From PaulH@computerbits.com Thu Feb  3 04:57:10 2000
Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back
From: Paul Harwood <PaulH@computerbits.com>
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: RFD: misc.writing.moderated moderated
Followup-To: news.groups
Message-ID: <949582684.21775@isc.org>
Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org
Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 12:58:04 GMT
Lines: 156
Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11327 news.groups:342285 misc.writing:373849 rec.arts.sf.composition:71662

                     REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                moderated group misc.writing.moderated

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup misc.writing.moderated. This is
not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural
details are below.

Newsgroup line:
misc.writing.moderated	Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated)

RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated

There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for
discussions of writing: alt.writing, misc.writing,
misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and
rec.arts.sf.composition. Of these, rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose
are intended as critique groups; misc.writing.screenplays and
rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific; and both misc.writing and
alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-topic traffic. This
off-topic traffic is an accepted and integral part of the culture, but
can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related discussions. In
addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group, now getting
upwards of 350 posts per day.

In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any
specific genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art,
craft, business and creative process of writing in a non-threatening
atmosphere, we propose to create misc.writing.moderated.

Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of
misc.writing's traffic would be considered on-topic in
misc.writing.moderated. Similar rough analysis of the traffic in
alt.writing, which has recently averaged about 90 posts per day, shows
that 63% of the traffic there would be considered on-topic in
misc.writing.moderated.

CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated

Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and
profession of writing. It is a newsgroup where all participants are
treated as peers. The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing
as writers, increasing writing income and/or discussing the process
and business of writing.

Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that all forms of writing are
fair game for discussion, but it is exclusive in that all discussion
must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers, or
toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their
writing ambitions. Questions of grammar and style are on-topic, but
should be sought in the FAQ. Of greater interest are topics such as
plotting techniques, character or thematic development, research
methods, industry trends and news, market information, finding and
dealing with an agent, techniques for best marketing one's work,
software tools, manuscript formatting, how to avoid RSI/CTS, and other
such concerns with which writers struggle.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of
seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that
may be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive
commercial announcements are disallowed. For the purposes of this
charter, "repetitive" is defined as more than once per month.

While questions about writing problems are welcome in
misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written
works, or of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden.
Participants are free to quote from their work as part of a larger
discussion. This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of
writing technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not
work, and short segments designed to spark a discussion about the art
or craft of writing. Those looking for critiques are welcome to post
URLs where their work can be found, or to post short, non-repetitive
announcements that work is available for critique.

Messages that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal
attacks -- shall always be considered off-topic.

This charter, or a URL pointing to it, will be posted once each week
to misc.writing.moderated.

Misc.writing.moderated will not accept messages cross-posted to any
groups but misc.answers, news.groups, news.answers, and
news.announce.newgroups.

Moderation

Misc.writing.moderated will be moderated by a Moderation Board, which
shall consist of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators.
The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the
Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at
least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board
have the power to approve posts.

The current moderation procedures and policies are described in a
Moderation Policy, which will be maintained by the Head Moderator. Any
changes to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple
majority vote of the Moderation Board, or by a simple majority vote of
the readership of misc.writing.moderated. The details of the voting
procedures are described in the Moderation Policy.

Moderators are answerable to the readership of misc.writing.moderated,
and can be removed by a majority vote of the readership. The removal
process is detailed in the Moderation Policy.

The Moderation Policy will be posted to the group whenever it changes,
and at least once per month. It will be available at all times at a
URL posted weekly in the group.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated

Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine <kmadeleine@home.com>

Associate Moderators:
Moderator: John V Ashby < J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
Moderator: David M. Harris <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Moderator: Jen Jensen <jensen@peavine.com>
Moderator: Hound of Cullen <pziselberger@iname.com>

Backup Moderators
Moderator: Carol Flynt <carol@cflynt.com>
Moderator: Gerald Clough <clough@texas.net>

END MODERATOR INFO.

PROCEDURE:

This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase
of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup
should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for
a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this
proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For
Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion
warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens.

All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.

This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How
to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these
documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any
questions about the process.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD has been distributed to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups, alt.writing, misc.writing,
news.groups, rec.arts.sf.composition

Proponent: Paul Harwood <paulh@computerbits.com>
Proponent: Anna Banana <annabanana@annabanana.net>
Proponent: Moira D. <moira_d@iname.com>
Proponent: Bob Pastorio <pastorio@rica.net>
Proponent: Sal Towse <towse@null.net>
Mentor: Piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>

From paulh@computerbits.com Thu Mar 16 17:41:04 2000
Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back
From: Paul Harwood <paulh@computerbits.com>
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: 2nd RFD: misc.writing.moderated moderated
Followup-To: news.groups
Message-ID: <953256998.23349@isc.org>
Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org
Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 01:36:41 GMT
Lines: 691
Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11396 news.groups:348323 misc.writing:385642 rec.arts.sf.composition:75203

                     REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                moderated group misc.writing.moderated

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup misc.writing.moderated. This is
not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural
details are below.

CHANGES from previous RFD:

The charter and moderation policy have been expanded to define a
Technical Administrator.

The moderation policy has been expanded to cover the case that the
size of the Moderation Board has dropped to one or zero members, and
details concerning Board removal of a Moderator have been added.

The charter has been revised to include a limitation on sig files.

Winning an appeal of a rejected post has been made easier, and the
requirement that a post from someone on the Watch List not be reviewed
by the watch-listing Moderator has consequently been dropped.

A provision for auto-rejecting articles from extreme abusers has been
added.

Explicit acceptance of crossposted RFD/CFV discussions has been added.

A requirement for an ancillary mailing list for moderation feedback
has been added, and the notion of readership votes has been dropped.

There are several other minor wording changes and punctuation
corrections in both the charter and the moderation policy.

Newsgroup line:
misc.writing.moderated	Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated)

RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated

There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for
discussions of writing: alt.writing, misc.writing,
misc.writing.screenplays, rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and
rec.arts.sf.composition. Of these, rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose
are intended as critique groups, while misc.writing.screenplays and
rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and both misc.writing and
alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter traffic. This
off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the culture,
but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related discussions.
In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group, now getting
upwards of 350 posts per day.

In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any
specific genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art,
craft, business and creative process of writing in a positive
atmosphere, we propose to create misc.writing.moderated.

Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of
misc.writing's traffic would be considered on-charter in
misc.writing.moderated. Similar rough analysis of the traffic in
alt.writing, which has recently averaged about 90 posts per day, shows
that 63% of the traffic there would be considered on-charter in
misc.writing.moderated.

CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated

Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and
profession of writing. It is a newsgroup where all participants are
treated as peers. The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing
as writers, increasing writing income and/or discussing the process
and business of writing.

Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of
writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all
discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as
writers, or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and
their writing ambitions. Questions of grammar and style are
appropriate, but should be sought in the FAQ. Of greater interest are
topics such as plotting techniques, character or thematic development,
research methods, industry trends and news, market information,
finding and dealing with an agent, techniques for best marketing one's
work, software tools, manuscript formatting, how to avoid repetitive
stress injury, and other such concerns with which writers struggle.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of
seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that
may be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive
commercial announcements are disallowed. For the purposes of this
charter, "repetitive" is defined as more than once per month.

While questions about writing problems are appropriate in
misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written
works, or of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden.
Participants are free to quote from their work as part of a larger
discussion within a post. This includes, but is not limited to,
illustrations of writing technique, questions of why certain passages
do or do not work, and short segments designed to spark a discussion
about the art or craft of writing. Those looking for critiques are
welcome to post URLs where their work can be found, or to post short,
non-repetitive announcements that work is available for critique.

Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal
attacks against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what
the context of the article and no matter how small a part of the
article the attack may be. Also unacceptable are articles that consist
solely of "yahoos", birthday greetings, and so on.

Sig files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not
contain personal attacks against other posters. A sig file may contain
non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements.

This charter, or a URL pointing to it, will be posted once each week
to misc.writing.moderated.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts that are not approved by
the legitimate moderators of news.announce.newgroups or news.answers.
Articles crossposted from news.groups as part of a valid RFD/CFV
discussion relevant to misc.writing.moderated are excepted from this
ban.

Moderation

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to
the group pass through a review process before being posted. The
purpose of moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an
atmosphere of mutual respect. To this end, the moderators will strive
to maintain both focus and cordiality.

Certain material will always be unacceptable in
misc.writing.moderated: In particular, encoded binary articles will
always be unacceptable, and personal attacks against other posters
will always be unacceptable.

Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, which shall consist of a
Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators. The number of
Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make
a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at least three
Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board have the
power to approve posts.

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated shall call upon the skills
of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator shall be
charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software
(including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making
the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it,
with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party)
of the group submissions address, and with communicating about
technical problems with moderators and participants. The Technical
Administrator shall have no hand-moderation duties, and shall not be a
voting member of the board. A new Technical Administrator can only be
selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator abandoned the group, by a request to the
Usenet moderators' mailing list.

The current moderation procedures and policies are described in a
Moderation Policy, which will be maintained by the Head Moderator. Any
changes to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple
majority vote of the Moderation Board.

General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about moderators or
the moderation policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing
list mwm-problems@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established when group is
created]. That list is open to all and will be read by at least one
member of the board.

The Moderation Policy will be posted to the group whenever it changes,
and at least once per month. It will be available at all times at a
URL posted weekly in the group.

END CHARTER.

MODERATION POLICY.

For the purpose of distributing the RFD and subsequent CFV, the
moderation policy has been appended to this document in full. It is,
however, not an integral part of the charter (which cannot be formally
changed); it is meant to adjust to the needs of the readership of
misc.writing.moderated -- which is why it is a separate document.
Should the posting software the UVV uses not be able to post this
appendix in full (or at all), the moderation policy can be found at

http://ophelia.computerbits.com/~robby/ModPolicy.html.

END MODERATION POLICY.

MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated

Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine <kmadeleine@home.com>

Associate Moderators:
Moderator: John V Ashby  < J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
Moderator: David M. Harris  <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Moderator: Jen Jensen  <jensen@peavine.com>
Moderator: Hound of Cullen  <pziselberger@iname.com>

Technical Administrator: piranha  <piranha@gooroos.com>

Backup Moderators
Moderator: Carol Flynt  <carol@cflynt.com>
Moderator: Gerald Clough  <clough@texas.net>

END MODERATOR INFO.

PROCEDURE:

This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase
of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup
should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for
a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this
proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For
Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion
warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens.

All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.

This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How
to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these
documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any
questions about the process.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD has been distributed to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups, alt.writing, misc.writing, news.groups,
rec.arts.sf.composition

Proponent: Paul Harwood  <paulh@computerbits.com>
Proponent: Anna Banana  <annabanana@annabanana.net>
Proponent: Moira D.  <moira_d@iname.com>
Proponent: Bob Pastorio  <pastorio@rica.net>
Proponent: Sal Towse  <towse@null.net>
Mentor: piranha  <piranha@gooroos.com>

MODERATION POLICY:

Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated

Introduction

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to
the group pass through a review process before being posted.
Currently, moderation is performed primarily by software, though some
articles are forwarded to human moderators for review.

The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion
in this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week.

1. Structure of the Moderation Board

Misc.writing.moderated shall be moderated by a Moderation Board, which
shall consist of a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators.
The number of Associate Moderators will be set by the Board, but the
Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a membership of at
least three Associate Moderators. Only members of the Moderation Board
have the power to approve posts.

The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of backup
Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator.

The Head Moderator shall maintain this moderation policy.

The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results
in a tie.

1.1 Board Membership

The Board controls its own membership. It shall admit new members with
a simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote. Board members
(excepting the founding Board Members) must come from the active
posters of misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant
moderatorship should be solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters
by the Board via a post tagged [ADMIN]. Backup Moderators will vote as
Associate Moderators on all questions of electing or removing Board
members.

New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur:

  - Retirement of a Moderator;

  - Death of a Moderator;

  - Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive
days without prior announcement;

  - Expansion of the size of the Board;

  - Expulsion of a Moderator.

The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote
if the position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall
appoint a Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short
periods of absence. The Head Moderator must be elected from the
present membership of the Board.

1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator

The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of
misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board. Valid reasons
for calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance,
unfairness, negligence, and lack of impartiality. Such a request
should be made via e-mail directly to the Board at request@xxx.xxx.xxx
[ed.: to be established before CFV is issued].

There shall follow a discussion period not to exceed one full calendar
week. All of this discussion shall be via a Moderators' mailing list,
and shall be privileged. At the end of the discussion period, the Head
Moderator shall call for a vote. Backup Moderators shall vote as
Associate Moderators. A 2/3 vote of the Board is required to remove a
Moderator. If the Board votes to remove the Moderator, its decision
will be posted to the newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal
of {moderator's name}". If the Moderator is not removed, the reader
who called for removal will be informed via e-mail that the call
failed, and each Moderator's vote will be listed.

