER:" as the beginning of the subject line. After discussion in the newsgroup, the moderators will judge the group consensus and let the group know if any charter changes take place. Any changes must pass with a 2/3rds majority of the moderators agreeing on what the group is requesting. This is not a vote of the opinions of the moderators, but rather to ensure that the moderators have a clear understanding of what the members of the newsgroup want. If the moderators are not sure of the consensus of the group, or if members of the group challenge the moderators' decision, an actual vote will be taken. Votes will require a 2/3 majority to modify the charter. The moderators will post all results of charter modification votes to the group after the voting is completed. The subject line will include the phrase "CHARTER:" so that those who wish to ignore them can skip the threads or set their killfiles/filters to ignore them. Changes will also be made to the FAQ. The FAQ will be posted every Friday. Moderators who are unwilling or unable to uphold the charter in their personal posts or moderation activities may be removed by a two-thirds vote of the other moderators. Third party cancels ('retro-moderation') by anyone, including but not limited to moderators, is strictly against newsgroup policy. Disclaimer: - The moderators of this newsgroup are not responsible for truthfulness or legality of any of the posts. - The approval of a post by a moderator is NOT an endorsement by the moderator or moderation team. - Posters assume full responsibility for the content of their posts. - Readers using information that appears in the newsgroup do so at their own risk. - Posters agree that by posting items to this newsgroup they indemnify and hold harmless the moderation team and service providers. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Moderator: "Eric O. Troldahl" Moderator: Bob Paxton Moderator: Deven Atkinson Moderator: "Lisa A. Carbrey" Moderator: John Martin Moderator: Martin Moleski Moderator: Chris Watkins Article submission address: rasnm@carracing.com Administrative contact address: rasnm-admin@carracing.com END MODERATOR INFO. rec.autos.sport.nascar.moderated Final Voter list Voted YES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ nascar3 [at] bestwebnet Craig Witkowski da229 [at] freenet.carleton.ca Ken Hilson hruska [at] nortel.ca Bob Hruska janetm [at] unixg.ubc.ca Janet Morrison denis [at] csg.uwaterloo.ca Denis Rowland miked [at] 99main.com Mike Day rthlsbrj [at] pprd.abbott.com John Rothlisberger rpali [at] alienshore.com Rick Pali bwblevins [at] amoco.com Brian Blevins afret69 [at] aol.com Pat Champion biffan [at] aol.com L. A. Carr Cadman14X [at] AOL.com Tim Dike FAN3car [at] aol.com Glenn T. Allen Honaker1 [at] aol.com Joe Honaker injedolds [at] aol.com Injedolds JRs660fan [at] aol.com John Owren lkrz [at] aol.com Laura Kreuzer Omajahn [at] aol.com perkykimmy [at] aol.com Kimberly Douglas racerdave6 [at] aol.com David Blaskey rbemben [at] aol.com Richard E. Bemben sforsell [at] aol.com Scott Forsell SLMehl [at] aol.com Shari Mehlhose Tinadog [at] aol.com Jerry Kyte Trezzer [at] aol.com Terry Kiernan