alt.astrology.tropical   Study & debate of tropical astrology.
(Moderated)

Message submission address: aat@stump.algebra.com
Contact for questions, etc.: aat-board@stump.algebra.com

Charter: Alt.astrology.tropical is intended as a lightly
moderated group for discussion, debate and study of tropical
astrology by professional astrologers, advanced students,
beginners and skeptics. Related topics are also allowed
where they are pertinent.

Justification of readership: At this time, most of the
unmoderated usenet astrology groups are poorly created spam
traps. The main unmoderated group suffers from massive
trolling, spam, kook and flamewars. The single moderated
group does not allow the discussion of validity (effectively
decapitating the group) and suffers from poor server
acceptance, poor communication, and consequently, few
users and low traffic.
     A hand count conducted in alt.astrology for the 30 days
preceding September 6th, 2001, resulted in a tally of 813
posts that would be on-topic in the new group, out of 2850,
or roughly 28%, giving an estimate of 2413 ontopic posts
for a 90 day period. The tally did not include flames or
off-topic material, using a strict definition.
     The estimated total count for the 3 months prior to
9/6/01 was 25,400. 28% of that total would tally to 7112
posts. Additionally, a count of the moderation panel's
ontopic posts from a 90-day period at the beginning of
the year, produced an additional 1200 posts from posters
who were not included in the handcount above.

Moderation guidelines: The following types of posts will be
prohibited --

1) Binaries (except PGP-type signatures) with or without
   virus-infections, encrypted, incoherent, or unreadable
   posts, or posts encoded in anything other than plain text
   (including HTML). Posts with pointers to 'safe' binaries
   are allowed. Messages or advertisements excessively
   multi-posted to other groups, flood posting, cancel or
   supersede attacks and similar denial of service attacks
   and/or other net-abusive postings. Excessively large
   posts may be returned for editing or division.
2) Posts in languages other than English will be allowed,
   provided that translation can accomplished, or verifiable
   translation is provided. In all other cases however,
   posts that cannot be understood by the moderators due to
   language or syntax difficulties will be rejected. (You
   are urged to email the moderators so that proper language
   support can be provided.)
3) Posts that violate copyright (excluding 'fair use' of
   both Usenet posts and all other content as provided for
   by law) are illegal and will be rejected.
4) Advertisements or commercial announcements, except site
   pointers as part of a signature line, or as permitted on
   a limited basis by the moderators. Signature lines should
   be limited to 6 lines (including the separator) or less.
5) Crossposting between alt.astrology.tropical and other
   moderated groups and/or to more than 5 other newsgroups.
   Acceptance of crossposts will be entirely left up to the
   moderator's discretion. The newsgroup line of your posts
   may be adjusted.
6) Reposts of previously written material, depending on
   content, may be allowed, but may only be reposted once
   per six months or after occasional legitimate requests.
   You should use pointers to websites or other resources
   instead. FAQs or other general information posts may be
   reposted more frequently at the moderators' discretion.
7) All personal attacks, abuse, flamebait and flames. This
   includes personal attacks disguised as astrological
   analysis, skepticism, debate on moderation and also
   attacks placed in signatures or headers. Discussion of
   moderation methods and decisions should be posted with a
   title line beginning 'RFD:', and such discussion is
   encouraged where it is needed. Skeptical discussion of
   astrology in general should have title lines beginning
   'VALIDITY:'. The moderators may prefix subject lines.
8) Claims of the superiority of particular methods (but not
   personal superiority). These may be made, but are subject
   to debate. Such debate about methods that does not
   contain personal attacks is NOT considered flaming.
   The subject lines of posts may be edited.

Moderation panel replacement policy: There will be three
active moderators at all times, backed up by a moderation
panel from which moderators will be drawn. Voting on serious
questions can be initiated by panel members, and the
addition or removal of moderators or panel members must be
voted upon. If no changes are made in the course of one
year, a confirming vote will be conducted to assure smooth
functioning.

Proponent: Ash <gabbagabbaheyman@mindspring.com>
Moderator: Sharyn Smith <sharyn0761@aol.com> (representing
a panel of nine)


Charter-optional verbiage:
     The moderators of alt.astrology.tropical welcome all
posters, and all topics relevant to tropical astrology, and
wish only to minimize the savage flamewars endemic to the
rest of the alt.astrology hierarchy. Please restrain
yourself from making exaggerated claims or responding overly
harshly to such claims, and avoid dragging topics relevant
to other newsgroups into this one. The moderators would
appreciate it if you attempted to exercise personal
courtesy at all times.
     If you are new, please read the FAQ first before
posting to help avoid any potential pitfalls. Trolling for
free readings by 'beginners' is discouraged. If you need
help with a particular chart, you should post complete
birth data, including location and date. Please note that
no one is required to respond to your request, or respond
to any post at all. The moderators, will, however, respond
to questions about the newsgroup as quickly as they can,
and will help new posters as needed.

 
              


