From tale@uunet.uu.net Wed Aug 14 10:35:04 1996 Path: uunet!in3.uu.net!bounce-back From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: soc.religion.paganism Subject: cmsg newgroup soc.religion.paganism moderated Control: newgroup soc.religion.paganism moderated Approved: newgroups-request@uunet.uu.net Message-ID: <840033006.22652@uunet.uu.net> Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 14:30:06 GMT Lines: 227 X-Info: ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README.html ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README X-PGP-Sig: 2.7 Subject,Control,Message-ID,Date,From,Sender iQCVAgUBMhHi78JdOtO4janBAQEEDwP+JKa2ye48zA7b1Ha7Pq9pCdYVXvsjNHNA WyBpPEm+aPzbMazksg72GHcKhKVxepfI0jF0NJwmInWF4akFxxnyY3Bozm/zPjwy oqC8aRZUxglc2BqBBUztEpbbcsHzFpaOZRcsnRs4opHK5aT/mZ7qsaW108N89oTu cRAVX8zl7pk= =e0lD Xref: uunet control.newgroup:16102 soc.religion.paganism is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for creation by 429:61 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 9 Aug 1996. Group submission address: srpbot@brewich.com Moderator contact address: srp-admin@brewich.com (Donal) For your newsgroups file: soc.religion.paganism Networking for Pagans. (Moderated) The charter, culled from the vote result announcement: Soc.religion.paganism will be a place for Pagans from around the world to meet and discuss topics of interest to Pagans, and for those interested in Paganism to learn more about it from those involved in the many religions collectively known as Paganism. No attempt will be made here to define Paganism, nor will posts be approved or rejected based on any one person's concepts or traditions. The Pagan community covers a wide range of specific and non-specific religions and lifestyles, and all will be respected and given space. What will not be tolerated are posts promoting, arguing or comparing Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Satanism that do not have demonstrable relevance to Paganism. If the readers of soc.religion.paganism wanted to read about these topics they would go read them in the appropriate newsgroups. As many Pagans come to Paganism from Christianity, endless posts about the topic of their former religion are no more welcome than persistent postings of bar drink recipes would be to alt.recovery.aa. Christians and other non-Pagans are welcome to post, but they should keep to the topic of the newsgroup. Postings should abide by common rules of tolerance and openness. The rules of netiquette should be observed at all times. Irrelevant profanity should be avoided but will be tolerated. Anonymous postings will be allowed. The remainder of the Charter details the moderation procedures. The moderation of soc.religion.paganism will be accomplished by combining an automated Perl script, or modbot, with monitoring by an odd-numbered panel of live moderators, referred to hereafter collectively as The ModKin. Although the focal point of the moderation is the modbot and its owner, the Modkin and the modbot owner will share all duties equally except for those maintenance functions that must be performed by the modbot owner. All effort will be made to treat the modbot owner as just another modkin. When a modkin leaves (or is removed) the position will be filled by a simple majority vote of the members of approve_user (see the next paragraph for a definition of the voting process to be used). Additional modkin may be added by the same process taking care to always maintain an odd number of modkin. The Modkin will decide when it is time to add more modkin, or to decrease their number by attrition or vote, by a simple "show of hands" on the Modkin mailing list. A modkin may ask for a "leave of absence" of no more than four weeks and will be temporarily removed from the post approval queue. A longer absence will be taken as a resignation and the modkin must be replaced. If more than one position is being filled the winners will be chosen from the most votes received to the least. A modkin may be removed by a simple majority vote of the members in approve_user, but a modkin must post the Topic For Discussion (TFD). A modkin who survives an attempted removal vote will have a 90-day period during which no removal action may be proposed against that modkin. Any needed change to the modbot criteria or this Charter must be prepared by the Modkin and approved by a 2/3 majority of the voting members of approve_user. All votes will be prefaced by a discussion period of no less than 21 days following the posting of the TFD. The subject of this post must be prefaced with "[TFD]" and should be written by the person(s) who are raising the issue and sent via email to the modbot owner. The modbot owner will post all TFD's. The author of a TFD may request that it be withdrawn up to but not after a CFV has been issued. The Call For Votes will also be posted by the modbot owner when s/he determines discussion has ebbed, and prefaced with "[CFV]". The voting period will be 30 days and all persons listed in approve_user when the vote started are eligible to vote. To be valid at least 100 members, or 25% of the members in approve_user, whichever is smaller, must respond. After an invalidated vote the topic may be raised for discussion again after a 90-day waiting period, restarting the whole process, or dropped at the request of the original proponent. The results of the vote will be announced by the vote-bot owner. The basic collection and tallying of votes will be performed by a vote-bot, probably but not necessarily run on the same system as the modbot, such as eVote. The modbot will process all incoming posts and compare the headers against these files in the order they appear here: approve_user, approve_thread, valid_groups, deny_thread, and deny_user. The From: line is checked against the approve_user file and, if found, is automatically approved by the modbot. This file takes precedence over all others. A User who is in approve_user can post anything they want to, even spam. A user that abuses this right will get an email warning from the Modkin and, if s/he does not correct their behavior, will be removed from approve_user following a simple majority vote of the Modkin. Any modkin can, with a modbot command, add a user to approve_user but only the modbot owner can remove a