Nan:2007-01-10-radio-amateur-moderated-rfd
From Usenet Big-8 Management Board
From: "Paul W. Schleck, K3FU" <pschleck@novia.net>
Subject: RFD: rec.radio.amateur.moderated moderated
Newsgroups: rec.radio.info, news.announce.newgroups,
rec.radio.amateur.policy, news.groups.proposals, rec.radio.amateur.misc
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:45:08 -0600
Organization: http://www.big-8.org/
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group rec.radio.amateur.moderated
This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the
moderated Usenet newsgroup, rec.radio.amateur.moderated.
NEWSGROUPS LINE: rec.radio.amateur.moderated
rec.radio.amateur.moderated Amateur radio practices, rules, etc. (Moderated)
RATIONALE: rec.radio.amateur.moderated
rec.radio.amateur.moderated is a moderated alternative to the existing
rec.radio.amateur.misc and rec.radio.amateur.policy newsgroups. The
rec.radio.amateur.misc newsgroup is chartered to discuss amateur ("ham")
radio practices, contents, events, rules, etc., including anything
related to amateur radio not specifically covered by another
rec.radio.amateur.* newsgroup. The rec.radio.amateur.policy newsgroup
is chartered to discuss ham radio rules, regulations, and policy. Over
the past several years, the traffic on both groups has become largely
flame wars, spam, and personal ad-hominem discussions of past, present,
and future violations and violators, having little or no bearing on
amateur radio. Polite requests by serious group posters to the
offenders to refrain from such behavior have not resulted in elimination
of such behavior and has in fact resulted in another series of flame
wars. As a result, many knowledgeable and concerned posters in both
groups have ceased being active therein.
Prior to the deterioration of rec.radio.amateur.misc and
rec.radio.amateur.policy, both groups had active discussion of their
chartered topics. It is expected that offering a moderated group will
persuade those who formerly participated to resume their participation
in rational, focussed, and informed discussion. Proper moderation will
enable serious postings to the group to remain on topic while not
limiting who can voice opinions or what opinions can be voiced.
Combining the topics of the unmoderated rec.radio.amateur.misc and
rec.radio.amateur.policy newsgroups into a single moderated newsgroup is
offered as the most practical solution for both the moderators and the
participants at this time. This proposal does not necessarily presume
that any other rec.radio.amateur.* newsgroups and their topics require
moderated alternatives at this time.
CHARTER:
rec.radio.amateur.moderated is for the discussion of amateur ("ham")
radio. 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.
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 type 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 communication law and regulations concerning radio equipment or
operations are off-topic.
The following are prohibited:
* Personal advertisements.
* 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.
* Links to "objectionable" web content, including pornographic sites,
sites encouraging illegal activities, or sites deemed unacceptable
by the moderation team.
* 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 by a specific moderator may appeal the decision 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.
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@comcast.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
END MODERATOR INFO
PROCEDURE:
For more information on the newsgroup creation process, please see:
http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:creation
Those who wish to influence the development of this RFD and its final
resolution should subscribe to news.groups.proposals and participate in the
relevant threads in that newsgroup. This is both a courtesy to groups in
which discussion of creating a new group is off-topic as well as the best
method of making sure that one's comments or criticisms are heard.
All discussion of active proposals should be posted to news.groups.proposals.
To this end, the 'Followup-To' header of this RFD has been set to this group.
If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, the discussion
may be crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken to ensure
that all discussion appears in news.groups.proposals as well.
We urge those who would like to read or post in the proposed newsgroup
to make a comment to that effect in this thread; we ask proponents to
keep a list of such positive posts with the relevant message ID
(e.g., Barney Fife, <4JGdnb60fsMzHA7ZnZ2dnUVZ_rWdnZ2d@sysmatrix.net>).
Such lists of positive feedback for the proposal may constitute good
evidence that the group will be well-used if it is created.
DISTRIBUTION:
This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
rec.radio.info
rec.radio.amateur.misc
rec.radio.amateur.policy
The proponent will also post pointers to:
http://www.qrz.com/
PROPONENT:
"Paul W. Schleck, K3FU" <pschleck@novia.net>
CHANGE HISTORY:
2007-01-10 1st RFD