For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other
Moderator. When the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the
moderator with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the
recall duties of the Head Moderator.

1.3 The Technical Administrator

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated shall call upon the skills
of a Technical Administrator. The Technical Administrator shall be
charged with installing and maintaining the moderation software
(including any ancillary software like procmail recipes), with making
the moderation code publicly available to all who wish to inspect it,
with ownership (either actual or delegated to a trusted third party)
of the group submissions address, and with communicating about
technical problems with moderators and participants. The Technical
Administrator shall have no hand-moderation duties, and shall not be a
voting member of the Board. A new Technical Administrator can only be
selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or by an appeal to
the Usenet moderators' mailing list.

1.4 Pathological Cases

Since most of this moderation policy hinges on there being at least
two Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the
following pathological cases:

a. The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head
Moderator: In this case, the Head Moderator will vote as a regular
Board member. As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation,
ties shall be decided as follows: When voting on a proposed change in
moderation policy, the proposed change will be rejected. When voting
to elect a new moderator, the moderator shall be elected. When voting
to remove a moderator, the moderator shall not be removed.

b. The case where there is only one Moderator: In this case, numerous
segments of this policy become inoperable. The lone Moderator should
ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as
possible while attempting to re-staff the Board.

c. The case where there are no Moderators: In this case, prior to
ending his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator
shall ensure that the following occur:

  (1.) The Watch List shall be emptied.

  (2.) The moderation software shall be set to pass all posts that
would otherwise require hand-moderation.

Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new
moderators.

2. Moderation Process

All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software
which will take one of the following actions on each one:

  - Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current
Grounds for Auto-Rejection);

  - Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria
(See 7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or

  - Post it immediately.

As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the
author's identity shall not be considered when determining if an
article meets the requirements of the group's charter. A Moderator may
place certain individuals or sites that repeatedly try to post
off-charter material on a "Watch List," which will cause their
articles to be forwarded to a human moderator for review (See 10. The
Watch List). A Moderator may also declare certain off-charter
discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in that
thread will be accepted. There is no avenue of appeal for the closure
of a thread.

Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way
should pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue.

Rejected articles will, if possible, be returned to their sender with
a note of explanation. In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical
Administrator may configure the moderation software to automatically
discard all postings from a sender without attempting to return them
(See 6.1 Extreme Abuse).

Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address. The appeals
address will appear in all letters of rejection, and is included here
below in section 11, Rejection and Appeals.

If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software shall
insert an "approved" header, and may append a generic footer.

See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators,
and section 11, Rejection and Appeals.

3. Retromoderation

An article will normally be subject to rejection only at the time it
is submitted. Canceling an article after it has been posted
("retromoderation") will not be used for general content control.
Cancellations will be permitted only under the following special
circumstances:

  - When performed or requested by the original poster or by the
poster's Internet Service Provider;

  - When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to
cancel articles with forged approvals;

  - When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined
by the Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely
considered to be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and
excessively multiposted articles ("spam").

4. New Users / Approved Users

The moderation software shall maintain a list of "approved" e-mail
addresses, articles from which will be posted by the software without
human moderation. When a poster not on the approved list submits an
article, the moderation software will:

  - Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of
misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword.

  - If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article
immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list.

  - If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the
article out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to
add the keyword and repost the article.

  - Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects.

The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to
misc.writing.moderated. It shall not be sold, given away, or used as a
mailing list. It starts empty, and is added to only as above. New
posters shall be advised that their address has been listed. List
entries may be aged out after a term determined by the space available
on the moderating host, to be not less than one year.

The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the
group's FAQ and welcome message. The FAQ is made available as a
frequently posted article, and also via an autoreplier at the
moderating host. The welcome message is also available by autoreplier.

The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board. For 15 days
after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword
are valid. They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be
less than 10 letters long, not use case meaningfully, and be
reasonably easy to spell and remember.

An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be
placed on the Watch List. See Section 10.

5. Statement of Respect

Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers. The moderators will
consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to
treat all posters with unfailing courtesy and respect. Additionally,
as writers, we are bound to respect the words of others. Intolerance,
unfairness, negligence, or lack of impartiality by a moderator toward
a poster shall be grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal
from the Board (see 1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator).

Finally, other than appending a generic footer uniformly to all posts
and inserting an 'approved' header as necessary, the moderators shall
not modify the content of any posted article.

6. Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection

The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of
articles to their senders, without posting them. All returned articles
will have appended a generic footer that contains a pointer to the
group's FAQ:

  - Crossposted articles that are not approved by the legitimate
moderators of news.announce.newgroups or news.answers. Articles
crossposted from news.groups as part of a valid RFD/CFV discussion
relevant to misc.writing.moderated are excepted from this ban.

- Binary articles. (Note that this excepts small cryptographic
signatures such as PGP)

  - Articles with an empty or missing Subject field.

6.1 Extreme Abuse

While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through
moderation issues with individual posters, it is important that the
Moderators have a mechanism to defend the functioning of the
newsgroup. To this end, the Moderators are empowered to configure
software to auto-reject all articles from any poster who is perceived
as attacking the functioning of the group. This is an extreme step,
and shall only be taken under the following exceptional circumstances:

  - When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or
other such attack is occurring. In this case, action shall be taken as
quickly as possible to eliminate the threat to the group.

  - When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without
permission. In this case, action shall be taken as quickly as possible
to eliminate the threat to the group, and improperly canceled posts
shall be resurrected.

  - When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn
unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup. Such a poster
can only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the
Board.

Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse will not be returned to their
sender.

A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote
of the Board after a minimum of three months.

7. Current Grounds for Human Moderation

The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of
articles to human moderators for review. Since most Moderators
actually have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24
hours or more before such articles are either posted or returned to
their senders.

  - Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more
off-charter articles in the past. See section 10 on the "Watch List"
below.

An article approved for posting by a human moderator shall not be
modified, except that the moderation software shall insert an
"approved" header, and may append a generic footer. The human
moderator shall not otherwise modify the text of the article in any
way.

8. Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators

Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to
maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect. When
approving an article, therefore, a moderator must determine how
closely the article adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated.
The criterion that should be applied uniformly to all articles is:
Would a reasonable person agree that this article conforms
substantially to the charter for the newsgroup?

Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a
moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not
to be used to decide the approval status of a post. Each article must
be judged on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought
to bear in the decision.

An article rejected by a human moderator will be returned (subject to
the limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with
an e-mail detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name
of the moderator responsible for rejecting the post.

9. Discarded Articles

There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software
(or a human moderator) can discard an article without returning it to
its sender. Articles should only be discarded when it is clear that
the sender address has been faked; in this case, returns would simply
"bounce" or, worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses
happen to match a faked address.

The following type(s) of articles are currently being discarded
without attempting to return them to their sender:

  - Advertisements that are submitted frequently (several times a day
or more) with faked sender addresses, and which fit a pattern that
establishes them as coming from the same source.

  - Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group
(See 6.1 Extreme Abuse)

10. The Watch List

The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are
automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for
review.

An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles
may be placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify
the rest of the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that
address.

At the discretion of the Moderator who wishes to place the address on
the Watch List, one of the following options may be used for
attempting to notify the poster:

  - The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter
postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be
the normal response.

  - The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the
person notified of this action privately and without delay.

An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of
the Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has
posted appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven
full calendar days, or when no posts from that address have been
received for a period of at least six months.

11. Rejection and Appeals

The moderation software shall try to return any rejected article to
the sender via email, subject to the limitations in section 9.
Discarded Articles. The email shall include the reason for the
rejection, an address where the rejection can be appealed, and a
pointer to the FAQ. The current appeals address is
mwm-request@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established before CFV is issued].

Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses.
A moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to
fix bad addresses and re-send such rejection notices.

Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all
members of the Board. If any member of the Board, including the Head
Moderator, finds that the article conforms substantially to the
charter, then the article will be posted. If there are fewer than
three Associate Moderators, then Backup Moderators will also consider
the appeal.

There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles.

12. Adjunct Venues

All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain
from taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups. Appeals,
complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors
of the moderators or those moderated should be discussed through
channels appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit:

  - Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation
Board at mwm-request@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established before CFV is
issued].

  - General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about moderators
or the moderation policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated
mailing list mwm-problems@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established when
group is created]. That list is open to all and will be read by at
least one member of the board.

13. Changes to This Policy

Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority vote
of the Board. Any proposed changes to this policy shall be discussed
with the readership via the associated mailing list.

14. Moderator Contacts

Send mail related to the moderation of the group to
mwm-request@xxx.xxx.xxx [ed.: to be established before CFV is issued].

The Moderation Board that controls the moderation of
misc.writing.moderated is made up of:

Head Moderator: Kelly Madeleine  <kmadeleine@home.com>

Associate Moderators

John V Ashby  <jva@inf.rl.ac.uk>

David M. Harris  <coldspring@earthlink.net>

Jen Jensen  <jensen@peavine.com>

Hound of Cullen  <pziselberger@iname.com>

Technical Administrator: piranha  <piranha@gooroos.com >

Backup Moderators

Carol Flynt  <carol@cflynt.com>

Gerald Clough  <clough@texas.net>

END MODERATION POLICY

From dave@dogwood.com Sun Apr 30 22:25:33 2000
Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back
From: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>
Reply-To: vote@dogwood.com
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: CFV: misc.writing.moderated moderated
Followup-To: poster
Message-ID: <957158311.20023@isc.org>
Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers
Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org
Expires: 23 May 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated
Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 05:18:32 GMT
Lines: 223
Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11461 news.groups:354527 misc.writing:396971 rec.arts.sf.composition:79548

                     FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
                moderated group misc.writing.moderated

Newsgroups line:
misc.writing.moderated	Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated)

Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 2000.

This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party.  Questions
about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent.

Proponent: Paul Harwood <paulh@computerbits.com>
Proponent: Anna Banana <annabanana@annabanana.net>
Proponent: Moira D. <moira_d@iname.com>
Proponent: Bob Pastorio <pastorio@rica.net>
Proponent: Sal Towse <towse@null.net>
Mentor: piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>
Votetaker: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>

RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated

There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for
discussions of writing:  alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays,
rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition.  Of these,
rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while
misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and
both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter
traffic.  This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the
culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related
discussions.  In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group,
getting upwards of 350 posts per day.

In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific
genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business
and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to
create misc.writing.moderated.

Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's
traffic could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated.  Similar
rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged
about 90 posts per day, showed that 63% of the traffic there could be
considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated.

CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated

Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and
profession of writing.  It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated
as peers.  The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers,
increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of
writing.

Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of
writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all
discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers,
or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing
ambitions.  Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be
sought in the FAQ.  Of greater interest are topics such as plotting
techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry
trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent,
techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript
formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns
with which writers struggle.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of
seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may
be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial
announcements are disallowed.  For the purposes of this charter,
"repetitive" is defined as more than
once per month.

While questions about writing problems are appropriate in
misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or
of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden.  Participants
are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a
post.  This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing
technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short
segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing.
Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be
found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available
for critique.

Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks
against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of
the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be.
Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday
greetings, and so on.

Signature files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not
contain personal attacks against other posters.  A signature file may
contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements.

Binaries with the exception of small cryptographic authentication such as
PGP signatures in non-binary messages are not acceptable.

This charter, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to
misc.writing.moderated.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts, except:  RFDs, CFVs, and
related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of
news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or
misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings crossposted
only between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar
informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers).

Moderation

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the
group pass through a review process before being posted.  The purpose of
moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual
respect.  To this end, the Moderators will strive to maintain both focus and
cordiality.

Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and
several Associate Moderators.  The number of Associate Moderators is set by
the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a
membership of at least three Associate Moderators.  Only members of the
Moderation Board have the power to approve posts.

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a
Technical Administrator.  The Technical Administrator is charged with
installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary
software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly
available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or
delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and
with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and
participants.  The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties,
and is not a voting member of the Board.  A new Technical Administrator can
only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet
Moderators' mailing list.

The current moderation procedures and policies are described in the
Moderation Policy, which is maintained by the Head Moderator.  Any changes
to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote
of the Moderation Board.  The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for
possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from
the readership of the group annually.

General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the
Moderation Policy can be aired on a public, unmoderated mailing list.  That
list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the Board.

The Moderation Policy, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to
misc.writing.moderated.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated

Moderator: "Kelly Madeleine" <kmadeleine@home.com>
Moderator: "John V Ashby" <J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
Moderator: "David M. Harris" <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Moderator: "Jen Jensen" <jensen@peavine.com>
Moderator: "Hound of Cullen" <pziselberger@iname.com>
Administrative contact address: mwm-request@panix.com
Article submission address: mwm@panix.com

END MODERATOR INFO.