user from approve_user following a "show of hands" vote on the Modkin mailing list. The message ID will be added to approve_thread to ensure that replies are always visible. If the Reference: field is in the approve_thread file then the post is ok, even if it is spam. This will be used to make sure that replies to crossposts originating from this group will make it back in. A date check will be used to retire very old threads from this file so it does not grow enormous. Any post that includes more than spam_limit (a configured limit that will be set and modified upon a "show of hands" vote among the Modkin) number of newsgroups that are not in the valid_groups file will be automatically recognized as spam. This means that the post can be cross-posted to any number of newsgroups that are contained in valid_groups but not more than spam_limit groups that are not. The method for handling spam will be to edit the Newsgroups: line, removing soc.religion.paganism, and then resubmitting the post to the nearest news server. The contents of the valid_groups file will be determined by the modbot owner with input from the Modkin and users, and will be included in the soc.religion.paganism moderation FAQ. The two deny files will reject a post whose Subject:, Reference: or From: line matches a pattern in these files, resulting in an email notification to the author with the reason the post was rejected. This will be used to prevent the appearance of such eternal threads as M*KE M*N*Y F*ST. A personal email address will only stay in the deny_user file for a period of 30 days. Any post that does not meet the criteria for the four modbot files will be forwarded to one of The ModKin, chosen at random from the modkin file, for approval or rejection. The moderator can then approve, reject or ask the modbot to give it to another modkin. Modbot commands will also allow the moderator to send a FAQ and add a user to approve_user, among other things. The modbot will also post the FAQ on a regular schedule. A post may be rejected for any of the following reasons: Off Topic - something so wildly off topic that any sane person would object to its inclusion. This includes discussions of Christianity or Satanism that do not show relevance to Paganism. Binaries - This is NOT a binary newsgroup and binaries will not be permitted. IF a file is available a pointer to the anonymous ftp site it is on should be posted so those who want it can go get it. Troll - any post for the sole purpose of attracting flames, usually made as a form of newsgroup attack or abuse. E.g. "Animal Sacrifice" is NOT a troll, although it will draw flames; "Human Sacrifice" would depend on the historical content of the post; "Witches Sacrifice Babies" is a troll (as well as a damned lie). Spam - The modbot should catch all of these but there are always possible combinations we haven't thought of. Endless repetitions of the same post (usually caused by damaged servers or software) should also be removed as spam. Unrelated Commercial - A sales pitch that is not relevant to Pagans. All advertisements that ARE allowed must preface the subject with [AD]: so that those who wish to may filter them out. Proselytizing - Non-Pagan proselytizing is strictly forbidden. If any Pagans ever try it we will probably all fall out of our chairs laughing. Intolerance - Rants like "My X is right and your Y is EEE-VULL." Such intolerance can come from inside our community as well as from without but it has no place here. No one way is all right and no way is all wrong. Bible Quotes - It is debatable whether quoting Bible verses falls under "Intolerance" or "Off Topic" or "Proselytizing" but they are not welcome unless part of a valid Pagan discussion. Anything not in this list should be approved, but the ModKin may use their own best judgment. When reviewing a newbie or clueless post, the modkin should consider the following: "If you put two 'single-clued' people together they will collectively have two clues to rub together thus enhancing each of their experiences in a way not possible before. This is a good definition of growth. It also works if you rub one of your clues against their single clue." -Ironshadow, from a post in alt.pagan There are a couple of post categories that, while not being criteria for rejection, should still be listed here and defined. Newbie - These basic first-time questions should be FAQ'd and then posted. Often more than the poster can learn from the public answers to these questions and the old topics they revivify. The subject line of these posts should be modified by the modkin that reviews it to preface it with "[FAQ'd]" to indicate to all that this post has already been responded to with a copy of the soc.religion.paganism FAQ. Fluff - Not a rejection criteria so long as the subject is prefaced with "[FLUFF]" so that those who wish to avoid it may more easily killfile it. The modkin reviewing the post may add the "[FLUFF]" tag before approving it without the author's prior permission. Administrative - These are messages from the Modkin or the modbot regarding newsgroup operations (such as the daily rejected posts summary report) and will be prefaced with "[Admin]". The modbot will produce and post a daily summary of all rejected postings by author, subject, message id, who rejected it and the reason for doing so. Anyone can request a rejected post, via email, from the modbot by referring to a message number from the daily summary. This will provide a check on The ModKin, allowing anyone to keep tabs on how The ModKin are using the power of their position. Anyone can also request a FAQ or similar document directly from the modbot. The mechanism for doing this will be posted to the group on a regular basis. One last note. It would be a good practice to preface posts that are about a specific path or tradition with a tag indicating this. For instance, a post about the Wiccan Rede might have the subject "[WICCA] Is the Rede an absolute rule or a guide?" while a post about Asatru might be titled "[ASATRU] The price of wisdom." A list of recommended tags will be compiled by the Modkin and included in the Moderation FAQ under "Posting Guidelines". This is not an enforced rule, only a recommendation to help us all get the most out of our newsgroup. From tale@uunet.uu.net Wed Aug 21 