Winstongal [at] aol.com Sue kimdv [at] best.com Kim DeVaughn aclaffie [at] bgnn.com Alan J. Claffie stufflehead [at] bigfoot.com Kenneth W. Sodemann mark [at] breland.com Mark A. Breland kurtis [at] centilliondata.com Kurtis Miller KR10 [at] chrysler.com Kurt Rasmussen lgl [at] coact.com Louis Lauer charlie.andrews [at] commobunker.com Charles D. Andrews LStaley [at] compuserve.com Laura Staley agross [at] cray.com Alan Grossmeier cathyr [at] cybergal.com Cathy Ribbeck dougk [at] cyberia.com Douglas B. Klunk darren [at] cybrtyme.com Darren Ford booda [at] datasync.com Martin H. Booda guymacon [at] deltanet.com guymacon@deltanet.com (Guy Macon) bpaxton [at] dittosrush.com Bob Paxton jberkan [at] dlcwest.com Jason Berkan steve [at] downtowncomputing.com Steven D. Owen julesd [at] edifax.com Jules Dubois bherdman [at] efni.com Bryan Herdman LINC41 [at] erols.com Peggy Stafford lovelimo [at] erols.com Glenn Stafford. rmacdon [at] execpc.com Ray MacDonald chipw [at] fanlinks.com Chip White david [at] farrar.com David Farrar brenda [at] flexbon.com Brenda Will heather [at] flexbon.com Heather Krajewski les [at] flexbon.com Les = teresak [at] flexbon.com Teresa Kessler tina [at] flexbon.com Tina Yescavage dchadwi1 [at] ford.com Dawn Chadwick jchadwi1 [at] ford.com John Chadwick KJENSEN [at] forum.com Karen Jensen cartisan [at] hotmail.com Newton Fig tinylights [at] hotmail.com Henry Kelley bird [at] icomnet.com ROBIN L. BELYEA rbatina [at] infinet.com Robert J Batina moyra [at] interlog.com Moyra J. Bligh dutch [at] jerseycape.com Richard P. Ludwig bob-in-jersey [at] juno.com Bob Frable ranmeister [at] juno.com Randy Turner reel [at] lexmark.com Richard Reel sscott [at] lightlink.com Steve Scott rem [at] winner.lc.lucent.com Richard Menninger tomatocountry [at] lycosemail.com Andy Bowen mgraden [at] mci2000.com Mike Graden jackd [at] metrics.com Jack Durbin bweidner [at] mindspring.com Bill Weidner cagreen [at] mindspring.com Cathy Green deliveryboy [at] mindspring.com John 'aka' Deliveryboy dowatts [at] mindspring.com David Watts franmc [at] mindspring.com Fran McGuigan jlalmand [at] mindspring.com JL Almand mcguigan [at] mindspring.com Mike McGuigan jbstok [at] opel.mindspring.com J. B. Stokley umytbnxt [at] mindspring.com Chris Watkins jeff.gutshall [at] smtpgate.MSAnet.com Jeff Gutshall 3424n98 [at] msn.com Brenda Frey anadandy [at] my-dejanews.com Anne Bulin rw131144 [at] exchange.DAYTONOH.NCR.com Rick Wolfe gjeglint [at] ix.netcom.com Greg Eglinton igopogo [at] ix.netcom.com John McCoy John.Musolino [at] Newsday.com John Musolino thul [at] newsguy.com Matt Thul racefan [at] nni.com joesph nielson Kevin.Bagwell.kbagwell [at] nt.com Kevin Bagwell tduwe [at] primenet.com Tom Duwe GHDK38B [at] prodigy.com Len Ashburn pspegal [at] commsrv.pssd.com Paul M. Spegal rapp [at] rcn.com James Rapp rcarpenter [at] redshift.com Rebecca E. Carpenter njbell [at] midsouth.rr.com Noble Bell nwelch1 [at] rochester.rr.com Welch Family wanderso [at] siemens-psc.com Warren D. Anderson donpettyjohn [at] sprintmail.com Donald C. Pettyjohn blueslvr [at] sprynet.com Roy W. Forgy dkwii [at] sprynet.com David Wynia eige [at] sprynet.com Jamison Eige