HOW TO VOTE:

Follow these instructions *exactly*!  Votes are counted by computer.
You should send E-MAIL (posts to a newsgroup are invalid) to:

    vote@dogwood.com

Please do not assume that just replying to this message will work.
Check the address before you mail your vote.  Your mail message
should contain one and only one of the following vote statements:

    I vote YES on misc.writing.moderated
    I vote NO on misc.writing.moderated

    Voter name:

If your mail software does not indicate your real name (for example,
AOL does not), include _exactly_ the statement above on a _separate_
line and add your name after the colon.  Having your name in your
signature line is NOT enough!  Do NOT join the lines together or
remove the words "Voter name"!

You may also vote ABSTAIN (which records an empty vote) or CANCEL
(which removes any earlier votes).  ABSTAIN does not affect the final
vote count in any way but is listed, whereas CANCEL is not.

IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES:

Standard Guidelines for voting apply.  One vote per person, one
account per voter.  Votes must be mailed directly from the voter to
the votetaker.  Anonymous, forwarded or proxy votes are not valid.
Votes mailed by WWW/HTML/CGI forms are considered to be anonymous
votes.  Votes from non-existent email addresses are not valid.

Vote counting is automated.  Failure to follow these directions may
mean that your vote does not get counted.  If you do not receive an
acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker
about the problem.  It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is
registered correctly.  Duplicate votes are resolved in favor of the
most recent valid vote.  Addresses, names and votes of all voters will
be published in the final voting results post.

The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest of
persons who would read a proposed newsgroup.  Soliciting votes from
disinterested parties defeats this purpose.  Please do not distribute
this CFV.  If you must, direct people to the official CFV as posted to
news.announce.newgroups.  Distributing pre-marked or otherwise edited
copies of this CFV is generally considered to be vote fraud.  When in
doubt, ask the votetaker.

DISTRIBUTION:

Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups:

alt.fiction.original
misc.writing.screenplays
rec.arts.books
rec.arts.mystery
rec.arts.poems

-- 
Voting question & problems: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>
Voting address: vote@dogwood.com

From dave@dogwood.com Tue May  2 14:55:35 2000
Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back
From: dave@dogwood.com (Dave Cornejo)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: CFV ADDITION: misc.writing.moderated moderated
Followup-To: news.groups
Message-ID: <957304298.4435@isc.org>
Organization: Unknown
Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org
Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 21:51:39 GMT
Lines: 462
Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11464 news.groups:354579 misc.writing:397526 rec.arts.sf.composition:79743

The following text mas accidently omitted from the original CFV - it
will be added to the 2nd CFV when it is posted.

[-- begin text --]
Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated

Introduction

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles submitted
to the group pass through a review process before being posted.  Currently,
moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are
forwarded to human moderators for review.

The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in
this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week.

1.  Structure of the Moderation Board

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated by a Moderation Board, which consists of
a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators.  The number of Associate
Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith
effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators.
Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts.

The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of Backup
Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator.

The Head Moderator maintains this Moderation Policy.

The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a
tie.

1.1 Board Membership

The Board controls its own membership.  It shall admit new members with a
simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote.  Board members
(excepting the founding Board members) must come from the active posters of
misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant Moderatorship should be
solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged
[ADMIN].  Backup Moderators vote as Associate Moderators when electing Board
members.

New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur:

- Retirement of a Moderator;

- Death of a Moderator;

- Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days
  without prior announcement;

- Expansion of the size of the Board;

- Expulsion of a Moderator.

The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the
position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a
Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence.
The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board.

1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator

The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of
misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board.  Valid reasons for
calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness,
negligence, and lack of impartiality.  Such a request should be made via
e-mail directly to the Board at mwm-request@panix.com.

On receipt of such a request an article will be posted to the newsgroup
titled "[ADMIN] Call for Removal of <Moderator's name>" announcing the start
of a discussion period not less than 15 days.  This discussion shall be
public and take place only on the associated public mailing list
<mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.  Discussion on the newsgroup itself will be
grounds for a poster being placed on the watchlist.  During this discussion
all active Moderators should monitor the mailing list.

At the end of the public discussion phase the Moderators shall consider the
views of the readership via the Moderators' mailing list.  At the end of
this consideration period, not less than seven days or more than fourteen
days, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote.  A 2/3 vote of the Board is
required to remove a Moderator.  The Board's decision shall be posted to the
newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal Vote Result of {Moderator's
name}" stating whether the call for removal has been successful or not.
Each Moderator's vote shall be listed.  The reader who called for removal
shall also be informed via e-mail of the result.

For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other
Moderator.  If the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the Moderator
with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties
of the Head Moderator.

Only one Moderator may be subject to recall at any one time.

The Board reserves the right to summarily dismiss frivolous recalls, to
forestall disruption of the group's functioning by malicious trolls issuing
one call for removal after another.

1.3 The Technical Administrator

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a
Technical Administrator.  The Technical Administrator is  charged with
installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary
software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly
available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or
delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and
with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and
participants.  The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties,
and is not a voting member of the Board.  A new Technical Administrator can
only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet
Moderators' mailing list at <moderators@isc.org>.

1.4 Pathological Cases

Since most of this Moderation Policy hinges on there being at least two
Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following
pathological cases:

a.  The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head
Moderator:  In this case, the Head Moderator votes as a regular Board
member.  As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be
decided as follows:  When voting on a proposed change in Moderation Policy,
the proposed change will be rejected.  When voting to elect a new Moderator,
the Moderator will be elected.  When voting to remove a Moderator, the
Moderator will not be removed.

b.  The case where there is only one Moderator:  In this case, numerous
segments of this Moderation Policy become inoperable.  The lone Moderator
should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as
possible while attempting to re-staff the Board.

c.  The case where there are no Moderators:  In this case, prior to leaving
his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator should ensure that
the following occur:

(1.) The Watch List should be emptied.

(2.) The moderation software should be set to pass all posts that would
     otherwise require hand-moderation.

If the final outgoing Moderator fails in those tasks, the Technical
Administrator should see to them.

Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new
Moderators, possibly with the help of the Technical Administrator.

2.  Moderation Process

All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which
takes one of the following actions on each article, in order of technical
precedence:

- Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds
  for Auto-Rejection);

- Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (see 7.
  Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or

- Post it immediately.

As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's
identity should not be considered when determining if an article meets the
requirements of the group's charter.  A Moderator may place certain
individuals or sites that repeatedly post off-charter material on a "Watch
List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human Moderator
for review (see 10.  The Watch List).  A Moderator may also declare certain
off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in
that thread are to be posted.  There is no avenue of appeal for the closure
of a thread.

Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should
pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue.

An article approved for posting by a human Moderator may not be modified,
except that an "approved" header must be inserted, and a generic header or
footer may be appended.

Rejected articles are, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note
of explanation.  In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may
configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from
a sender without attempting to return them (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse).

Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address.  The appeals
address <mwm-request@panix.com> appears in all rejection notices.

If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software must insert an
"approved" header, and may append a generic footer.

See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and
section 11, Rejection and Appeals.

3.  Retromoderation

An article is normally subject to rejection only when it is submitted.
Canceling an article after it has been posted ("retromoderation") will not
be used for general content control.  Cancellations are permitted only
under the following special circumstances:

- When performed or requested by the original poster or by the poster's
  Internet Service Provider;

- When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel
  articles with forged approvals;

- When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the
  Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to
  be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted
  articles ("spam").

4.  New Users / Approved Users

The moderation software maintains a list of "approved" e-mail addresses,
articles from which are posted by the software without human moderation.
When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation
software will:

- Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of
  misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword.

- If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article
  immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list.

- If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article
  out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the
  keyword and repost the article.

- Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects.

The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to
misc.writing.moderated.  It must not be sold, given away, or used as a
mailing list.  It starts empty, and is added to only as above.  New posters
are advised that their address has been added.  List entries may be
aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating
host, to be not less than one year.  Posters may request removal of their
address from the "approved" list if they no longer wish to post to the
group, or have changed accounts.  While posting with "munged" addresses is
not encouraged, posters using such addresses can have themselves added to
the "approved" list by following the instructions in the FAQ (since the
moderation software will not be able to send any instructions to a munged
address, onus is on the poster to seek
out the instructions pre-posting).

The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ
and welcome message.  The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted
article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host.  The welcome
message is also available by
autoreplier.

The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board.  For 15 days
after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are
valid.  They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10
letters long, not use case meaningfully, be reasonably easy to spell and
remember, and not be very likely to occur normally in the subject of a post.

An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed
on the Watch List.  See Section 10.

5.  Statement of Respect

Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers.  The Moderators will
consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all
posters with unfailing courtesy and respect.  Additionally, as writers, we
should be bound to respect the words of others.  Intolerance, unfairness,
negligence, or lack of impartiality by a Moderator toward a poster are
grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2
Expulsion of a Moderator).

6.  Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection

The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of
articles to their senders, without posting them.  All returned articles must
have generic text appended or prepended containing a pointer to the group's
FAQ, and the appeals process:

- Crossposted articles, except:  RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative
  postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with
  followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in
  response to such postings if only crossposted between news.groups and
  misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as
  approved by the moderators of news.answers).

- Binaries.  (Note that this excepts cryptographic authentication such as
  PGP.)

- Articles with an empty or missing Subject header.

- Articles submitted via email with a missing Newsgroups header.

6.1 Extreme Abuse

While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation
issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a
mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup.  To this end, the
Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles
from any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group.
This is an extreme step, and should only be taken under the following
exceptional circumstances:

- When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such
  attack is occurring.  In this case, action should be taken as quickly as
  possible to eliminate the threat to the group.

- When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission.  In
  this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the
  threat to the group, and improperly cancelled posts will be reposted.

- When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn
  unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup.  Such a poster can
  only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board.

Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse are returned to their sender.

A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the
Board after a minimum of three months.

7.  Current Grounds for Human Moderation

The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of
articles to human Moderators for review.  Since most Moderators actually
have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more
before such articles are either posted
or returned to their senders.

- Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter
  articles in the past (see 10.  The Watch List).

8.  Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators

Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain
focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect.  When approving an
article, therefore, a Moderator must determine how closely the article
adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated.  The criterion that should
be applied uniformly to all articles is:  Would a reasonable person agree
that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup?

Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a
Moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be
used to decide the approval status of a post.  Each article must be judged
on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the
decision.

An article rejected by a human Moderator is returned (subject to the
limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with a footer or
header detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the
Moderator responsible for rejecting the post.

9.  Discarded Articles

There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a
human Moderator) may discard an article without returning it to its sender.

The following types of articles may currently be discarded without
attempting to return them to their sender:

- Articles with faked addresses (for which returns would simply "bounce", or
  worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a
  faked address), in cases where there are several rejections per day and in
  which there is a pattern that establishes a single real source for the
  rejected articles.

- Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (see 6.1
  Extreme Abuse).

10.  The Watch List

The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are
automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review.

An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be
placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of
the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address.

At the discretion of the Moderator who decides to place an address on the
Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to
notify the poster:

- The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter
  postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the
  normal response.

- The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person
  notified of this action privately and without delay.

An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the
Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted
appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar
days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of
at least six months.

11.  Rejection and Appeals

The moderation software tries to return any rejected article to the sender
via email, subject to the limitations in section 9.  Discarded Articles.
The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the
rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ.  The current appeals
address is: <mwm-request@panix.com>.

Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses.  A
Moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad
addresses and re-send such rejection notices.

Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of
the Board.  If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds
that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article
will be posted.  If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then
Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal.

There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles.

12.  Adjunct Venues

All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from
taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups.  Appeals,
complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of
the Moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels
appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit:

- Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at
  <mwm-request@panix.com>.

- General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the
  Moderation Policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list
  <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.  That list is open to all and is read by at
  least one member of the Board at all times.

13.  Changes to This Policy

The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for
changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group
annually.  Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority
vote of the Board.  Any proposed changes should be discussed via the
associated mailing list <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.

14.  Moderator Contacts

Send mail related to the moderation of the group to <mwm-request@panix.com>.

The Moderation Board in charge of moderation for misc.writing.moderated is
made up of:

Head Moderator:
Kelly Madeleine <kmadeleine@home.com>

Associate Moderators:

John V Ashby <J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
David M. Harris <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Jen Jensen <jensen@peavine.com>
Hound of Cullen <pziselberger@iname.com>

Backup Moderators:
Carol Flynt <carol@cflynt.com>
Gerald Clough <clough@texas.net>

Technical Administrator:
piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>

[-- end text --]

-- 
Dave Cornejo - Dogwood Media, Fremont, California

From dave@dogwood.com Thu May 11 12:55:34 2000
Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back
From: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>
Reply-To: vote@dogwood.com
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: 2nd CFV: misc.writing.moderated moderated
Followup-To: poster
Message-ID: <958074594.1543@isc.org>
References: <957158311.20023@isc.org>
Supersedes: <957158311.20023@isc.org>
Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers
Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org
Expires: 23 May 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 19:49:54 GMT
Lines: 682
Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11477 news.groups:354816 misc.writing:399691 rec.arts.sf.composition:80596

                      LAST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
                moderated group misc.writing.moderated

Newsgroups line:
misc.writing.moderated	Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated)

Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 2000.