10:35:03 1996 Path: uunet!in3.uu.net!bounce-back From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: soc.religion.paganism Subject: cmsg newgroup soc.religion.paganism moderated Control: newgroup soc.religion.paganism moderated Approved: newgroups-request@uunet.uu.net Message-ID: <840637808.19982@uunet.uu.net> Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1996 14:30:08 GMT Lines: 227 X-Info: ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README.html ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README X-PGP-Sig: 2.7 Subject,Control,Message-ID,Date,From,Sender iQCVAgUBMhsdcsJdOtO4janBAQEgXwP+NkRriZaomuIivtHf6bGhBLADMYLSi+fy nfMHy9ryPEqTS9GR4LAAL0i4gH8SLkDb+I3rf7i11RMUmeuTHFQ6W3MploTpNN88 o4mYyzPTbdOUPe7rAmJcqetXKr6qa3MFsG/EnxFx5zQlC5tCN1WgNvOrbVwQ6OAE mo009j7CC2E= =vfs1 Xref: uunet control.newgroup:16329 soc.religion.paganism is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for creation by 429:61 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 9 Aug 1996. Group submission address: srpbot@brewich.com Moderator contact address: srp-admin@brewich.com (Donal) For your newsgroups file: soc.religion.paganism Networking for Pagans. (Moderated) The charter, culled from the vote result announcement: Soc.religion.paganism will be a place for Pagans from around the world to meet and discuss topics of interest to Pagans, and for those interested in Paganism to learn more about it from those involved in the many religions collectively known as Paganism. No attempt will be made here to define Paganism, nor will posts be approved or rejected based on any one person's concepts or traditions. The Pagan community covers a wide range of specific and non-specific religions and lifestyles, and all will be respected and given space. What will not be tolerated are posts promoting, arguing or comparing Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Satanism that do not have demonstrable relevance to Paganism. If the readers of soc.religion.paganism wanted to read about these topics they would go read them in the appropriate newsgroups. As many Pagans come to Paganism from Christianity, endless posts about the topic of their former religion are no more welcome than persistent postings of bar drink recipes would be to alt.recovery.aa. Christians and other non-Pagans are welcome to post, but they should keep to the topic of the newsgroup. Postings should abide by common rules of tolerance and openness. The rules of netiquette should be observed at all times. Irrelevant profanity should be avoided but will be tolerated. Anonymous postings will be allowed. The remainder of the Charter details the moderation procedures. The moderation of soc.religion.paganism will be accomplished by combining an automated Perl script, or modbot, with monitoring by an odd-numbered panel of live moderators, referred to hereafter collectively as The ModKin. Although the focal point of the moderation is the modbot and its owner, the Modkin and the modbot owner will share all duties equally except for those maintenance functions that must be performed by the modbot owner. All effort will be made to treat the modbot owner as just another modkin. When a modkin leaves (or is removed) the position will be filled by a simple majority vote of the members of approve_user (see the next paragraph for a definition of the voting process to be used). Additional modkin may be added by the same process taking care to always maintain an odd number of modkin. The Modkin will decide when it is time to add more modkin, or to decrease their number by attrition or vote, by a simple "show of hands" on the Modkin mailing list. A modkin may ask for a "leave of absence" of no more than four weeks and will be temporarily removed from the post approval queue. A longer absence will be taken as a resignation and the modkin must be replaced. If more than one position is being filled the winners will be chosen from the most votes received to the least. A modkin may be removed by a simple majority vote of the members in approve_user, but a modkin must post the Topic For Discussion (TFD). A modkin who survives an attempted removal vote will have a 90-day period during which no removal action may be proposed against that modkin. Any needed change to the modbot criteria or this Charter must be prepared by the Modkin and approved by a 2/3 majority of the voting members of approve_user. All votes will be prefaced by a discussion period of no less than 21 days following the posting of the TFD. The subject of this post must be prefaced with "[TFD]" and should be written by the person(s) who are raising the issue and sent via email to the modbot owner. The modbot owner will post all TFD's. The author of a TFD may request that it be withdrawn up to but not after a CFV has been issued. The Call For Votes will also be posted by the modbot owner when s/he determines discussion has ebbed, and prefaced with "[CFV]". The voting period will be 30 days and all persons listed in approve_user when the vote started are eligible to vote. To be valid at least 100 members, or 25% of the members in approve_user, whichever is smaller, must respond. After an invalidated vote the topic may be raised for discussion again after a 90-day waiting period, restarting the whole process, or dropped at the request of the original proponent. The results of the vote will be announced by the vote-bot owner. The basic collection and tallying of votes will be performed by a vote-bot, probably but not necessarily run on the same system as the modbot, such as eVote. The modbot will process all incoming posts and compare the headers against these files in the order they appear here: approve_user, approve_thread, valid_groups, deny_thread, and deny_user. The From: line is checked against the approve_user file and, if found, is automatically approved by the modbot. This file takes precedence over all others. A User who is in approve_user can post anything they want to, even spam. A user that abuses this right will get an email warning from the Modkin and, if s/he does not correct their behavior, will be removed from approve_user following a simple majority vote of the Modkin. Any modkin can, with a modbot command, add a user to approve_user but only the modbot owner can remove a user from approve_user following