[ADMIN] rec.arts.drwho.moderated FAQ
- From: Siobahn Morgan <morgans@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:53:56 -0500
Updated Dec. 15, 2004 -
Spoiler messages rule added to section 5.
This document can be found at
http://www.robomod.net/~robomod/rec.arts.drwho.moderated/
Frequently asked questions for rec.arts.drwho.moderated:
Questions included in this FAQ:
1. What is this newsgroup about?
2. I want to say something, but have never posted a message before -
are there any rules I should follow?
3. How do I post to it?
4. Why are there no frequently asked questions about Dr Who here?
5. What kinds of postings will be rejected by the moderators?
6. Somebody posted something bad! How did that get through? What can
I do about it?
7. I sent a message that I thought was OK, but the moderators rejected it!
What can I do?
8. What other Dr Who newsgroups and mailing lists are there?
9. My postings are going straight up onto the newsgroup, but nobody else
can see them. What's going on?
10. I posted something, but it never arrived! What's wrong?
11. I want to talk about the way this newsgroup is being managed!
12. I got a rejection notice about long lines. What does this mean?
13. I'd like to post with a fake email address. Is this allowed? How do
I do it?
14. How does the overquoting rule work with the robomod?
15. What about spoiler space? How does the robomod deal with that?
16. Temporary rules currently in effect
17. About this FAQ
*Frequently Asked Questions for rec.arts.drwho.moderated:*
1. What is this newsgroup about?
This newsgroup is for the discussion of Dr Who, including but not limited
to the television series, the books, the audio adventures, the movie,
conventions, and fandom in general. There's a great big Whoniverse
out there - the fandom has remained surprisingly strong, thanks to
the continuing lines of books and audio productions. The newsgroup
is moderated, so you will (hopefully) find most of the postings to be
on-topic and polite.
2. What are the basic rules for posting messages in newsgroups?
Usenet newsgroups aren't exactly like "chat rooms" or other bulletin board
type of fora since the material is usually downloaded to an individual's
computer (though not always). This can lead to problems for people with
slow internet connections or limited disk space. Therefore, there are
a few rules of net-etiquette (or "netiquette") to follow -
a) don't post anything for a while, but "lurk". This will give you a
sense of what the people are saying, or find out what has been covered
already. Most of the material from the past is available in the
www.google.com archive.
b) BE NICE! This is a moderated newsgroup, but even if it weren't, you
should always be as civil as possible. You have to remember, this medium
doesn't always allow a person to put the proper "twist" on their words
like you can with the inflection of your voice, so don't jump to
conclusions about what you thought someone "meant" to say.
c) Edit out material from old posts that is not part of the text that
you are responding too. Things like the "signature lines" of other
posters are not needed. If you leave too much old material and not
add enough of your own stuff, it is called "overquoting" and the
message may be rejected (see Item #14).
d) Place your responses close to the text that you are responding to,
generally just below it. This will help set your own material off from
the previous material and not get lost, especially if you are responding
to a large amount of text - but you should also edit out the parts you
don't need to include (as mentioned already).
e) Become familiar with all of the little shorthand lingo, like IMO, and
ROTFL, as well as the Doctor Who specific lingo. This is something you
can pick up from just reading others' messages, but it does take some time
and it never hurts to ask.
f) Be aware of and avoid posting SPOILERS! These are items/information that
would spoil the viewing of a show or the reading of a book by revealing
things that have yet to be seen and read by many of the others in the
group. Basically it is like "giving away the ending" or "revealing the
special guest star" or a major plot point/character/location/etc that
would give away too much of a story. If you aren't sure, make sure you
follow the general rules for posting "spoiler" material. You should
ALWAYS put spoiler warnings in their "Subject" line (like "Subject:
SPOILER about the New Show!") and include spoiler space (blank space
at the top of the post so that the first part of the spoiler-laden text
is not seen immediately). Yes, we know the new production of Doctor
Who is exciting, but some people will not see the new show until
well after others have, so don't ruin it for them. It's like telling
eveyone that "rosebud" in Citizen Kane is - oops, can't tell you,
that would spoil it!
g) If you are interested in the way things are run on the newsgroup or
would like to change one of the rules in the Styleguide, become a
subscriber to Modish - just go to this website and subscribe
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/modish/
This may also be a place to find out about how things are done, or why
certain decisions are made. Don't post messages about the running of
the newsgroup within the newsgroup - either direct questions to the
moderators (e-mail: radwm-moderator@xxxxxxxxxxx) or to the Modish forum.
h) Enjoy yourself!