This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party.  Questions
about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent.

Proponent: Paul Harwood <paulh@computerbits.com>
Proponent: Anna Banana <annabanana@annabanana.net>
Proponent: Moira D. <moira_d@iname.com>
Proponent: Bob Pastorio <pastorio@rica.net>
Proponent: Sal Towse <towse@null.net>
Mentor: piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>
Votetaker: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>

RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated

There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for
discussions of writing:  alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays,
rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition.  Of these,
rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while
misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and
both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter
traffic.  This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the
culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related
discussions.  In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group,
getting upwards of 350 posts per day.

In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific
genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business
and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to
create misc.writing.moderated.

Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's
traffic could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated.  Similar
rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged
about 90 posts per day, showed that 63% of the traffic there could be
considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated.

CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated

Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and
profession of writing.  It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated
as peers.  The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers,
increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of
writing.

Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of
writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all
discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers,
or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing
ambitions.  Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be
sought in the FAQ.  Of greater interest are topics such as plotting
techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry
trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent,
techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript
formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns
with which writers struggle.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of
seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may
be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial
announcements are disallowed.  For the purposes of this charter,
"repetitive" is defined as more than
once per month.

While questions about writing problems are appropriate in
misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or
of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden.  Participants
are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a
post.  This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing
technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short
segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing.
Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be
found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available
for critique.

Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks
against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of
the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be.
Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday
greetings, and so on.

Signature files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not
contain personal attacks against other posters.  A signature file may
contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements.

Binaries with the exception of small cryptographic authentication such as
PGP signatures in non-binary messages are not acceptable.

This charter, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to
misc.writing.moderated.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts, except:  RFDs, CFVs, and
related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of
news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or
misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings crossposted
only between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar
informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers).

Moderation

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the
group pass through a review process before being posted.  The purpose of
moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual
respect.  To this end, the Moderators will strive to maintain both focus and
cordiality.

Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and
several Associate Moderators.  The number of Associate Moderators is set by
the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a
membership of at least three Associate Moderators.  Only members of the
Moderation Board have the power to approve posts.

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a
Technical Administrator.  The Technical Administrator is charged with
installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary
software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly
available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or
delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and
with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and
participants.  The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties,
and is not a voting member of the Board.  A new Technical Administrator can
only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet
Moderators' mailing list.

The current moderation procedures and policies are described in the
Moderation Policy, which is maintained by the Head Moderator.  Any changes
to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote
of the Moderation Board.  The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for
possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from
the readership of the group annually.

General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the
Moderation Policy can be aired on a public, unmoderated mailing list.  That
list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the Board.

The Moderation Policy, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to
misc.writing.moderated.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated

Moderator: "Kelly Madeleine" <kmadeleine@home.com>
Moderator: "John V Ashby" <J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
Moderator: "David M. Harris" <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Moderator: "Jen Jensen" <jensen@peavine.com>
Moderator: "Hound of Cullen" <pziselberger@iname.com>
Administrative contact address: mwm-request@panix.com
Article submission address: mwm@panix.com

END MODERATOR INFO.

MODERATION POLICY:

Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated

Introduction

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles submitted
to the group pass through a review process before being posted.  Currently,
moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are
forwarded to human moderators for review.

The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in
this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week.

1.  Structure of the Moderation Board

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated by a Moderation Board, which consists of
a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators.  The number of Associate
Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith
effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators.
Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts.

The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of Backup
Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator.

The Head Moderator maintains this Moderation Policy.

The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a
tie.

1.1 Board Membership

The Board controls its own membership.  It shall admit new members with a
simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote.  Board members
(excepting the founding Board members) must come from the active posters of
misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant Moderatorship should be
solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged
[ADMIN].  Backup Moderators vote as Associate Moderators when electing Board
members.

New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur:

- Retirement of a Moderator;

- Death of a Moderator;

- Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days
  without prior announcement;

- Expansion of the size of the Board;

- Expulsion of a Moderator.

The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the
position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a
Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence.
The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board.

1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator

The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of
misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board.  Valid reasons for
calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness,
negligence, and lack of impartiality.  Such a request should be made via
e-mail directly to the Board at mwm-request@panix.com.

On receipt of such a request an article will be posted to the newsgroup
titled "[ADMIN] Call for Removal of <Moderator's name>" announcing the start
of a discussion period not less than 15 days.  This discussion shall be
public and take place only on the associated public mailing list
<mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.  Discussion on the newsgroup itself will be
grounds for a poster being placed on the watchlist.  During this discussion
all active Moderators should monitor the mailing list.

At the end of the public discussion phase the Moderators shall consider the
views of the readership via the Moderators' mailing list.  At the end of
this consideration period, not less than seven days or more than fourteen
days, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote.  A 2/3 vote of the Board is
required to remove a Moderator.  The Board's decision shall be posted to the
newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal Vote Result of {Moderator's
name}" stating whether the call for removal has been successful or not.
Each Moderator's vote shall be listed.  The reader who called for removal
shall also be informed via e-mail of the result.

For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other
Moderator.  If the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the Moderator
with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties
of the Head Moderator.

Only one Moderator may be subject to recall at any one time.

The Board reserves the right to summarily dismiss frivolous recalls, to
forestall disruption of the group's functioning by malicious trolls issuing
one call for removal after another.

1.3 The Technical Administrator

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a
Technical Administrator.  The Technical Administrator is  charged with
installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary
software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly
available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or
delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and
with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and
participants.  The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties,
and is not a voting member of the Board.  A new Technical Administrator can
only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet
Moderators' mailing list at <moderators@isc.org>.

1.4 Pathological Cases

Since most of this Moderation Policy hinges on there being at least two
Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following
pathological cases:

a.  The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head
Moderator:  In this case, the Head Moderator votes as a regular Board
member.  As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be
decided as follows:  When voting on a proposed change in Moderation Policy,
the proposed change will be rejected.  When voting to elect a new Moderator,
the Moderator will be elected.  When voting to remove a Moderator, the
Moderator will not be removed.

b.  The case where there is only one Moderator:  In this case, numerous
segments of this Moderation Policy become inoperable.  The lone Moderator
should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as
possible while attempting to re-staff the Board.

c.  The case where there are no Moderators:  In this case, prior to leaving
his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator should ensure that
the following occur:

(1.) The Watch List should be emptied.

(2.) The moderation software should be set to pass all posts that would
     otherwise require hand-moderation.

If the final outgoing Moderator fails in those tasks, the Technical
Administrator should see to them.

Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new
Moderators, possibly with the help of the Technical Administrator.

2.  Moderation Process

All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which
takes one of the following actions on each article, in order of technical
precedence:

- Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds
  for Auto-Rejection);

- Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (see 7.
  Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or

- Post it immediately.

As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's
identity should not be considered when determining if an article meets the
requirements of the group's charter.  A Moderator may place certain
individuals or sites that repeatedly post off-charter material on a "Watch
List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human Moderator
for review (see 10.  The Watch List).  A Moderator may also declare certain
off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in
that thread are to be posted.  There is no avenue of appeal for the closure
of a thread.

Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should
pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue.

An article approved for posting by a human Moderator may not be modified,
except that an "approved" header must be inserted, and a generic header or
footer may be appended.

Rejected articles are, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note
of explanation.  In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may
configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from
a sender without attempting to return them (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse).

Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address.  The appeals
address <mwm-request@panix.com> appears in all rejection notices.

If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software must insert an
"approved" header, and may append a generic footer.

See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and
section 11, Rejection and Appeals.

3.  Retromoderation

An article is normally subject to rejection only when it is submitted.
Canceling an article after it has been posted ("retromoderation") will not
be used for general content control.  Cancellations are permitted only
under the following special circumstances:

- When performed or requested by the original poster or by the poster's
  Internet Service Provider;

- When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel
  articles with forged approvals;

- When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the
  Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to
  be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted
  articles ("spam").

4.  New Users / Approved Users

The moderation software maintains a list of "approved" e-mail addresses,
articles from which are posted by the software without human moderation.
When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation
software will:

- Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of
  misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword.

- If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article
  immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list.

- If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article
  out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the
  keyword and repost the article.

- Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects.

The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to
misc.writing.moderated.  It must not be sold, given away, or used as a
mailing list.  It starts empty, and is added to only as above.  New posters
are advised that their address has been added.  List entries may be
aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating
host, to be not less than one year.  Posters may request removal of their
address from the "approved" list if they no longer wish to post to the
group, or have changed accounts.  While posting with "munged" addresses is
not encouraged, posters using such addresses can have themselves added to
the "approved" list by following the instructions in the FAQ (since the
moderation software will not be able to send any instructions to a munged
address, onus is on the poster to seek
out the instructions pre-posting).

The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ
and welcome message.  The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted
article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host.  The welcome
message is also available by
autoreplier.

The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board.  For 15 days
after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are
valid.  They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10
letters long, not use case meaningfully, be reasonably easy to spell and
remember, and not be very likely to occur normally in the subject of a post.

An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed
on the Watch List.  See Section 10.

5.  Statement of Respect

Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers.  The Moderators will
consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all
posters with unfailing courtesy and respect.  Additionally, as writers, we
should be bound to respect the words of others.  Intolerance, unfairness,
negligence, or lack of impartiality by a Moderator toward a poster are
grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2
Expulsion of a Moderator).

6.  Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection

The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of
articles to their senders, without posting them.  All returned articles must
have generic text appended or prepended containing a pointer to the group's
FAQ, and the appeals process:

- Crossposted articles, except:  RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative
  postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with
  followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in
  response to such postings if only crossposted between news.groups and
  misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as
  approved by the moderators of news.answers).

- Binaries.  (Note that this excepts cryptographic authentication such as
  PGP.)

- Articles with an empty or missing Subject header.

- Articles submitted via email with a missing Newsgroups header.

6.1 Extreme Abuse

While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation
issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a
mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup.  To this end, the
Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles
from any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group.
This is an extreme step, and should only be taken under the following
exceptional circumstances:

- When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such
  attack is occurring.  In this case, action should be taken as quickly as
  possible to eliminate the threat to the group.

- When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission.  In
  this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the
  threat to the group, and improperly cancelled posts will be reposted.

- When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn
  unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup.  Such a poster can
  only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board.

Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse are returned to their sender.

A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the
Board after a minimum of three months.

7.  Current Grounds for Human Moderation

The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of
articles to human Moderators for review.  Since most Moderators actually
have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more
before such articles are either posted
or returned to their senders.

- Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter
  articles in the past (see 10.  The Watch List).

8.  Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators

Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain
focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect.  When approving an
article, therefore, a Moderator must determine how closely the article
adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated.  The criterion that should
be applied uniformly to all articles is:  Would a reasonable person agree
that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup?

Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a
Moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be
used to decide the approval status of a post.  Each article must be judged
on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the
decision.

An article rejected by a human Moderator is returned (subject to the
limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with a footer or
header detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the
Moderator responsible for rejecting the post.

9.  Discarded Articles

There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a
human Moderator) may discard an article without returning it to its sender.

The following types of articles may currently be discarded without
attempting to return them to their sender:

- Articles with faked addresses (for which returns would simply "bounce", or
  worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a
  faked address), in cases where there are several rejections per day and in
  which there is a pattern that establishes a single real source for the
  rejected articles.

- Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (see 6.1
  Extreme Abuse).

10.  The Watch List

The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are
automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review.

An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be
placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of
the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address.

At the discretion of the Moderator who decides to place an address on the
Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to
notify the poster:

- The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter
  postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the
  normal response.

- The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person
  notified of this action privately and without delay.

An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the
Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted
appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar
days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of
at least six months.

11.  Rejection and Appeals

The moderation software tries to return any rejected article to the sender
via email, subject to the limitations in section 9.  Discarded Articles.
The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the
rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ.  The current appeals
address is: <mwm-request@panix.com>.

Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses.  A
Moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad
addresses and re-send such rejection notices.

Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of
the Board.  If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds
that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article
will be posted.  If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then
Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal.

There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles.

12.  Adjunct Venues

All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from
taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups.  Appeals,
complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of
the Moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels
appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit:

- Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at
  <mwm-request@panix.com>.

- General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the
  Moderation Policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list
  <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.  That list is open to all and is read by at
  least one member of the Board at all times.