a "show of hands" vote on the Modkin mailing list. The message ID will be added to approve_thread to ensure that replies are always visible. If the Reference: field is in the approve_thread file then the post is ok, even if it is spam. This will be used to make sure that replies to crossposts originating from this group will make it back in. A date check will be used to retire very old threads from this file so it does not grow enormous. Any post that includes more than spam_limit (a configured limit that will be set and modified upon a "show of hands" vote among the Modkin) number of newsgroups that are not in the valid_groups file will be automatically recognized as spam. This means that the post can be cross-posted to any number of newsgroups that are contained in valid_groups but not more than spam_limit groups that are not. The method for handling spam will be to edit the Newsgroups: line, removing soc.religion.paganism, and then resubmitting the post to the nearest news server. The contents of the valid_groups file will be determined by the modbot owner with input from the Modkin and users, and will be included in the soc.religion.paganism moderation FAQ. The two deny files will reject a post whose Subject:, Reference: or From: line matches a pattern in these files, resulting in an email notification to the author with the reason the post was rejected. This will be used to prevent the appearance of such eternal threads as M*KE M*N*Y F*ST. A personal email address will only stay in the deny_user file for a period of 30 days. Any post that does not meet the criteria for the four modbot files will be forwarded to one of The ModKin, chosen at random from the modkin file, for approval or rejection. The moderator can then approve, reject or ask the modbot to give it to another modkin. Modbot commands will also allow the moderator to send a FAQ and add a user to approve_user, among other things. The modbot will also post the FAQ on a regular schedule. A post may be rejected for any of the following reasons: Off Topic - something so wildly off topic that any sane person would object to its inclusion. This includes discussions of Christianity or Satanism that do not show relevance to Paganism. Binaries - This is NOT a binary newsgroup and binaries will not be permitted. IF a file is available a pointer to the anonymous ftp site it is on should be posted so those who want it can go get it. Troll - any post for the sole purpose of attracting flames, usually made as a form of newsgroup attack or abuse. E.g. "Animal Sacrifice" is NOT a troll, although it will draw flames; "Human Sacrifice" would depend on the historical content of the post; "Witches Sacrifice Babies" is a troll (as well as a damned lie). Spam - The modbot should catch all of these but there are always possible combinations we haven't thought of. Endless repetitions of the same post (usually caused by damaged servers or software) should also be removed as spam. Unrelated Commercial - A sales pitch that is not relevant to Pagans. All advertisements that ARE allowed must preface the subject with [AD]: so that those who wish to may filter them out. Proselytizing - Non-Pagan proselytizing is strictly forbidden. If any Pagans ever try it we will probably all fall out of our chairs laughing. Intolerance - Rants like "My X is right and your Y is EEE-VULL." Such intolerance can come from inside our community as well as from without but it has no place here. No one way is all right and no way is all wrong. Bible Quotes - It is debatable whether quoting Bible verses falls under "Intolerance" or "Off Topic" or "Proselytizing" but they are not welcome unless part of a valid Pagan discussion. Anything not in this list should be approved, but the ModKin may use their own best judgment. When reviewing a newbie or clueless post, the modkin should consider the following: "If you put two 'single-clued' people together they will collectively have two clues to rub together thus enhancing each of their experiences in a way not possible before. This is a good definition of growth. It also works if you rub one of your clues against their single clue." -Ironshadow, from a post in alt.pagan There are a couple of post categories that, while not being criteria for rejection, should still be listed here and defined. Newbie - These basic first-time questions should be FAQ'd and then posted. Often more than the poster can learn from the public answers to these questions and the old topics they revivify. The subject line of these posts should be modified by the modkin that reviews it to preface it with "[FAQ'd]" to indicate to all that this post has already been responded to with a copy of the soc.religion.paganism FAQ. Fluff - Not a rejection criteria so long as the subject is prefaced with "[FLUFF]" so that those who wish to avoid it may more easily killfile it. The modkin reviewing the post may add the "[FLUFF]" tag before approving it without the author's prior permission. Administrative - These are messages from the Modkin or the modbot regarding newsgroup operations (such as the daily rejected posts summary report) and will be prefaced with "[Admin]". The modbot will produce and post a daily summary of all rejected postings by author, subject, message id, who rejected it and the reason for doing so. Anyone can request a rejected post, via email, from the modbot by referring to a message number from the daily summary. This will provide a check on The ModKin, allowing anyone to keep tabs on how The ModKin are using the power of their position. Anyone can also request a FAQ or similar document directly from the modbot. The mechanism for doing this will be posted to the group on a regular basis. One last note. It would be a good practice to preface posts that are about a specific path or tradition with a tag indicating this. For instance, a post about the Wiccan Rede might have the subject "[WICCA] Is the Rede an absolute rule or a guide?" while a post about Asatru might be titled "[ASATRU] The price of wisdom." A list of recommended tags will be compiled by the Modkin and included in the Moderation FAQ under "Posting Guidelines". This is not an enforced rule, only a recommendation to help us all get the most out of our newsgroup. From news@usenet.hana.nm.kr Mon Aug 26 01:35:37 1996 X-Orig-Path: news.postech.ac.kr!news.kreonet.re.kr!news.dacom.co.kr!