Nan:2007-02-23-rec.radio.amateur.moderated-announce

From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
From: The Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>
Subject: ANNOUNCE: rec.radio.amateur.moderated has been created
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.moderated, rec.radio.info,
 news.announce.newgroups, rec.radio.amateur.policy, rec.radio.amateur.misc
Followup-To: rec.radio.amateur.moderated
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:59:02 -0600
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/

On 19 Feb 2007, the Big-8 Management Board decided to create the moderated
group rec.radio.amateur.moderated.  The group was created on 22 Feb 2007.

For more information on the proposal and history, please refer to the
archives:

  ftp://ftp.isc.org/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.radio.amateur.moderated

For your newsgroups file:
rec.radio.amateur.moderated	Amateur radio practices, rules, etc. (Moderated)


CHARTER:

rec.radio.amateur.moderated is for the discussion of amateur ("ham")
radio, also known as the Amateur Radio Service, as defined in Federal
Communications Commission Regulations and U.S. Law (47 CFR Part 97), and
in similar laws and regulations in other countries, based on
international treaty.  It is not limited to the rules of any one country
or time period.  Possible topics include past, present, and future
operating practices; events; contests; past, present, and
potential-future rules; power limitations; authorized frequencies;
allowed modes and band plans (or other gentlemen's agreements) that
govern how we are to operate; what constitutes the acceptable operation
of amateur stations.

The newsgroup is intended to be international in scope, not just for
amateurs in the United States.  It is, however, intended as an
English-language forum, by custom and practice.  As with General
Aviation and other internationally-scoped endeavors, the Amateur Radio
Service has a strong custom of the use of English and the Latin
alphabet.  Discussion of amateur radio in languages other than English
also occurs in many country- and region-specific hierarchies, many of
which have specific amateur radio newsgroups, including:

de.* (Germany)
dk.* (Denmark)
es.* (Spain)
fr.* (France)
nl.* (Netherlands)
pl.* (Poland)
pt.* (Portugal)
relcom.* (Russia)

This newsgroup is only intended to supplement, not supersede, any other
amateur radio newsgroups.

General communications law or government policy of various government
agencies is also on-topic, as long as the discussion relates to amateur
radio.  Examples would be emergency communications, local antenna
restrictions, and property deed restrictions applying to operation of
amateur radio stations.

Discussion of other types of radio, such as Citizens Band, Broadcast,
other Personal Radio Services, Commercial or Private Land Mobile, and
Marine or Aviation services are off-topic, except when *directly*
related to amateur radio.  Similarly, discussion of methods violating
applicable communications law and regulations concerning radio equipment
or operations are off-topic.

The following are prohibited:

  * Personal advertisements (submitters of such articles will be
    referred to rec.radio.swap, instead).
  * Commercial advertisements and money-making schemes.
  * Chain letters.
  * Posts in HTML.
  * EMP spam.
  * Binaries, apart from PGP signatures, X-Face headers, and other
    ancillary article meta-data.
  * Forgery of valid e-mail addresses.
  * Excessive morphing/nym-shifting.
  * Copyright violations.  Pointers to news articles, blogs, etc. on
    this topic are welcome but are required to comply with fair use
    standards.
  * Personal attacks and flames, as defined by the moderation team.
  * Advertising items and/or services for sale (also will be referred to
    rec.radio.swap).
  * Links to "objectionable" web content, including pornographic sites,
    sites encouraging illegal activities, or sites deemed unacceptable
    by the moderation team.  The moderation team will cursorily check
    the contents of specific links to confirm on-topic content, but
    acceptance for posting does not imply endorsement or approval of
    the entire present or future contents of that web site.
  * Discussion of moderation decisions.  See below for information on
    appealing moderator action.


LINKS:

Amateur Radio Newsgroups in Total Meltdown (QRZ)
  http://www.qrz.com/ib-bin/ikonboard.cgi?s=ff745d20e58c50c63315835c3cefd8d9;act=ST;f=7;t=119282

Amateur Radio Newsgroups: Total Meltdown (eHam)
  http://www.eham.net/articles/13581

Secure, Team-Based Usenet Moderation Program (STUMP)
  http://www.algebra.com/~ichudov/stump/


MODERATION POLICY: rec.radio.amateur.moderated

A moderation robot will scan all submitted posts.  Each post will be
either automatically approved, rejected, or sent to the moderators for
manual review.  The moderator 'bot will enforce the following guidelines:

  * Crossposting is generally not allowed, with the general exception of
    crossposts of bulletins, FAQ's, and other informational articles to
    rec.radio.info, rec.answers, and news.answers.  Infrequent
    administrative crossposts may occasionally be allowed at the sole
    discretion of the moderator.

  * Postings must be in plain text. In particular no HTML or mixed text
    and HTML posts will be allowed.  Messages that are
    multipart/alternative will be automatically filtered to pass just
    the text/plain version to the newsgroup.

  * No binary postings of any sort will be accepted.  Exceptions will be
    made for cryptographic signatures and such.

  * Messages must not have a 'Followup-To' header that points out of
    rec.radio.amateur.moderated (other than to "poster").

  * Messages must not continue a thread that has been "closed" by the
    moderators.

Individual posters may be temporarily banned for consistently violating
the group charter.  Posters who feel that their posts have been unfairly
rejected or banned, either for specific content or by a specific
moderator, may appeal the decision.  They may do so by contacting the
Appeals Board, consisting of a rotating group of 2 or more moderators,
at the Administrative Contact address below.  The Board will discuss and
vote on the appeal and respond within 14 days if the appeal is
successful.  The Board will also reply within 14 days to unsuccessful
submitters of any appeal that is on-topic, reasoned, civilly stated, and
is not substantially an attempt to revisit the subject matter and
arguments of a previous unsuccessful appeal.

Multiple temporary bans, attempting to circumvent the ban, or abuse of the
appeal system may result in a permanent ban.


MODERATOR INFO: rec.radio.amateur.moderated

Moderator:                Paul W. Schleck, K3FU <pschleck@novia.net>
Moderator:                Bob Diepenbrock, KC4UAI <bob_deep@yahoo.com>
Moderator:                Jack Cook, VK2CJC <vk2cjc@bigpond.com>
Moderator:                Jim Hampton, AA2QA <aa2qa@frontiernet.net>
Moderator:                Ace Ratliff, WH2T <ace@wh2t.com>
Moderator:                Jeff Angus, WA6FWI <jangus@socal.rr.com>
Moderator:                Hans Brakob, K0HB <k0hb@arrl.net>

In addition, the rec.radio.amateur.moderated Moderation Team will
utilize the expertise of the following consultants:

Consultant:               Cecil A. Moore, W5DXP   <Cecil.A.Moore@ieee.org>
Consultant:               Phil Kane, K2ASP        <k2asp@arrl.net>
Consultant:               Brian Short, K7ON       <k7on@cox.net>

The moderators are seeking additional candidates for the moderation team
in order to ensure minimal posting delays and to avoid any appearance of
bias.  We would especially like to find moderators in other time zones,
countries/continents, etc.


Article Submissions:      rec-radio-amateur-moderated@panix.com
Administrative Contact:   rec-radio-amateur-moderated-request@panix.com


PROPONENT:

"Paul W. Schleck, K3FU" <pschleck@novia.net>


CHANGE HISTORY:

2007-01-10     1st RFD
2007-01-24     2nd RFD
2007-02-12     3rd RFD/LCC
2007-02-19     Results