13.  Changes to This Policy

The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for
changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group
annually.  Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority
vote of the Board.  Any proposed changes should be discussed via the
associated mailing list <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.

14.  Moderator Contacts

Send mail related to the moderation of the group to <mwm-request@panix.com>.

The Moderation Board in charge of moderation for misc.writing.moderated is
made up of:

Head Moderator:
Kelly Madeleine <kmadeleine@home.com>

Associate Moderators:

John V Ashby <J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
David M. Harris <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Jen Jensen <jensen@peavine.com>
Hound of Cullen <pziselberger@iname.com>

Backup Moderators:
Carol Flynt <carol@cflynt.com>
Gerald Clough <clough@texas.net>

Technical Administrator:
piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>

END MODERATION POLICY.


HOW TO VOTE:

Follow these instructions *exactly*!  Votes are counted by computer.
You should send E-MAIL (posts to a newsgroup are invalid) to:

    vote@dogwood.com

Please do not assume that just replying to this message will work.
Check the address before you mail your vote.  Your mail message
should contain one and only one of the following vote statements:

    I vote YES on misc.writing.moderated
    I vote NO on misc.writing.moderated

    Voter name:

If your mail software does not indicate your real name (for example,
AOL does not), include _exactly_ the statement above on a _separate_
line and add your name after the colon.  Having your name in your
signature line is NOT enough!  Do NOT join the lines together or
remove the words "Voter name"!

You may also vote ABSTAIN (which records an empty vote) or CANCEL
(which removes any earlier votes).  ABSTAIN does not affect the final
vote count in any way but is listed, whereas CANCEL is not.

IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES:

Standard Guidelines for voting apply.  One vote per person, one
account per voter.  Votes must be mailed directly from the voter to
the votetaker.  Anonymous, forwarded or proxy votes are not valid.
Votes mailed by WWW/HTML/CGI forms are considered to be anonymous
votes.  Votes from non-existent email addresses are not valid.

Vote counting is automated.  Failure to follow these directions may
mean that your vote does not get counted.  If you do not receive an
acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker
about the problem.  It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is
registered correctly.  Duplicate votes are resolved in favor of the
most recent valid vote.  Addresses, names and votes of all voters will
be published in the final voting results post.

The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest of
persons who would read a proposed newsgroup.  Soliciting votes from
disinterested parties defeats this purpose.  Please do not distribute
this CFV.  If you must, direct people to the official CFV as posted to
news.announce.newgroups.  Distributing pre-marked or otherwise edited
copies of this CFV is generally considered to be vote fraud.  When in
doubt, ask the votetaker.

DISTRIBUTION:

Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups:

alt.fiction.original
misc.writing.screenplays
rec.arts.books
rec.arts.mystery
rec.arts.poems

-- 
Voting question & problems: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>
Voting address: vote@dogwood.com

From dave@dogwood.com Mon May 29 12:40:24 2000
Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back
From: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: RESULT: misc.writing.moderated moderated passes 155:45
Followup-To: news.groups
Message-ID: <959629242.15903@isc.org>
References: <957158311.20023@isc.org> <958074594.1543@isc.org>
Supersedes: <958074594.1543@isc.org>
Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers
Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org
Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 19:40:43 GMT
Lines: 877
Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11481 news.groups:355052 misc.writing:404583 rec.arts.sf.composition:82378

                                RESULT
         moderated group misc.writing.moderated passes 155:45

There were 155 YES votes and 45 NO votes, for a total of 200 valid
votes.  There were 11 abstentions.

For a group to pass, YES votes must be at least 2/3 of all valid
(YES and NO) votes.  There must also be at least 100 more YES votes
than NO votes.

A five day discussion period follows this announcement.  If no
serious allegations of voting irregularities are raised, the
moderator of news.announce.newgroups will create the group shortly
thereafter.

Newsgroups line:
misc.writing.moderated	Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated)

Voting closed at 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 2000.

This vote was conducted by a neutral third party.  Questions
about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent.

Proponent: Paul Harwood <paulh@computerbits.com>
Proponent: Anna Banana <annabanana@annabanana.net>
Proponent: Moira D. <moira_d@iname.com>
Proponent: Bob Pastorio <pastorio@rica.net>
Proponent: Sal Towse <towse@null.net>
Mentor: piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>
Votetaker: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>

RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated

There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for
discussions of writing:  alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays,
rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition.  Of these,
rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while
misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and
both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter
traffic.  This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the
culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related
discussions.  In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group,
getting upwards of 350 posts per day.

In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific
genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business
and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to
create misc.writing.moderated.

Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's
traffic could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated.  Similar
rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged
about 90 posts per day, showed that 63% of the traffic there could be
considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated.

CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated

Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and
profession of writing.  It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated
as peers.  The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers,
increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of
writing.

Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of
writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all
discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers,
or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing
ambitions.  Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be
sought in the FAQ.  Of greater interest are topics such as plotting
techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry
trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent,
techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript
formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns
with which writers struggle.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of
seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may
be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial
announcements are disallowed.  For the purposes of this charter,
"repetitive" is defined as more than
once per month.

While questions about writing problems are appropriate in
misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or
of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden.  Participants
are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a
post.  This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing
technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short
segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing.
Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be
found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available
for critique.

Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks
against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of
the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be.
Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday
greetings, and so on.

Signature files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not
contain personal attacks against other posters.  A signature file may
contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements.

Binaries with the exception of small cryptographic authentication such as
PGP signatures in non-binary messages are not acceptable.

This charter, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to
misc.writing.moderated.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts, except:  RFDs, CFVs, and
related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of
news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or
misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings crossposted
only between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar
informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers).

Moderation

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the
group pass through a review process before being posted.  The purpose of
moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual
respect.  To this end, the Moderators will strive to maintain both focus and
cordiality.

Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and
several Associate Moderators.  The number of Associate Moderators is set by
the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a
membership of at least three Associate Moderators.  Only members of the
Moderation Board have the power to approve posts.

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a
Technical Administrator.  The Technical Administrator is charged with
installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary
software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly
available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or
delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and
with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and
participants.  The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties,
and is not a voting member of the Board.  A new Technical Administrator can
only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet
Moderators' mailing list.

The current moderation procedures and policies are described in the
Moderation Policy, which is maintained by the Head Moderator.  Any changes
to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote
of the Moderation Board.  The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for
possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from
the readership of the group annually.

General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the
Moderation Policy can be aired on a public, unmoderated mailing list.  That
list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the Board.

The Moderation Policy, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to
misc.writing.moderated.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated

Moderator: "Kelly Madeleine" <kmadeleine@home.com>
Moderator: "John V Ashby" <J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
Moderator: "David M. Harris" <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Moderator: "Jen Jensen" <jensen@peavine.com>
Moderator: "Hound of Cullen" <pziselberger@iname.com>
Administrative contact address: mwm-request@panix.com
Article submission address: mwm@panix.com

END MODERATOR INFO.

MODERATION POLICY:

Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated

Introduction

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles submitted
to the group pass through a review process before being posted.  Currently,
moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are
forwarded to human moderators for review.

The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in
this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week.

1.  Structure of the Moderation Board

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated by a Moderation Board, which consists of
a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators.  The number of Associate
Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith
effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators.
Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts.

The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of Backup
Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator.

The Head Moderator maintains this Moderation Policy.

The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a
tie.

1.1 Board Membership

The Board controls its own membership.  It shall admit new members with a
simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote.  Board members
(excepting the founding Board members) must come from the active posters of
misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant Moderatorship should be
solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged
[ADMIN].  Backup Moderators vote as Associate Moderators when electing Board
members.

New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur:

- Retirement of a Moderator;

- Death of a Moderator;

- Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days
  without prior announcement;

- Expansion of the size of the Board;

- Expulsion of a Moderator.

The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the
position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a
Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence.
The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board.

1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator

The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of
misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board.  Valid reasons for
calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness,
negligence, and lack of impartiality.  Such a request should be made via
e-mail directly to the Board at mwm-request@panix.com.

On receipt of such a request an article will be posted to the newsgroup
titled "[ADMIN] Call for Removal of <Moderator's name>" announcing the start
of a discussion period not less than 15 days.  This discussion shall be
public and take place only on the associated public mailing list
<mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.  Discussion on the newsgroup itself will be
grounds for a poster being placed on the watchlist.  During this discussion
all active Moderators should monitor the mailing list.

At the end of the public discussion phase the Moderators shall consider the
views of the readership via the Moderators' mailing list.  At the end of
this consideration period, not less than seven days or more than fourteen
days, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote.  A 2/3 vote of the Board is
required to remove a Moderator.  The Board's decision shall be posted to the
newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal Vote Result of {Moderator's
name}" stating whether the call for removal has been successful or not.
Each Moderator's vote shall be listed.  The reader who called for removal
shall also be informed via e-mail of the result.

For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other
Moderator.  If the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the Moderator
with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties
of the Head Moderator.

Only one Moderator may be subject to recall at any one time.

The Board reserves the right to summarily dismiss frivolous recalls, to
forestall disruption of the group's functioning by malicious trolls issuing
one call for removal after another.

1.3 The Technical Administrator

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a
Technical Administrator.  The Technical Administrator is  charged with
installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary
software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly
available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or
delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and
with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and
participants.  The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties,
and is not a voting member of the Board.  A new Technical Administrator can
only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet
Moderators' mailing list at <moderators@isc.org>.

1.4 Pathological Cases

Since most of this Moderation Policy hinges on there being at least two
Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following
pathological cases:

a.  The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head
Moderator:  In this case, the Head Moderator votes as a regular Board
member.  As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be
decided as follows:  When voting on a proposed change in Moderation Policy,
the proposed change will be rejected.  When voting to elect a new Moderator,
the Moderator will be elected.  When voting to remove a Moderator, the
Moderator will not be removed.

b.  The case where there is only one Moderator:  In this case, numerous
segments of this Moderation Policy become inoperable.  The lone Moderator
should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as
possible while attempting to re-staff the Board.

c.  The case where there are no Moderators:  In this case, prior to leaving
his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator should ensure that
the following occur:

(1.) The Watch List should be emptied.

(2.) The moderation software should be set to pass all posts that would
     otherwise require hand-moderation.

If the final outgoing Moderator fails in those tasks, the Technical
Administrator should see to them.

Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new
Moderators, possibly with the help of the Technical Administrator.

2.  Moderation Process

All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which
takes one of the following actions on each article, in order of technical
precedence:

- Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds
  for Auto-Rejection);

- Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (see 7.
  Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or

- Post it immediately.

As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's
identity should not be considered when determining if an article meets the
requirements of the group's charter.  A Moderator may place certain
individuals or sites that repeatedly post off-charter material on a "Watch
List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human Moderator
for review (see 10.  The Watch List).  A Moderator may also declare certain
off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in
that thread are to be posted.  There is no avenue of appeal for the closure
of a thread.

Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should
pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue.

An article approved for posting by a human Moderator may not be modified,
except that an "approved" header must be inserted, and a generic header or
footer may be appended.

Rejected articles are, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note
of explanation.  In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may
configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from
a sender without attempting to return them (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse).

Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address.  The appeals
address <mwm-request@panix.com> appears in all rejection notices.

If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software must insert an
"approved" header, and may append a generic footer.

See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and
section 11, Rejection and Appeals.

3.  Retromoderation

An article is normally subject to rejection only when it is submitted.
Canceling an article after it has been posted ("retromoderation") will not
be used for general content control.  Cancellations are permitted only
under the following special circumstances:

- When performed or requested by the original poster or by the poster's
  Internet Service Provider;

- When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel
  articles with forged approvals;

- When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the
  Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to
  be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted
  articles ("spam").

4.  New Users / Approved Users

The moderation software maintains a list of "approved" e-mail addresses,
articles from which are posted by the software without human moderation.
When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation
software will:

- Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of
  misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword.

- If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article
  immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list.

- If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article
  out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the
  keyword and repost the article.

- Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects.

The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to
misc.writing.moderated.  It must not be sold, given away, or used as a
mailing list.  It starts empty, and is added to only as above.  New posters
are advised that their address has been added.  List entries may be
aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating
host, to be not less than one year.  Posters may request removal of their
address from the "approved" list if they no longer wish to post to the
group, or have changed accounts.  While posting with "munged" addresses is
not encouraged, posters using such addresses can have themselves added to
the "approved" list by following the instructions in the FAQ (since the
moderation software will not be able to send any instructions to a munged
address, onus is on the poster to seek
out the instructions pre-posting).

The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ
and welcome message.  The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted
article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host.  The welcome
message is also available by
autoreplier.