3. How do I post to it?
rec.arts.drwho.moderated is a moderated newsgroup, so postings that you
initially send to it will not immediately appear. If they do, you may
have a misconfigured news-server - more on that later. What *should*
happen is that you get a message notifying you that your posting is in
the queue waiting for a moderator to approve it. If your first posting
is then approved, your postings will go straight through to the newsgroup
from then on. If any future posting breaks the guidelines, you will either
be sent a warning message from the moderators, or a warning message from
the robomod (software which automatically rejects messages which are spam,
crossposted, overquoted, not in plain text, etc). If you continue to break
the guidelines, you may be placed on a "hand-moderation" list for a time.
4. Why are there no frequently asked questions about Dr Who
here?
This FAQ is really about the newsgroup, not about Dr Who itself.
The FAQs you're after can be found here:
http://nitro9.earth.uni.edu/doctor/FAQ/
An index to the main FAQs concerning Doctor Who is posted on the
first of each month.
5. What kinds of postings will be rejected by the moderators?
To quote from the rec.arts.drwho.moderated style guide at
http://www.robomod.net/~robomod/rec.arts.drwho.moderated/ -
The main kinds of posts which will be rejected by first time posters
are:
1) Flames (postings which, in the judgment of the moderators, are meant
to personally insult or attack a member of the newsgroup, or to make
unsupported allegations about them)
2) Trolls (postings which, in the judgment of the moderators, are
intended to provoke angry responses from other members of the
newsgroup)
3) Spam (including all off-topic advertising material, and on-topic
advertising material posted more than once a fortnight)
4) Off-topic posts (postings which, in the judgment of the moderators,
are not sufficiently about Doctor Who)
5) Overquoted posts (postings which have a ratio of quoted text to
original content of more than 70%)
6) Cross-posts (postings which are posted to more than one newsgroup
simultaneously)
7) Posts not in plain text (binaries, HTML, RTF, etc, excluding small
binaries such as PGP signatures)
8) Spoilers (posts which contain information about forthcoming or
less-than-year-old productions which do not contain the warning
SPOILERS in the header, or give the information away in the header
itself)
[Note: a newsgroup member is defined to be a person who has used an
email address which appears on the newsgroup posters list made available
to the moderators. Email addresses on this list expire after 6 months if
they are not used to post in this time.]
Threads which, in the judgment of the moderators, are off-topic and/or
will probably lead to flames or trolls will be placed in a queue to be
approved or rejected by the moderators according to 1-5 above (this is
called hand moderation).
In the event that the moderators are unsure of the intent of a post that
has either been complained about or might, in the opinion of the
moderators, be considered a troll or flame, evidence of prior behaviour
in other discussion fora can be used to help the moderators in deciding
the intent of the poster. Any evidence that is used by the moderators in
said way must be posted publicly to modish within 24 hours of a
decision.
Overquoted posts, cross-posts and posts not in plain text may also be
automatically rejected by the server software (called the robomod).
Spoiler space is strongly encouraged, but not absolutely required,
due to a compatibility problem with the robomod and quoted spoiler
space (see sections 14 and 15). Spoilers include, but are
not limited to: plot points, the revelation of characters to be
included in the series, the titles of new episodes, and the settings
of new episodes. The moderators will use their discretion to judge
what constitutes a spoiler and what doesn't.
If a post is rejected, the robomod will send a copy of the post to the
poster with a brief explanation from the rejecting moderator. Posters
may rewrite their posts and resubmit them if they wish.
Moderators are subject to the same rules as other posters. If it becomes
necessary, the other moderators will hand moderate their posts.
Moderators will not make any changes to the content of posts.
Another interesting article is at:
http://www.robomod.net/~edmonds/misc/self-discipline.txt
6. Somebody posted something bad! How did that get through? What can
I do about it?
Most posters to rec.arts.drwho.moderated are auto-approved - their posts
aren't hand-moderated. They can post anything they want. If you feel
that their post does not conform to the style guide then you can email
radwm-moderator@xxxxxxxxxxxx Include details of the subject, the poster,
and why you think the post should not have been approved. If the panel
agrees, they will send a warning email to the poster, or put them on
the hand-moderated list right away, if they have had previous warnings.