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in3.uu.net!bounce-back X-Orig-From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: soc.religion.paganism Subject: cmsg newgroup soc.religion.paganism moderated Control: newgroup soc.religion.paganism moderated Message-ID: Path: uunet!in3.uu.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.netone.com!news.sprintlink.net!news-fw-12.sprintlink.net!snunews.snu.ac.kr!usenet.kornet.nm.kr!xpat.com!xpat-control Date: 25 Aug 1996 16:18:04 KST From: news@usenet.hana.nm.kr Approved: news@usenet.hana.nm.kr Sender: news@usenet.hana.nm.kr X-Sender: jem@xpat.postech.ac.kr Organization: HANA Operations Center Distribution: rok Lines: 234 Xref: uunet control.newgroup:16453 Please send e-mail to jem@xpat.postech.ac.kr if this message leaks outside of Korea. Please include the full "Path:" header line of the leaky message. Original message: soc.religion.paganism is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for creation by 429:61 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 9 Aug 1996. Group submission address: srpbot@brewich.com Moderator contact address: srp-admin@brewich.com (Donal) For your newsgroups file: soc.religion.paganism Networking for Pagans. (Moderated) The charter, culled from the vote result announcement: Soc.religion.paganism will be a place for Pagans from around the world to meet and discuss topics of interest to Pagans, and for those interested in Paganism to learn more about it from those involved in the many religions collectively known as Paganism. No attempt will be made here to define Paganism, nor will posts be approved or rejected based on any one person's concepts or traditions. The Pagan community covers a wide range of specific and non-specific religions and lifestyles, and all will be respected and given space. What will not be tolerated are posts promoting, arguing or comparing Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Satanism that do not have demonstrable relevance to Paganism. If the readers of soc.religion.paganism wanted to read about these topics they would go read them in the appropriate newsgroups. As many Pagans come to Paganism from Christianity, endless posts about the topic of their former religion are no more welcome than persistent postings of bar drink recipes would be to alt.recovery.aa. Christians and other non-Pagans are welcome to post, but they should keep to the topic of the newsgroup. Postings should abide by common rules of tolerance and openness. The rules of netiquette should be observed at all times. Irrelevant profanity should be avoided but will be tolerated. Anonymous postings will be allowed. The remainder of the Charter details the moderation procedures. The moderation of soc.religion.paganism will be accomplished by combining an automated Perl script, or modbot, with monitoring by an odd-numbered panel of live moderators, referred to hereafter collectively as The ModKin. Although the focal point of the moderation is the modbot and its owner, the Modkin and the modbot owner will share all duties equally except for those maintenance functions that must be performed by the modbot owner. All effort will be made to treat the modbot owner as just another modkin. When a modkin leaves (or is removed) the position will be filled by a simple majority vote of the members of approve_user (see the next paragraph for a definition of the voting process to be used). Additional modkin may be added by the same process taking care to always maintain an odd number of modkin. The Modkin will decide when it is time to add more modkin, or to decrease their number by attrition or vote, by a simple "show of hands" on the Modkin mailing list. A modkin may ask for a "leave of absence" of no more than four weeks and will be temporarily removed from the post approval queue. A longer absence will be taken as a resignation and the modkin must be replaced. If more than one position is being filled the winners will be chosen from the most votes received to the least. A modkin may be removed by a simple majority vote of the members in approve_user, but a modkin must post the Topic For Discussion (TFD). A modkin who survives an attempted removal vote will have a 90-day period during which no removal action may be proposed against that modkin. Any needed change to the modbot criteria or this Charter must be prepared by the Modkin and approved by a 2/3 majority of the voting members of approve_user. All votes will be prefaced by a discussion period of no less than 21 days following the posting of the TFD. The subject of this post must be prefaced with "[TFD]" and should be written by the person(s) who are raising the issue and sent via email to the modbot owner. The modbot owner will post all TFD's. The author of a TFD may request that it be withdrawn up to but not after a CFV has been issued. The Call For Votes will also be posted by the modbot owner when s/he determines discussion has ebbed, and prefaced with "[CFV]". The voting period will be 30 days and all persons listed in approve_user when the vote started are eligible to vote. To be valid at least 100 members, or 250f the members in approve_user, whichever is smaller, must respond. After an invalidated vote the topic may be raised for discussion again after a 90-day waiting period, restarting the whole process, or dropped at the request of the original proponent. The results of the vote will be announced by the vote-bot owner. The basic collection and tallying of votes will be performed by a vote-bot, probably but not necessarily run on the same system as the modbot, such as eVote. The modbot will process all incoming posts and compare the headers against these files in the order they appear here: approve_user, approve_thread, valid_groups, deny_thread, and deny_user. The From: line is checked against the approve_user file and, if found, is automatically approved by the modbot. This file takes precedence over all others. A User who is in approve_user can post anything they want to, even spam. A user that abuses this right will get an email warning from the Modkin and, if s/he does not correct their behavior, will be removed from approve_user following a simple majority vote of the Modkin. Any modkin can, with a