The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board.  For 15 days
after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are
valid.  They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10
letters long, not use case meaningfully, be reasonably easy to spell and
remember, and not be very likely to occur normally in the subject of a post.

An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed
on the Watch List.  See Section 10.

5.  Statement of Respect

Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers.  The Moderators will
consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all
posters with unfailing courtesy and respect.  Additionally, as writers, we
should be bound to respect the words of others.  Intolerance, unfairness,
negligence, or lack of impartiality by a Moderator toward a poster are
grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2
Expulsion of a Moderator).

6.  Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection

The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of
articles to their senders, without posting them.  All returned articles must
have generic text appended or prepended containing a pointer to the group's
FAQ, and the appeals process:

- Crossposted articles, except:  RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative
  postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with
  followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in
  response to such postings if only crossposted between news.groups and
  misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as
  approved by the moderators of news.answers).

- Binaries.  (Note that this excepts cryptographic authentication such as
  PGP.)

- Articles with an empty or missing Subject header.

- Articles submitted via email with a missing Newsgroups header.

6.1 Extreme Abuse

While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation
issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a
mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup.  To this end, the
Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles
>from  any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group.
This is an extreme step, and should only be taken under the following
exceptional circumstances:

- When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such
  attack is occurring.  In this case, action should be taken as quickly as
  possible to eliminate the threat to the group.

- When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission.  In
  this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the
  threat to the group, and improperly cancelled posts will be reposted.

- When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn
  unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup.  Such a poster can
  only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board.

Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse are returned to their sender.

A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the
Board after a minimum of three months.

7.  Current Grounds for Human Moderation

The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of
articles to human Moderators for review.  Since most Moderators actually
have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more
before such articles are either posted
or returned to their senders.

- Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter
  articles in the past (see 10.  The Watch List).

8.  Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators

Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain
focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect.  When approving an
article, therefore, a Moderator must determine how closely the article
adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated.  The criterion that should
be applied uniformly to all articles is:  Would a reasonable person agree
that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup?

Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a
Moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be
used to decide the approval status of a post.  Each article must be judged
on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the
decision.

An article rejected by a human Moderator is returned (subject to the
limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with a footer or
header detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the
Moderator responsible for rejecting the post.

9.  Discarded Articles

There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a
human Moderator) may discard an article without returning it to its sender.

The following types of articles may currently be discarded without
attempting to return them to their sender:

- Articles with faked addresses (for which returns would simply "bounce", or
  worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a
  faked address), in cases where there are several rejections per day and in
  which there is a pattern that establishes a single real source for the
  rejected articles.

- Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (see 6.1
  Extreme Abuse).

10.  The Watch List

The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are
automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review.

An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be
placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of
the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address.

At the discretion of the Moderator who decides to place an address on the
Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to
notify the poster:

- The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter
  postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the
  normal response.

- The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person
  notified of this action privately and without delay.

An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the
Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted
appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar
days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of
at least six months.

11.  Rejection and Appeals

The moderation software tries to return any rejected article to the sender
via email, subject to the limitations in section 9.  Discarded Articles.
The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the
rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ.  The current appeals
address is: <mwm-request@panix.com>.

Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses.  A
Moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad
addresses and re-send such rejection notices.

Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of
the Board.  If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds
that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article
will be posted.  If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then
Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal.

There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles.

12.  Adjunct Venues

All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from
taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups.  Appeals,
complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of
the Moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels
appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit:

- Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at
  <mwm-request@panix.com>.

- General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the
  Moderation Policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list
  <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.  That list is open to all and is read by at
  least one member of the Board at all times.

13.  Changes to This Policy

The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for
changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group
annually.  Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority
vote of the Board.  Any proposed changes should be discussed via the
associated mailing list <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.

14.  Moderator Contacts

Send mail related to the moderation of the group to <mwm-request@panix.com>.

The Moderation Board in charge of moderation for misc.writing.moderated is
made up of:

Head Moderator:
Kelly Madeleine <kmadeleine@home.com>

Associate Moderators:

John V Ashby <J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
David M. Harris <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Jen Jensen <jensen@peavine.com>
Hound of Cullen <pziselberger@iname.com>

Backup Moderators:
Carol Flynt <carol@cflynt.com>
Gerald Clough <clough@texas.net>

Technical Administrator:
piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>

END MODERATION POLICY.


DISTRIBUTION:

Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups:

alt.fiction.original
misc.writing.screenplays
rec.arts.books
rec.arts.mystery
rec.arts.poems


misc.writing.moderated Final Voter list

Voted YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kwrected#bigpond.com.au                                           Andrew Csonka
toivo#ucs.uwa.edu.au                                              Toivo Pedaste
thompson#chariot.net.au                                           Paul Thompson
chris#stallion.oz.au                                          Christopher Biggs
metatron#escape.ca                                                    Sylvia Li
feistywriter#netcom.ca                                              JL Senatore
trevort#vianet.on.ca                                             Trevor Tymchuk
randywatt#4autos.com                                               Randall Watt
simblet#acmecity.com                                              Carla Simblet
rallen#plaza.ds.adp.com                                               Rob Allen
kemnunn#americamail.com                                                Kem Nunn
AnWinEsp#aol.com                                                  Anne Winthrop
Coinlord#aol.com
Cynth91183#aol.com                                              Cynthia Damiano
DenaJo#aol.com
Gizmophreax#aol.com                                           Jason Dimmelstein
MWyck0828#aol.com                                        Malia McCawley Wyckoff
WoofWoofWoofWoof#aol.com                                          Gina Andresen
vitavitavegamin#axoskate.com                                      Ted Borkowski
enigma#BayView.COM                                                Holly L. Ward
hermit#BayView.COM                                              William R. Ward
damien#bernafamily.com                                        Eric Damien Berna
cowboystud#bigger.com                                           Joseph D. Smith
mschiffer#birdmail.com                                            Mike Schiffer
brookter#btinternet.com                                        David Bertenshaw
ichard#cadence.com                                                    Ian Chard
stef#cat-and-dragon.com                                             Stef Maruch
carol#cflynt.com                                                 Carol A. Flynt
clif#cflynt.com                                                      Clif Flynt
jdudley#chequemail.com                                              Jane Dudley
72027.3605#compuserve.com
paulh#computerbits.com                                             Paul Harwood
jzh#cyberscience.com                                               Jon Huxtable
hollyholly#dotcool.com                                            Holly Pulaski
howdyhowdy#dotcool.com                                             Rick Hammond
kittybobitty#dotcool.com                                      Katherine Bittman
mcclenon#erols.com                                                 Bob McClenon
gae#esworthy.com                                           George Alan Esworthy
pbowne#execpc.com                                             Patricia S. Bowne
biow#ezmort.com                                                Christopher Biow
david#farrar.com                                                   David Farrar
dave#frackit.com                                                 Dave Ratcliffe
starswirler#geocities.com                                       Paine Ellsworth
dougob55#go.com                                            D. David Oberthroogd
dilickjm#home.com                                                   John Dilick
kmadeleine#home.com                                             Kelly Madeleine
Carterj98#HOTMAIL.COM                                          Carter Jefferson
gethorny1#hotmail.com                                                Andy Cohen
lostpuppy3#hotmail.com                                             Bradley Pitt
shrao#hotmail.com                                                   Shrisha Rao
toejam_78#hotmail.com                                             Toejammn Mann
mulveyk#iname.com                                                   Katy Mulvey
pziselberger#iname.com                                          Hound of Cullen
dietz#interaccess.com                                             Paul F. Dietz
whytcrow#io.com                                                  Jennifer Brinn
zephyn#io.com                                                   Keith E. Peyton
lavina#islandnet.com                                           Lavina Galbraith
iceberg#iw3p.com                                           William Thomas Quick
chris#kzim.com                                      Christopher Robin Zimmerman
mdoherty#mac.com                                                  Miche Doherty
kindall#manual.com                                                Jerry Kindall
bglake#mindspring.com                                        Barbara Grace Lake
chyla#mindspring.com                                               Cindy Hyland
olav#viking.mv.com                                              Olav Nieuwejaar
the_guy_at_node3#my-deja.com                                       Burt Kendall
aahz#netcom.com                                                            Aahz
fi#oceanstar.com                                                  Fiona Webster
sleepy#os.com                                                 Alexander Pennace
gaillard#panix.com                                                  Ed Gaillard
tindall#panix.com                                                 Bruce Tindall
jensen#peavine.com                                              Jennifer Jensen
buff#pobox.com                                                   William Denton
piranha#pobox.com                                                       piranha
tybalt#prime-online.com                                            Craig Burley
gloriamralak#purpleturtle.com                                     Gloria Mralak
rootbeer#redcat.com                                                 Tom Phoenix
rjuliano#cfl.rr.com                                                 Bob Juliano
serenebabe#serenebabe.com                                      Heather Santmire
kurtullman#sprintmail.com                                           Kurt Ullman
nsmith#micro.ti.com                                                  Neal Smith
entropy#timestreamer.com                                           anna halbert
davidsen#tmr.com                                                  Bill Davidsen
rickychang#torchmail.com                                            Ricky Chang
self#towse.com                                                        Sal Towse
tyrichards#truckracers.com                                      Tyrone Richards
dsgood#visi.com                                                     Dan Goodman
bjf#wavefront.com                                                 Beth Friedman
brad#whidbey.com                                           Bradley E. Robertson
davidhoag#workmail.com                                               David Hoag
kmeyer360#yahoo.com                                                Kathie Meyer
stonebugdotnet#yahoo.com                                           Scott Elyard
jase.innez#yeehaa.com                                                Jase Innez
torex#kholdan.in-berlin.de                                          tobias erle
naddy#mips.inka.de                                         Christian Weisgerber
bouvin#daimi.au.dk                                            Niels Olof Bouvin
jthomas#aug.edu                                              Jenna Thomas-McKie
hough#gps.caltech.edu                                               Susan Hough
pm39#andrew.cmu.edu                                                  P Mazaitis
dsr#mail.lns.cornell.edu                                        Daniel S. Riley
harvey#iupui.edu                                                   James Harvey
cmclaugh#mcw.edu                                               Chris McLaughlin
bmoses#stanford.edu                                                Brooks Moses
rufinus#mbe.ece.wisc.edu                                              J Rufinus
kwelch#facstaff.wisc.edu                                            Kevin Welch
kristian.liimatainen#helsinki.fi                              Lauri Liimatainen
ts#UWasa.Fi                                                          Timo Salmi
llehmann#club-internet.fr                                       Laurent Lehmann
porter.clark#msfc.nasa.gov                                      J. Porter Clark
popstar#mail.lv
cemanuel#accs.net                                                  Curt Emanuel
doc#america.net                                                       Rob Wynne
annabanana#annabanana.net                                           Anna Banana
joyseymour#worldnet.att.net                                  Joyleen E. Seymour
willowbrookemill#worldnet.att.net                                  Genna Reeney
dfdoyle#bellsouth.net                                            Donna F. Doyle
baird#gate.net                                                   Baird Stafford
Aspsusa#gmx.net                                                  Antonia Palmn
jmh#gmx.net                                                            Jan Haar
tlhise#inav.net                                                        Tom Hise
alexdw#locl.net                                                  Alex LaHurreau
aslan#magicforest.net                                                Mark Holtz
ErinBarrett#pacbell.net                                            Erin Barrett
mingo#pacbell.net                                                    Jack Mingo
greyhosky#physicist.net                                Barbara "Babs" Greyhosky
wakelyn#pinn.net                                                  N. T. Wakelyn
Pastorio#rica.net                              Bob Pastorio (pastorio#rica.net)
evert#royal.net                                                Evert Meulie esq
laurel#sff.net                                                 Laurel Amberdine
b.nachison#snet.net                                               Beth Nachison
dfreeman#sonic.net                                                  Dan Freeman
clough#texas.net                                 Gerald Clough clough#texas.net
critic#these-survive.net                                          Joe Bernstein
tclarke#tiac.net                                                 Timothy Clarke
algernonbeckwith#usa.net                                      Algernon Beckwith
doctorsmut#usa.net                                               Jerry Feinberg
judithrascoe#usa.net                                              Judith Rascoe
kenyonpyle#usa.net                                                  Kenyon Pyle
misspancake#usa.net                                              Mary Marciniak
bdonovan#wightman.net                                         Willondon Donovan
terje27#online.no                                                      Terje=20
John_David_Galt#acm.org                                         John David Galt
mooring#acm.org                                                      Ed Mooring
chessler#capaccess.org                                           David Chessler
clore#columbia-center.org                                             Dan Clore
berniex#efn.org                                                   Bernard Rogge
goddess#peak.org                                                  Marg Petersen
djb#v2000.scream.org                                               Dan Birchall
D.W.H.McNair#durham.ac.uk                                                Duncan
jva#inf.rl.ac.uk                                                   John V Ashby
jibberwigs#020.co.uk                                               Alan Bennett
Jo#bluejo.demon.co.uk                                                 Jo Walton
chriseb#ukshells.co.uk                                           Chris Ebenezer
steve#spelbind.demon.co.uk                                      Steve Pritchard
talacko#yarn.demon.co.uk                                           Paul Talacko
ian#lastime.freeserve.co.uk                                          Ian Neeson