stamper [at] stamper.com Chris Stamper arielle [at] taronga.com Stephanie da Silva daver [at] teleport.com David F. Reynolds heitke [at] tellabs.com Steve Heitke RonHickman [at] unisys.com Ron Hickman kdyer [at] ncal.verio.com Kathleen Dyer jerryh [at] wrq.com Jerald L. Holmes falcon77777 [at] yahoo.com David Champagne naddy [at] mips.rhein-neckar.de Christian Weisgerber vote [at] kholdan.snafu.de tobias erle angooddr [at] alfredtech.edu Dale Angood Susan_Bowlin [at] baylor.edu Susan Bowlin kevin.james [at] bc.edu Kevin James moleski [at] canisius.edu Martin X. Moleski, SJ ndowning [at] budget.emory.edu Nicole M. Downing hh299 [at] cleveland.Freenet.Edu Jim Baranovich jl64 [at] prism.gatech.edu Jeffrey Lahr slhowell [at] cs1.presby.edu Sam L. Howell bwf2 [at] psu.edu Brian France rick [at] bcm.tmc.edu Richard Miller cdash [at] cs.uccs.edu Charlie Shub lcmatteson [at] ucdavis.edu Lynn C. Matteson clund [at] daedalus.ucsd.edu Christopher Lund escowles [at] gort.ucsd.edu kevin esme cowles sdonoh1 [at] gl.umbc.edu Scott C. Donohue, BS, NREMT-P ejsharp [at] umich.edu Elmer J. Sharp rufinus [at] mbe.ece.wisc.edu J Rufinus mmalbert [at] facstaff.wisc.edu Michele Albert tlit [at] loc.gov Tom Littlejohn jpc [at] drum.msfc.nasa.gov J. Porter Clark dosselw [at] eustis.army.mil Dossel, Will CDR janders [at] nswc.navy.mil Joseph O. Anderson terwillj [at] af.pentagon.mil Jim Terwilliger christopher.gary [at] acd.net Gary Christopher edwardp [at] mailhost.col.ameritech.net Edward Dittmer barpushrod [at] att.net Bruce Richardson DrJohn [at] worldnet.att.net Kenn Johnson lcarbrey [at] worldnet.att.net Lisa A. Carbrey gregory [at] bcn.net Gregory E Nadeau bmatthws [at] bellatlantic.net Bill Matthews bthomas [at] bellatlantic.net bill thomas jjohnso4 [at] bellsouth.net Johnny I Johnson jpricket [at] bellsouth.net Jason Prickett oldsteel [at] bellsouth.net Ronnie Hiatt racecar3 [at] bellsouth.net Nancy Kendrick samjo [at] bellsouth.net Sam Johnson lori_Merriman [at] webmail.bellsouth.net LORI MERRIMAN Merriman [at] webmail.bellsouth.net Brian J. Merriman kev [at] bright.net Kevin Schroeder dnewton [at] buffnet.net Dave Newton dilligaf [at] carolina.net JAMES HART tumbl [at] cei.net Tom Brinkman skid [at] cyberbeach.net Jim Robinson dapaxton [at] dbtech.net Andy Paxton champ [at] access.digex.net Larry Champion kplotkin [at] access.digex.net Kenneth Plotkin pbern7 [at] earthlink.net Paul Bernhardt pwandmo [at] earthlink.net PhilCo whackamole [at] earthlink.net Billy Goode fred [at] eatel.net Frederick J. Barnett Jr. 429tjet [at] exis.net John McManus lmccomb [at] fgi.net Liz McComb etroll [at] flash.net Eric O. Troldahl filter1 [at] gte.net Mike = mnc1 [at] gte.net Cindy Murray pssmith [at] gte.net Perry Smith cornutt [at] hiwaay.net David K. Cornutt gmcgriff [at] hiwaay.net Gary S. McGriff pscampbe [at] mail.HiWAAY.net Patrick Campbell bagheeras [at] ibm.net kward01 [at] ibm.net Kathy Ward tjwestdorp [at] ibm.net Thomas J. Westdorp sapotter [at] indy.net Samuel Potter jphelps [at] infi.net John Phelps skurz [at] norfolk.infi.net Steve Kurz wdossel [at] infi.net Will Dossel twohams [at] InfoAve.Net Phil Flanagan crs1208 [at] inforamp.net