modbot command, add a user to approve_user but only the modbot owner can remove a user from approve_user following a "show of hands" vote on the Modkin mailing list. The message ID will be added to approve_thread to ensure that replies are always visible. If the Reference: field is in the approve_thread file then the post is ok, even if it is spam. This will be used to make sure that replies to crossposts originating from this group will make it back in. A date check will be used to retire very old threads from this file so it does not grow enormous. Any post that includes more than spam_limit (a configured limit that will be set and modified upon a "show of hands" vote among the Modkin) number of newsgroups that are not in the valid_groups file will be automatically recognized as spam. This means that the post can be cross-posted to any number of newsgroups that are contained in valid_groups but not more than spam_limit groups that are not. The method for handling spam will be to edit the Newsgroups: line, removing soc.religion.paganism, and then resubmitting the post to the nearest news server. The contents of the valid_groups file will be determined by the modbot owner with input from the Modkin and users, and will be included in the soc.religion.paganism moderation FAQ. The two deny files will reject a post whose Subject:, Reference: or From: line matches a pattern in these files, resulting in an email notification to the author with the reason the post was rejected. This will be used to prevent the appearance of such eternal threads as M*KE M*N*Y F*ST. A personal email address will only stay in the deny_user file for a period of 30 days. Any post that does not meet the criteria for the four modbot files will be forwarded to one of The ModKin, chosen at random from the modkin file, for approval or rejection. The moderator can then approve, reject or ask the modbot to give it to another modkin. Modbot commands will also allow the moderator to send a FAQ and add a user to approve_user, among other things. The modbot will also post the FAQ on a regular schedule. A post may be rejected for any of the following reasons: Off Topic - something so wildly off topic that any sane person would object to its inclusion. This includes discussions of Christianity or Satanism that do not show relevance to Paganism. Binaries - This is NOT a binary newsgroup and binaries will not be permitted. IF a file is available a pointer to the anonymous ftp site it is on should be posted so those who want it can go get it. Troll - any post for the sole purpose of attracting flames, usually made as a form of newsgroup attack or abuse. E.g. "Animal Sacrifice" is NOT a troll, although it will draw flames; "Human Sacrifice" would depend on the historical content of the post; "Witches Sacrifice Babies" is a troll (as well as a damned lie). Spam - The modbot should catch all of these but there are always possible combinations we haven't thought of. Endless repetitions of the same post (usually caused by damaged servers or software) should also be removed as spam. Unrelated Commercial - A sales pitch that is not relevant to Pagans. All advertisements that ARE allowed must preface the subject with [AD]: so that those who wish to may filter them out. Proselytizing - Non-Pagan proselytizing is strictly forbidden. If any Pagans ever try it we will probably all fall out of our chairs laughing. Intolerance - Rants like "My X is right and your Y is EEE-VULL." Such intolerance can come from inside our community as well as from without but it has no place here. No one way is all right and no way is all wrong. Bible Quotes - It is debatable whether quoting Bible verses falls under "Intolerance" or "Off Topic" or "Proselytizing" but they are not welcome unless part of a valid Pagan discussion. Anything not in this list should be approved, but the ModKin may use their own best judgment. When reviewing a newbie or clueless post, the modkin should consider the following: "If you put two 'single-clued' people together they will collectively have two clues to rub together thus enhancing each of their experiences in a way not possible before. This is a good definition of growth. It also works if you rub one of your clues against their single clue." -Ironshadow, from a post in alt.pagan There are a couple of post categories that, while not being criteria for rejection, should still be listed here and defined. Newbie - These basic first-time questions should be FAQ'd and then posted. Often more than the poster can learn from the public answers to these questions and the old topics they revivify. The subject line of these posts should be modified by the modkin that reviews it to preface it with "[FAQ'd]" to indicate to all that this post has already been responded to with a copy of the soc.religion.paganism FAQ. Fluff - Not a rejection criteria so long as the subject is prefaced with "[FLUFF]" so that those who wish to avoid it may more easily killfile it. The modkin reviewing the post may add the "[FLUFF]" tag before approving it without the author's prior permission. Administrative - These are messages from the Modkin or the modbot regarding newsgroup operations (such as the daily rejected posts summary report) and will be prefaced with "[Admin]". The modbot will produce and post a daily summary of all rejected postings by author, subject, message id, who rejected it and the reason for doing so. Anyone can request a rejected post, via email, from the modbot by referring to a message number from the daily summary. This will provide a check on The ModKin, allowing anyone to keep tabs on how The ModKin are using the power of their position. Anyone can also request a FAQ or similar document directly from the modbot. The mechanism for doing this will be posted to the group on a regular basis. One last note. It would be a good practice to preface posts that are about a specific path or tradition with a tag indicating this. For instance, a post about the Wiccan Rede might have the subject "[WICCA] Is the Rede an absolute rule or a guide?" while a post about Asatru might be titled "[ASATRU] The price of wisdom." A list of recommended tags will be compiled by the Modkin and included in the Moderation FAQ under "Posting Guidelines". This is not an enforced rule, only a recommendation to