Voted NO
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ing.blueyes#sympatico.ca                                         ingrid gadsden
AutmDragon#aol.com                                                Kaichi Satake
LAWunder#aol.com                                               Linda Wunderlich
kimdv#best.com                                                     Kim DeVaughn
stainles#bga.com                                                   Dwight Brown
dchigley#bigfoot.com                                               D. C. Higley
eae#bigfoot.com                                                         Eric=20
momblanche#bigfoot.com                                           Blanche Nonken
reverie#clarityconnect.com                                               Smokey
SSipes#comsoltx.com                                              Sonya M. Sipes
tjmc#enteract.com                                                          tjmc
smeghead#erols.com                                              Alex Jay Berman
fouts#fogey.com                                                    Martin Fouts
dwyman#home.com                                                      Doug Wyman
stan_kid#hotmail.com                                                   Stan Kid
tamara_bradley#hotmail.com                                       Tamara Bradley
ajcarol#mindspring.com                                            Carol Schmidt
blnadri#mindspring.com                                               B.L. Nadri
gprrspw#mindspring.com                                                G.P. Ryan
illbegood#mindspring.com                                                   Lily
jmartalo#mindspring.com                                            John Martalo
rainfield#mindspring.com                                            Andy Elfway
r5555c#email.sps.mot.com                                           Alan Chapman
tgm#netcom.com                                             Thomas G. McWilliams
Laura#nitelinks.com                                                Laura Higley
john1#world.std.com                           john1#world.std.com (Fred Cherry)
julian#tele.com                                                 Julian Macassey
Abhay.Natu#wcom.com                                                  Abhay Natu
silly#well.com                                                  Thomas Armagost
jkent#writelinks.com                                                 Janet Kent
Ekkehard.Uthke#gmx.de                                            Ekkehard Uthke
Hugh_Watkins#net.dialog.dk                                         Hugh Watkins
rick#bcm.tmc.edu                                              Richard H. Miller
bblair#aa.net                                                       Bruce Blair
arjanz#worldnet.att.net                                             Arleen Janz
aobensam#concentric.net                                           Arlene Bensam
deck#gate.net                                                      Deck Deckert
kneecap#netnet.net                                                  Neal Cappel
mmontcha#OregonVOS.net                                       Matthew Montchalin
patm7#prodigy.net                                                  Pat Marcello
billo#Radix.Net                                               William R. Oliver
anghara#ihug.co.nz                                                  Alma Hromic
katepc#ihug.co.nz                                            Kate Parker-Corney
ari.cword#mbox304.swipnet.se                                      Ari Nordstrm
jon#thomson2273.freeserve.co.uk                                     Jon Thomson

Abstained
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ahope#skynet.be                                                       Alan Hope
yan#storm.ca                                                  Yves Bellefeuille
sforsell#aol.com                                                  Scott Forsell
wcgreen#cris.com                                            Wendy Chatley Green
moira_d#iname.com                                                       moira d
wiz#lart.com                                                         Mike Craig
glynne#mindspring.com                                            Glynne Gilmore
kathy#newsreaders.com                                           Kathy I. Morgan
rra#stanford.edu                                                   Russ Allbery
bard#digital-marketplace.net                                               Bard
r.vanette#pink.nl                                           Robert-Jan van Ette

Invalid ballots
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No invalid votes


To restore the email addresses above, pipe the ack list through the
following command:

    sed -e 's/#/@/g'

-- 
Voting question & problems: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>
Voting address: vote@dogwood.com

From dave@dogwood.com Mon Apr 29 15:15:03 2002
Path: news.isc.org!bounce-back
From: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,alt.writing,misc.writing,rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: RESULT: misc.writing.moderated moderated passes 155:45
Followup-To: news.groups
Message-ID: <1020117647.67601@isc.org>
References: <957158311.20023@isc.org> <958074594.1543@isc.org> <959629242.15903@isc.org>
Supersedes: <959629242.15903@isc.org>
Approved: newgroups-request@isc.org
Archive-Name: misc.writing.moderated
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 22:00:47 UTC
Lines: 892
Xref: news.isc.org news.announce.newgroups:11771 news.groups:406691 misc.writing:598824 rec.arts.sf.composition:157895

                                RESULT
         moderated group misc.writing.moderated passes 155:45

[ Note:  This result is being reposted for two reasons -- to force the
  creation of a new control message because tale is currently not
  available to submit manual control messages, and because it's been
  nearly 2 years since the group actually passed, and reminding interested
  people that it is finally going live seems like a good idea after that
  much time.

  Errata:  There won't be a five day discussion period after this
  repost. The public mailing list on which issues with the moderation can
  be discussed has changed from <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com> to
  <mwmDiscussion@yahoogroups.com>.

                                - piranha, for the n.a.n moderation team ]


There were 155 YES votes and 45 NO votes, for a total of 200 valid
votes.  There were 11 abstentions.

For a group to pass, YES votes must be at least 2/3 of all valid
(YES and NO) votes.  There must also be at least 100 more YES votes
than NO votes.

A five day discussion period follows this announcement.  If no
serious allegations of voting irregularities are raised, the
moderator of news.announce.newgroups will create the group shortly
thereafter.

Newsgroups line:
misc.writing.moderated	Art, craft, business and creative process of writing. (Moderated)

Voting closed at 23:59:59 UTC, 22 May 2000.

This vote was conducted by a neutral third party.  Questions
about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent.

Proponent: Paul Harwood <paulh@computerbits.com>
Proponent: Anna Banana <annabanana@annabanana.net>
Proponent: Moira D. <moira_d@iname.com>
Proponent: Bob Pastorio <pastorio@rica.net>
Proponent: Sal Towse <towse@null.net>
Mentor: piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>
Votetaker: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>

RATIONALE: misc.writing.moderated

There are currently six widely-propagated newsgroups chartered for
discussions of writing:  alt.writing, misc.writing, misc.writing.screenplays,
rec.arts.poems, rec.arts.prose, and rec.arts.sf.composition.  Of these,
rec.arts.poems and rec.arts.prose are intended as critique groups, while
misc.writing.screenplays and rec.arts.sf.compostion are genre-specific, and
both misc.writing and alt.writing have evolved to encompass much off-charter
traffic.  This off-charter traffic is an accepted and integral part of the
culture, but can make it difficult to focus on the writing-related
discussions.  In addition, misc.writing has become a heavily-used group,
getting upwards of 350 posts per day.

In order to provide a writing forum that is not particular to any specific
genre, but which provides focussed discussion on the art, craft, business
and creative process of writing in a positive atmosphere, we propose to
create misc.writing.moderated.

Rough statistical analyses have shown that 12% to 25% of misc.writing's
traffic could be considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated.  Similar
rough analysis of the traffic in alt.writing, which has recently averaged
about 90 posts per day, showed that 63% of the traffic there could be
considered on-charter in misc.writing.moderated.

CHARTER: misc.writing.moderated

Misc.writing.moderated is a forum for discussion of the process and
profession of writing.  It is a newsgroup where all participants are treated
as peers.  The focus in misc.writing.moderated is on developing as writers,
increasing writing income and/or discussing the process and business of
writing.

Misc.writing.moderated is inclusive in that discussion of all forms of
writing is considered appropriate, but it is exclusive in that all
discussion must be aimed toward the development of participants as writers,
or toward providing cooperative support for their writing and their writing
ambitions.  Questions of grammar and style are appropriate, but should be
sought in the FAQ.  Of greater interest are topics such as plotting
techniques, character or thematic development, research methods, industry
trends and news, market information, finding and dealing with an agent,
techniques for best marketing one's work, software tools, manuscript
formatting, how to avoid repetitive stress injury, and other such concerns
with which writers struggle.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts reasonable and timely announcements of
seminars, conferences, new markets, and other commercial ventures that may
be of interest to the practicing writer, though repetitive commercial
announcements are disallowed.  For the purposes of this charter,
"repetitive" is defined as more than
once per month.

While questions about writing problems are appropriate in
misc.writing.moderated, the posting of long excerpts from written works, or
of shorter works in their entirety, is expressly forbidden.  Participants
are free to quote from their work as part of a larger discussion within a
post.  This includes, but is not limited to, illustrations of writing
technique, questions of why certain passages do or do not work, and short
segments designed to spark a discussion about the art or craft of writing.
Those looking for critiques are welcome to post URLs where their work can be
found, or to post short, non-repetitive announcements that work is available
for critique.

Articles that exceed the bounds of common courtesy -- e.g., personal attacks
against other posters -- are never acceptable, no matter what the context of
the article and no matter how small a part of the article the attack may be.
Also unacceptable are articles that consist solely of "yahoos", birthday
greetings, and so on.

Signature files are subject to reasonable length restrictions, and may not
contain personal attacks against other posters.  A signature file may
contain non-writing-related URLs or personal advertisements.

Binaries with the exception of small cryptographic authentication such as
PGP signatures in non-binary messages are not acceptable.

This charter, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to
misc.writing.moderated.

Misc.writing.moderated accepts no crossposts, except:  RFDs, CFVs, and
related administrative postings (as approved by the moderators of
news.announce.newgroups) with followups set to news.groups and/or
misc.writing.moderated, articles in response to such postings crossposted
only between news.groups and misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar
informational postings (as approved by the moderators of news.answers).

Moderation

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles to the
group pass through a review process before being posted.  The purpose of
moderation is to maintain focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual
respect.  To this end, the Moderators will strive to maintain both focus and
cordiality.

Moderation will be by a Moderation Board, consisting of a Head Moderator and
several Associate Moderators.  The number of Associate Moderators is set by
the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith effort to maintain a
membership of at least three Associate Moderators.  Only members of the
Moderation Board have the power to approve posts.

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a
Technical Administrator.  The Technical Administrator is charged with
installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary
software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly
available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or
delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and
with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and
participants.  The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties,
and is not a voting member of the Board.  A new Technical Administrator can
only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet
Moderators' mailing list.

The current moderation procedures and policies are described in the
Moderation Policy, which is maintained by the Head Moderator.  Any changes
to the Moderation Policy are subject to approval by a simple majority vote
of the Moderation Board.  The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for
possible changes, and input for changes to the Policy shall be sought from
the readership of the group annually.

General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the
Moderation Policy can be aired on a public, unmoderated mailing list.  That
list is open to all and will be read by at least one member of the Board.

The Moderation Policy, or a URL pointing to it, is posted once a week to
misc.writing.moderated.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: misc.writing.moderated

Moderator: "Kelly Madeleine" <kmadeleine@home.com>
Moderator: "John V Ashby" <J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
Moderator: "David M. Harris" <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Moderator: "Jen Jensen" <jensen@peavine.com>
Moderator: "Hound of Cullen" <pziselberger@iname.com>
Administrative contact address: mwm-request@panix.com
Article submission address: mwm@panix.com

END MODERATOR INFO.

MODERATION POLICY:

Moderation Policy for misc.writing.moderated

Introduction

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated, which means that all articles submitted
to the group pass through a review process before being posted.  Currently,
moderation is performed primarily by software, though some articles are
forwarded to human moderators for review.

The charter, which defines what topics are appropriate for discussion in
this newsgroup, is posted to misc.writing.moderated once per week.

1.  Structure of the Moderation Board

Misc.writing.moderated is moderated by a Moderation Board, which consists of
a Head Moderator and several Associate Moderators.  The number of Associate
Moderators will be set by the Board, but the Board will make a good-faith
effort to maintain a membership of at least three Associate Moderators.
Only members of the Moderation Board have the power to approve posts.

The Board may, at its discretion, elect a reasonable number of Backup
Moderators to serve in the case of temporary absence of a Moderator.

The Head Moderator maintains this Moderation Policy.

The Head Moderator shall only cast a vote when any Board vote results in a
tie.

1.1 Board Membership

The Board controls its own membership.  It shall admit new members with a
simple majority vote, or remove members by a 2/3 vote.  Board members
(excepting the founding Board members) must come from the active posters of
misc.writing.moderated, and volunteers for a vacant Moderatorship should be
solicited from misc.writing.moderated posters by the Board via a post tagged
[ADMIN].  Backup Moderators vote as Associate Moderators when electing Board
members.

New Board members may be elected when any of the following occur:

- Retirement of a Moderator;

- Death of a Moderator;

- Neglect of moderation duties by a Moderator for 30 consecutive days
  without prior announcement;

- Expansion of the size of the Board;

- Expulsion of a Moderator.