7. I sent a message that I thought was OK, but the moderators rejected it!
What can I do?
To quote the style guide again:
If a poster feels that their message should not have been rejected, they
can appeal in email to the entire moderation panel at
radwm-moderator@xxxxxxxxxxxx If even one of the moderators decides their
message should have been accepted, it may be re-submitted and will be
approved.
If a poster is unhappy with the panel's decision, they may discuss the
issue in a publicly accessible Yahoo! mailing list named modish. The
purpose of this mailing list is to discuss moderation and meta issues,
alert the moderators to posts which may not be following the rules, or
lodge No Confidence Motions in any or all moderators. The mailing list
is moderated by admins appointed by the moderation panel (who may also
dismiss them at their discretion), and all moderators are required to
be members of the list.
To subscribe to modish via the web: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/modish/
To subscribe to modish via email: modish-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The admins of modish have their own similar set of rules governing the
list, agreed on by the moderation panel, which are posted to the list at
regular intervals and can be found at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/modish/files
8. What other Dr Who newsgroups/mailing lists/forums are there?
Lots and lots.
Newsgroups:
rec.arts.drwho is an unmoderated newsgroup for discussion of Dr Who.
rec.arts.drwho.info is a moderated group for information on conventions,
reviews, and so on.
alt.drwho.creative is an unmoderated group for fan fiction.
alt.binaries.drwho is an unmoderated group for posting of binaries.
uk.media.tv.sf.drwho is an unmoderated group for the UK.
Mailing Lists:
The House at Allen Road (moderated).
http://www.reuben.net/allenroad.html
Forums:
Outpost Gallifrey has an extensive and popular forum.
http://www.gallifreyone.com/
This Week in Doctor Who has information on Doctor Who TV
broadcasts around the world.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thisweekindoctorwho/
A "Live Journal" community - though there are many on LJ -
http://community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/
Totters Lane is a general forum.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/totterslane/join
Jade Pagoda is a forum for the continuing series of books.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jade_Pagoda/
A Good Doctor Who List is a general forum.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agooddrwholist/
Planet Skaro is a general forum.
http://pub98.ezboard.com/bplanetskaro
9. My postings are going straight up onto the newsgroup, but nobody else
can see them. What's going on?
What has probably happened is that your news server is improperly
configured. This has happened to rec.arts.drwho.moderated on quite
a few servers, for reasons unknown. All moderated newsgroups should
be tagged by their news server as being "moderated". This means that
whenever someone posts a message to that newsgroup, it gets sent to
an email address for the moderators to deal with. The moderators then
post the message. If your news server doesn't have the "moderated" tag
on rec.arts.drwho.moderated, all posts will go straight up on your news
server's copy of rec.arts.drwho.moderated. However, because the article
hasn't been properly moderated, no other news servers will "pick it up"
- in other words, everybody who is reading news from properly configured
servers *won't see your message*!
To determine if this is the case, there are a couple of different
checks you can make. One is to look at the headers of your post.
Your newsreader should give you the option of displaying all your headers
- when you have done so, you should see lines at the top of your post
like "Received:" followed by lots of server information. Look for a
line that begins with "Approved:". If there isn't one, then your news
server is misconfigured.
Another check is to look at your news reader. Some of them indicate
that the newsgroup is moderated with a letter "M" (eg. tin) or the word
"moderated" (eg. trn). Have a look at the newsgroup rec.arts.drwho.info
by comparison - it is also a moderated newsgroup, and should be
tagged as such. Lastly, if you're still not sure, send an email to
radwm-moderator@xxxxxxxxxxx, explaining what you have done. We should be
able to help you out.
If your news server is improperly configured, you should send a message
to the provider of your news server - generally, your ISP - stating
"I think that the [your news server] has the rec.arts.drwho.moderated
newsgroup incorrectly tagged as being unmoderated. I have send a post
with the Subject [subject of a post that you sent to the newsgroup,
on your news server] to rec.arts.drwho.moderated and it has appeared on
your news server. Could you fix the newsgroup so that it is tagged as
moderated, please?"