help us all get the most out of our newsgroup. From tale@uunet.uu.net Sat Sep 14 10:35:03 1996 Path: uunet!bounce-back From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: soc.religion.paganism Subject: cmsg newgroup soc.religion.paganism moderated Control: newgroup soc.religion.paganism moderated Approved: newgroups-request@uunet.uu.net Message-ID: <842711403.20923@uunet.uu.net> Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 14:30:03 GMT Lines: 227 X-Info: ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README.html ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README X-PGP-Sig: 2.7 Subject,Control,Message-ID,Date,From,Sender iQCVAgUBMjrBbMJdOtO4janBAQF3zQQAoPxG7fv8vYKZ6iw0iPD+xpor4dFusBeV vmFwxN9HUhCchJ95E4y0QKdp8qzFzWHvTf0LXA8YAewuiGRp/wHjdbIiM8JIlEX0 K/ZjSLXo+aT1Xh1KS5usc+pfH6YVDhK2VDkK06IPM339ie7o3HBsOD9F9Bcxjg7H PoiEY7oqEeU= =fBQV Xref: uunet control.newgroup:16892 soc.religion.paganism is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for creation by 429:61 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 9 Aug 1996. Group submission address: srpbot@brewich.com Moderator contact address: srp-admin@brewich.com (Donal) For your newsgroups file: soc.religion.paganism Networking for Pagans. (Moderated) The charter, culled from the vote result announcement: Soc.religion.paganism will be a place for Pagans from around the world to meet and discuss topics of interest to Pagans, and for those interested in Paganism to learn more about it from those involved in the many religions collectively known as Paganism. No attempt will be made here to define Paganism, nor will posts be approved or rejected based on any one person's concepts or traditions. The Pagan community covers a wide range of specific and non-specific religions and lifestyles, and all will be respected and given space. What will not be tolerated are posts promoting, arguing or comparing Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Satanism that do not have demonstrable relevance to Paganism. If the readers of soc.religion.paganism wanted to read about these topics they would go read them in the appropriate newsgroups. As many Pagans come to Paganism from Christianity, endless posts about the topic of their former religion are no more welcome than persistent postings of bar drink recipes would be to alt.recovery.aa. Christians and other non-Pagans are welcome to post, but they should keep to the topic of the newsgroup. Postings should abide by common rules of tolerance and openness. The rules of netiquette should be observed at all times. Irrelevant profanity should be avoided but will be tolerated. Anonymous postings will be allowed. The remainder of the Charter details the moderation procedures. The moderation of soc.religion.paganism will be accomplished by combining an automated Perl script, or modbot, with monitoring by an odd-numbered panel of live moderators, referred to hereafter collectively as The ModKin. Although the focal point of the moderation is the modbot and its owner, the Modkin and the modbot owner will share all duties equally except for those maintenance functions that must be performed by the modbot owner. All effort will be made to treat the modbot owner as just another modkin. When a modkin leaves (or is removed) the position will be filled by a simple majority vote of the members of approve_user (see the next paragraph for a definition of the voting process to be used). Additional modkin may be added by the same process taking care to always maintain an odd number of modkin. The Modkin will decide when it is time to add more modkin, or to decrease their number by attrition or vote, by a simple "show of hands" on the Modkin mailing list. A modkin may ask for a "leave of absence" of no more than four weeks and will be temporarily removed from the post approval queue. A longer absence will be taken as a resignation and the modkin must be replaced. If more than one position is being filled the winners will be chosen from the most votes received to the least. A modkin may be removed by a simple majority vote of the members in approve_user, but a modkin must post the Topic For Discussion (TFD). A modkin who survives an attempted removal vote will have a 90-day period during which no removal action may be proposed against that modkin. Any needed change to the modbot criteria or this Charter must be prepared by the Modkin and approved by a 2/3 majority of the voting members of approve_user. All votes will be prefaced by a discussion period of no less than 21 days following the posting of the TFD. The subject of this post must be prefaced with "[TFD]" and should be written by the person(s) who are raising the issue and sent via email to the modbot owner. The modbot owner will post all TFD's. The author of a TFD may request that it be withdrawn up to but not after a CFV has been issued. The Call For Votes will also be posted by the modbot owner when s/he determines discussion has ebbed, and prefaced with "[CFV]". The voting period will be 30 days and all persons listed in approve_user when the vote started are eligible to vote. To be valid at least 100 members, or 25% of the members in approve_user, whichever is smaller, must respond. After an invalidated vote the topic may be raised for discussion again after a 90-day waiting period, restarting the whole process, or dropped at the request of the original proponent. The results of the vote will be announced by the vote-bot owner. The basic collection and tallying of votes will be performed by a vote-bot, probably but not necessarily run on the same system as the modbot, such as eVote. The modbot will process all incoming posts and compare the headers against these files in the order they appear here: approve_user, approve_thread, valid_groups, deny_thread, and deny_user. The From: line is checked against the approve_user file and, if found, is automatically approved by the modbot. This file takes precedence over all others. A User who is in approve_user can post anything they want to, even spam. A user that abuses this right will get an email warning from the Modkin and, if s/he does not correct their behavior, will be removed from approve_user following a simple majority vote of the Modkin. Any modkin can, with a modbot command, add a user to approve_user but