Doug Chambers merriman [at] inweb.net Clifford Merriman rsteve [at] iquest.net Ron Steve rusty2 [at] magicnet.net George Cayro deven [at] Mcs.Net Deven D. Atkinson pgravel [at] mcs.net Philip L. Gravel dlcook [at] mediaone.net David L. Cook gglaser [at] minn.net Ginger Glaser elkins [at] mis.net Sean Elkins hbelkins [at] mis.net H.B. Elkins renegade [at] myriad.net James Storrs esiska [at] netrax.net Ellen Siska jochurch [at] norwich.net Joyce N. Church Dalefans [at] prodigy.net Karen Adams mccollom [at] prodigy.net Steven R. McCollom barney [at] rahul.net GARY UYEHARA doc [at] rr1.net Gloria Koshinski spynx [at] diamond.sierra.net Jack Durst tucked [at] swbell.net David D. Tucker jtmartin [at] teleplex.net John Martin dbutler [at] telplus.net Douglas J. Butler bulrogue [at] tiac.net Tim Bulin true [at] together.net Tammie True tsuitor [at] together.net Tom Suitor btwohig [at] total.net Barry lynnh [at] voyager.net Lynn Hershberger adwiz [at] webtv.net William Allen floridananny [at] webtv.net Patricia Kraus floridapoppy [at] webtv.net Ken Kraus racefan6 [at] webtv.net Glenda Morgan mnielsen [at] worldramp.net Beth Nielsen jan [at] haar.ddns.org Jan Haar Hammy [at] croila.demon.co.uk Hamish Bell desert_rat [at] ridgecrest.ca.us Harry Krabbe bob_woody [at] co.benton.wa.us Bob Woody Voted NO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ chriseb [at] nortel.ca Chris Ebenezer SheetNFire [at] aol.com John Amble SomeBetch [at] aol.com Don Lucas stainles [at] bga.com Dwight Brown tjmc [at] enteract.com tjmc jason [at] gaydeceiver.com Jason Steiner celticwiccan [at] hotmail.com Peter Byron jacobchase [at] hotmail.com Jacob Chase swm33philly [at] hotmail.com Philly Guy ken [at] intranet.com Ken Piel kiteworks [at] juno.com Franklin Benjamin rocklobster97 [at] juno.com Wayne Gomes thenutz [at] lvcm.com Darlene Blair rherby [at] mindspring.com Rich Herbison olav [at] viking.mv.com Olav Nieuwejaar collect [at] netaxs.com Eric Norris tgm [at] netcom.com Thomas G. McWilliams dc [at] panix.com David W. Crawford suekz [at] servtech.com Susan Klimowicz| = bobaboooey [at] yahoo.com Bob Abooey Ekkehard.Uthke [at] gmx.de Ekkehard Uthke brsweene [at] indiana.edu Brian P. Sweeney ellis [at] ftel.net Rick Ellis icefish [at] pottsville.infi.net Chris Pauley jceman [at] mediaone.net Jack R. Ceman wakelyn [at] pinn.net Tom Wakelyn mcook [at] prodigy.net Mark Cook vhamrick [at] snip.net Victor Hamrick| = gordon.fan [at] usa.net Jefferson Thomas StephenD [at] ASU.uswest.net Stephen Dorrough AlanLivingston [at] acm.org Alan J. Livingston pb10003 [at] cus.cam.ac.uk Paul Bolchover Abstained ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ JKing1823 [at] aol.com Jeff Kingsley chris [at] kzim.com Christopher Robin Zimmerman bjcox [at] jax-inter.net Barbara Cox Invalid votes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ hotater* [at] magiclink.com Jack Belk ! Vote based on non-votetaker ballot distribution Sebf [at] Normandnet.Fr Sebastien ! No vote statement in message tpc [at] indigo.ie Tom Cosgrave ! No vote statement in message twdixon [at] usa.net Tom Dixon ! Undeliverable address (user has cancelled account) -- Neil Crellin, UVV