10. I posted something, but it never arrived! What's wrong?
First, check your return email address (Return-Path). Is it a valid
email address? If not, perhaps your post is getting rejected, but the
moderators can't notify you as such.
Next, try emailing your post to:
rec-arts-drwho-moderated@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This is exactly what happens to posts normally (your news server will
eventually forward your post to rec-arts-drwho-moderated@xxxxxxxxxxx anyway)
but you are skipping a step or two. If your post gets through this way,
then rec.arts.drwho.moderated is misconfigured on your news server.
See the previous question for details.
If you've gotten acknowledgement posts stating that your post has been
accepted, try waiting a few hours. Sometimes it takes a while for
posts to arrive on your local news server. Sometimes the news servers
themselves fail. Don't worry - it is very unlikely that your post will
go permanently missing. Usually they will queue up and get all posted
at once.
If you're still having problems, email the moderators at
radwm-moderator@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please include either the post you made, or
the Subject header and the email address that you used to make the post.
11. I want to talk about the way this newsgroup is being managed!
There's a great forum for discussions *about* rec.arts.drwho.moderated
- it's:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/modish/
You'll find all kinds of juicy, discussion about just what ought to
be allowed and what oughtn't, and so on. Don't talk about these
kind of things on rec.arts.drwho.moderated itself. That's for
talking about Dr Who.
12. I got a rejection notice about long lines. What does this mean?
The configuration of the server that the newsgroup resides on requires
that lines be 79 characters or less (preferably 72), and it may reject
posts with longer line lengths than 79. Placing the keywords "long lines"
somewhere in the post (e.g. "sorry about the long lines, but...") should
prevent automatic rejection of the post, unless the line exceeds 160
characters, in which case it will be rejected regardless. Posters who
experience repeated difficulties in this regard are encouraged to work
with the mods and server host to solve the problem, or to make use
of URL-shortening sites to overcome the restriction for particularly
lengthy URLs.
13. I'd like to post with a fake email address. Is this allowed? How do
I do it?
The server host would strongly prefer that completely fake email
addresses not be used. They certainly will not be auto-approved. You
may register a real address and a "munged" address with it (a "munged"
address is an address with some sort of spamblock put in, such as
greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) if you like, and then only the munged
address will show up on the newsgroup. You can do this with the following
documentation:
http://www.robomod.net/~robomod/register.html
....or you can use a completely fake address and continue to have your
posts to the group manually approved (or rejected) by the moderators. The
advantage of registering a real and munged address together is that
rejection notices will get sent to the real address, but everyone else
will see the munged one.
14. How does the overquoting rule work with the robomod?
From the server host:
In short, it strips the sig (anything after a line of "-- "), if any,
counts any line starting with a quote character, typically >, as a
quoted line, counts any other non-blank line as a new line, and if
there are more than 16 new+quoted lines the percentage of quoted lines
(quoted/(new+quoted)) must be less than 70%.
The system then keeps a count for each address. This number has a minimum
of zero and maximum of six. Each overquoted post bumps it up by one,
each ok post drops it down by one. If it's over two and an overquoted
post is received, the post is rejected. If it's not over two and an
overquoted post is received a warning is issued.
15. What about spoiler space? How does the robomod deal with that?
If you reply to someone else's post which contains spoiler space, even
though you are just quoting blank lines the robomod will count them in
the quoted lines total (see section 14 above). This will most probably
result in a warning about overquoting. The best way around this is to
only quote the relevant sections of the post you're replying to, then
reinsert new spoiler space.
16. Temporary rules currently in effect
TEMPORARY RULE CHANGES: Pursuant to the requirement in the styleguide
that all temporary rule changes must be publicised every two weeks,
here is a list of the temporary rule changes. A vote will be taken among
RADWM participants to make the changes permanent after the new moderation
board is seated.
No new temporary rules are in effect now.
Any discussion of the temporary rule changes should take place in Modish,
the public mailing list set up for RADWM meta-discussion, not in the
group itself. See section 11 for instructions on how to sign up for Modish.
17. About this FAQ
This FAQ is currently maintained by the RADWM Moderation Panel. Please
send suggestions or queries to radwm-moderator@xxxxxxxxxxx with the words
"radwm FAQ" in the subject line.
Thanks to:
Siobahn Morgan
Kate Orman
Andrew Shellshear
Jim Vowles
Brian Edmonds
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