only the modbot owner can remove a user from approve_user following a "show of hands" vote on the Modkin mailing list. The message ID will be added to approve_thread to ensure that replies are always visible. If the Reference: field is in the approve_thread file then the post is ok, even if it is spam. This will be used to make sure that replies to crossposts originating from this group will make it back in. A date check will be used to retire very old threads from this file so it does not grow enormous. Any post that includes more than spam_limit (a configured limit that will be set and modified upon a "show of hands" vote among the Modkin) number of newsgroups that are not in the valid_groups file will be automatically recognized as spam. This means that the post can be cross-posted to any number of newsgroups that are contained in valid_groups but not more than spam_limit groups that are not. The method for handling spam will be to edit the Newsgroups: line, removing soc.religion.paganism, and then resubmitting the post to the nearest news server. The contents of the valid_groups file will be determined by the modbot owner with input from the Modkin and users, and will be included in the soc.religion.paganism moderation FAQ. The two deny files will reject a post whose Subject:, Reference: or From: line matches a pattern in these files, resulting in an email notification to the author with the reason the post was rejected. This will be used to prevent the appearance of such eternal threads as M*KE M*N*Y F*ST. A personal email address will only stay in the deny_user file for a period of 30 days. Any post that does not meet the criteria for the four modbot files will be forwarded to one of The ModKin, chosen at random from the modkin file, for approval or rejection. The moderator can then approve, reject or ask the modbot to give it to another modkin. Modbot commands will also allow the moderator to send a FAQ and add a user to approve_user, among other things. The modbot will also post the FAQ on a regular schedule. A post may be rejected for any of the following reasons: Off Topic - something so wildly off topic that any sane person would object to its inclusion. This includes discussions of Christianity or Satanism that do not show relevance to Paganism. Binaries - This is NOT a binary newsgroup and binaries will not be permitted. IF a file is available a pointer to the anonymous ftp site it is on should be posted so those who want it can go get it. Troll - any post for the sole purpose of attracting flames, usually made as a form of newsgroup attack or abuse. E.g. "Animal Sacrifice" is NOT a troll, although it will draw flames; "Human Sacrifice" would depend on the historical content of the post; "Witches Sacrifice Babies" is a troll (as well as a damned lie). Spam - The modbot should catch all of these but there are always possible combinations we haven't thought of. Endless repetitions of the same post (usually caused by damaged servers or software) should also be removed as spam. Unrelated Commercial - A sales pitch that is not relevant to Pagans. All advertisements that ARE allowed must preface the subject with [AD]: so that those who wish to may filter them out. Proselytizing - Non-Pagan proselytizing is strictly forbidden. If any Pagans ever try it we will probably all fall out of our chairs laughing. Intolerance - Rants like "My X is right and your Y is EEE-VULL." Such intolerance can come from inside our community as well as from without but it has no place here. No one way is all right and no way is all wrong. Bible Quotes - It is debatable whether quoting Bible verses falls under "Intolerance" or "Off Topic" or "Proselytizing" but they are not welcome unless part of a valid Pagan discussion. Anything not in this list should be approved, but the ModKin may use their own best judgment. When reviewing a newbie or clueless post, the modkin should consider the following: "If you put two 'single-clued' people together they will collectively have two clues to rub together thus enhancing each of their experiences in a way not possible before. This is a good definition of growth. It also works if you rub one of your clues against their single clue." -Ironshadow, from a post in alt.pagan There are a couple of post categories that, while not being criteria for rejection, should still be listed here and defined. Newbie - These basic first-time questions should be FAQ'd and then posted. Often more than the poster can learn from the public answers to these questions and the old topics they revivify. The subject line of these posts should be modified by the modkin that reviews it to preface it with "[FAQ'd]" to indicate to all that this post has already been responded to with a copy of the soc.religion.paganism FAQ. Fluff - Not a rejection criteria so long as the subject is prefaced with "[FLUFF]" so that those who wish to avoid it may more easily killfile it. The modkin reviewing the post may add the "[FLUFF]" tag before approving it without the author's prior permission. Administrative - These are messages from the Modkin or the modbot regarding newsgroup operations (such as the daily rejected posts summary report) and will be prefaced with "[Admin]". The modbot will produce and post a daily summary of all rejected postings by author, subject, message id, who rejected it and the reason for doing so. Anyone can request a rejected post, via email, from the modbot by referring to a message number from the daily summary. This will provide a check on The ModKin, allowing anyone to keep tabs on how The ModKin are using the power of their position. Anyone can also request a FAQ or similar document directly from the modbot. The mechanism for doing this will be posted to the group on a regular basis. One last note. It would be a good practice to preface posts that are about a specific path or tradition with a tag indicating this. For instance, a post about the Wiccan Rede might have the subject "[WICCA] Is the Rede an absolute rule or a guide?" while a post about Asatru might be titled "[ASATRU] The price of wisdom." A list of recommended tags will be compiled by the Modkin and included in the Moderation FAQ under "Posting Guidelines". This is not an enforced rule, only a recommendation to help us all get the most out of our newsgroup.