The Board shall elect a new Head Moderator by a simple majority vote if the
position becomes vacant; the Head Moderator or the Board shall appoint a
Moderator to fill in for the Head Moderator during short periods of absence.
The Head Moderator must be elected from the present membership of the Board.

1.2 Expulsion of a Moderator

The expulsion of a Moderator may be called for by the readership of
misc.writing.moderated, including members of the Board.  Valid reasons for
calling for the expulsion of a Moderator include intolerance, unfairness,
negligence, and lack of impartiality.  Such a request should be made via
e-mail directly to the Board at mwm-request@panix.com.

On receipt of such a request an article will be posted to the newsgroup
titled "[ADMIN] Call for Removal of <Moderator's name>" announcing the start
of a discussion period not less than 15 days.  This discussion shall be
public and take place only on the associated public mailing list
<mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.  Discussion on the newsgroup itself will be
grounds for a poster being placed on the watchlist.  During this discussion
all active Moderators should monitor the mailing list.

At the end of the public discussion phase the Moderators shall consider the
views of the readership via the Moderators' mailing list.  At the end of
this consideration period, not less than seven days or more than fourteen
days, the Head Moderator shall call for a vote.  A 2/3 vote of the Board is
required to remove a Moderator.  The Board's decision shall be posted to the
newsgroup in an article titled "[ADMIN] Removal Vote Result of {Moderator's
name}" stating whether the call for removal has been successful or not.
Each Moderator's vote shall be listed.  The reader who called for removal
shall also be informed via e-mail of the result.

For purposes of removal, the Head Moderator is treated like any other
Moderator.  If the Head Moderator is subject to a recall vote, the Moderator
with the next highest seniority shall temporarily assume the recall duties
of the Head Moderator.

Only one Moderator may be subject to recall at any one time.

The Board reserves the right to summarily dismiss frivolous recalls, to
forestall disruption of the group's functioning by malicious trolls issuing
one call for removal after another.

1.3 The Technical Administrator

As technical expertise is required for continued functioning of the
moderation software, misc.writing.moderated calls upon the skills of a
Technical Administrator.  The Technical Administrator is  charged with
installing and maintaining the moderation software (including any ancillary
software like procmail recipes), with making the moderation code publicly
available to all who wish to inspect it, with ownership (either actual or
delegated to a trusted third party) of the group submissions address, and
with communicating about technical problems with Moderators and
participants.  The Technical Administrator has no hand-moderation duties,
and is not a voting member of the Board.  A new Technical Administrator can
only be selected by an outgoing Technical Administrator, or, if the previous
Technical Administrator has abandoned the group, by a request to the Usenet
Moderators' mailing list at <moderators@isc.org>.

1.4 Pathological Cases

Since most of this Moderation Policy hinges on there being at least two
Associate Moderators and a Head Moderator, we address the following
pathological cases:

a.  The case where there is only one Associate Moderator and a Head
Moderator:  In this case, the Head Moderator votes as a regular Board
member.  As Board votes may result in a tie in this situation, ties shall be
decided as follows:  When voting on a proposed change in Moderation Policy,
the proposed change will be rejected.  When voting to elect a new Moderator,
the Moderator will be elected.  When voting to remove a Moderator, the
Moderator will not be removed.

b.  The case where there is only one Moderator:  In this case, numerous
segments of this Moderation Policy become inoperable.  The lone Moderator
should ensure that the group continues to function in as normal a manner as
possible while attempting to re-staff the Board.

c.  The case where there are no Moderators:  In this case, prior to leaving
his or her moderation duties, the final outgoing Moderator should ensure that
the following occur:

(1.) The Watch List should be emptied.

(2.) The moderation software should be set to pass all posts that would
     otherwise require hand-moderation.

If the final outgoing Moderator fails in those tasks, the Technical
Administrator should see to them.

Posters to misc.writing.moderated are then charged with selecting new
Moderators, possibly with the help of the Technical Administrator.

2.  Moderation Process

All articles to the group may be processed through moderation software which
takes one of the following actions on each article, in order of technical
precedence:

- Reject it outright if it meets certain criteria (see 6. Current Grounds
  for Auto-Rejection);

- Forward it to a Board member if it meets certain other criteria (see 7.
  Current Grounds for Human Moderation); or

- Post it immediately.

As misc.writing.moderated is moderated strictly by content, the author's
identity should not be considered when determining if an article meets the
requirements of the group's charter.  A Moderator may place certain
individuals or sites that repeatedly post off-charter material on a "Watch
List," which will cause their articles to be forwarded to a human Moderator
for review (see 10.  The Watch List).  A Moderator may also declare certain
off-charter discussion threads to be "closed," so that no more articles in
that thread are to be posted.  There is no avenue of appeal for the closure
of a thread.

Any Moderator unable to judge an article in a fair and unbiased way should
pass that article to the next Moderator in the queue.

An article approved for posting by a human Moderator may not be modified,
except that an "approved" header must be inserted, and a generic header or
footer may be appended.

Rejected articles are, if possible, be returned to their sender with a note
of explanation.  In cases of extreme abuse, the Technical Administrator may
configure the moderation software to automatically discard all postings from
a sender without attempting to return them (see 6.1 Extreme Abuse).

Rejected articles may be appealed to an appeals address.  The appeals
address <mwm-request@panix.com> appears in all rejection notices.

If an article is posted immediately, the moderation software must insert an
"approved" header, and may append a generic footer.

See also section 8, Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators, and
section 11, Rejection and Appeals.

3.  Retromoderation

An article is normally subject to rejection only when it is submitted.
Canceling an article after it has been posted ("retromoderation") will not
be used for general content control.  Cancellations are permitted only
under the following special circumstances:

- When performed or requested by the original poster or by the poster's
  Internet Service Provider;

- When performed by the Technical Administrator or a Moderator to cancel
  articles with forged approvals;

- When performed by reputable third-party cancelers (as determined by the
  Technical Administrator), to cancel articles that are widely considered to
  be undesirable in most of Usenet, e.g. binaries and excessively multiposted
  articles ("spam").

4.  New Users / Approved Users

The moderation software maintains a list of "approved" e-mail addresses,
articles from which are posted by the software without human moderation.
When a poster not on the approved list submits an article, the moderation
software will:

- Email the poster a welcome message that summarizes the charter of
  misc.writing.moderated and gives a certain keyword.

- If the article's subject contains the keyword, post the article
  immediately and add the poster to the "approved" list.

- If the article's subject does not contain the keyword, filter the article
  out and return it, with a message explaining a simple way to add the
  keyword and repost the article.

- Strip all occurrences of the keyword from posted article subjects.

The list of email addresses is to be used only for approving posts to
misc.writing.moderated.  It must not be sold, given away, or used as a
mailing list.  It starts empty, and is added to only as above.  New posters
are advised that their address has been added.  List entries may be
aged out after a term determined by the space available on the moderating
host, to be not less than one year.  Posters may request removal of their
address from the "approved" list if they no longer wish to post to the
group, or have changed accounts.  While posting with "munged" addresses is
not encouraged, posters using such addresses can have themselves added to
the "approved" list by following the instructions in the FAQ (since the
moderation software will not be able to send any instructions to a munged
address, onus is on the poster to seek
out the instructions pre-posting).

The keyword and its use shall always be clearly explained in the group's FAQ
and welcome message.  The FAQ is made available as a frequently posted
article, and also via an autoreplier at the moderating host.  The welcome
message is also available by
autoreplier.

The keyword may be changed at the discretion of the Board.  For 15 days
after a new keyword goes into effect, both the old and the new keyword are
valid.  They need not be in any particular lexicon, but must be less than 10
letters long, not use case meaningfully, be reasonably easy to spell and
remember, and not be very likely to occur normally in the subject of a post.

An "approved" user who repeatedly posts off-charter material may be placed
on the Watch List.  See Section 10.

5.  Statement of Respect

Misc.writing.moderated is a newsgroup for writers.  The Moderators will
consider all posters to be colleagues or peers, and will strive to treat all
posters with unfailing courtesy and respect.  Additionally, as writers, we
should be bound to respect the words of others.  Intolerance, unfairness,
negligence, or lack of impartiality by a Moderator toward a poster are
grounds for calling for that Moderator's removal from the Board (see 1.2
Expulsion of a Moderator).

6.  Current Grounds for Auto-Rejection

The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of
articles to their senders, without posting them.  All returned articles must
have generic text appended or prepended containing a pointer to the group's
FAQ, and the appeals process:

- Crossposted articles, except:  RFDs, CFVs, and related administrative
  postings (as approved by the moderators of news.announce.newgroups) with
  followups set to news.groups and/or misc.writing.moderated, articles in
  response to such postings if only crossposted between news.groups and
  misc.writing.moderated, and FAQs and similar informational postings (as
  approved by the moderators of news.answers).

- Binaries.  (Note that this excepts cryptographic authentication such as
  PGP.)

- Articles with an empty or missing Subject header.

- Articles submitted via email with a missing Newsgroups header.

6.1 Extreme Abuse

While the Moderators will make every attempt to work through moderation
issues with individual posters, it is important that the Moderators have a
mechanism to defend the functioning of the newsgroup.  To this end, the
Moderators are empowered to configure software to auto-reject all articles
>from  any poster who is perceived as attacking the functioning of the group.
This is an extreme step, and should only be taken under the following
exceptional circumstances:

- When there is clear evidence that a spew, flood, mailbombing or other such
  attack is occurring.  In this case, action should be taken as quickly as
  possible to eliminate the threat to the group.

- When a poster has forge-cancelled on-charter posts without permission.  In
  this case, action should be taken as quickly as possible to eliminate the
  threat to the group, and improperly cancelled posts will be reposted.

- When a poster has shown oft-repeated and exceptionally stubborn
  unwillingness to abide by the charter of the newsgroup.  Such a poster can
  only be relegated to auto-reject status by a unanimous vote of the Board.

Posts auto-rejected for extreme abuse are returned to their sender.

A poster can be removed from the auto-reject list by a majority vote of the
Board after a minimum of three months.

7.  Current Grounds for Human Moderation

The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of
articles to human Moderators for review.  Since most Moderators actually
have lives outside of Usenet, there may be a delay of 24 hours or more
before such articles are either posted
or returned to their senders.

- Articles from certain addresses that have posted one or more off-charter
  articles in the past (see 10.  The Watch List).

8.  Current Grounds for Rejection by Human Moderators

Moderators should bear in mind that the purpose of moderation is to maintain
focussed discussion in an atmosphere of mutual respect.  When approving an
article, therefore, a Moderator must determine how closely the article
adheres to the charter of misc.writing.moderated.  The criterion that should
be applied uniformly to all articles is:  Would a reasonable person agree
that this article conforms substantially to the charter for the newsgroup?

Grudges, personal dislikes, and any other forms of disagreement that a
Moderator might have with a newsgroup participant are specifically not to be
used to decide the approval status of a post.  Each article must be judged
on its own, and prior posting history is not to be brought to bear in the
decision.

An article rejected by a human Moderator is returned (subject to the
limitations in 9. Discarded Articles and 6.1 Extreme Abuse) with a footer or
header detailing the specific reason(s) for rejection, and the name of the
Moderator responsible for rejecting the post.

9.  Discarded Articles

There are certain circumstances under which the moderation software (or a
human Moderator) may discard an article without returning it to its sender.

The following types of articles may currently be discarded without
attempting to return them to their sender:

- Articles with faked addresses (for which returns would simply "bounce", or
  worse, be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a
  faked address), in cases where there are several rejections per day and in
  which there is a pattern that establishes a single real source for the
  rejected articles.

- Articles that appear to be attacking the functioning of the group (see 6.1
  Extreme Abuse).

10.  The Watch List

The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are
automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for review.

An address that has been a source of one or more off-charter articles may be
placed on the Watch List by any Moderator, who must also notify the rest of
the Board, and attempt to notify the person at that address.

At the discretion of the Moderator who decides to place an address on the
Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to
notify the poster:

- The person may be given a private warning that further off-charter
  postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the
  normal response.

- The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person
  notified of this action privately and without delay.

An address will be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the
Moderation Board, either when the person at that address has posted
appropriately to the newsgroup for a period of at least seven full calendar
days, or when no posts from that address have been received for a period of
at least six months.

11.  Rejection and Appeals

The moderation software tries to return any rejected article to the sender
via email, subject to the limitations in section 9.  Discarded Articles.
The email shall include the reason for the rejection, an address where the
rejection can be appealed, and a pointer to the FAQ.  The current appeals
address is: <mwm-request@panix.com>.

Some rejection messages "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses.  A
Moderator will examine these bounces and make a good-faith effort to fix bad
addresses and re-send such rejection notices.

Articles whose rejections are appealed will be considered by all members of
the Board.  If any member of the Board, including the Head Moderator, finds
that the article conforms substantially to the charter, then the article
will be posted.  If there are fewer than three Associate Moderators, then
Backup Moderators will also consider the appeal.

There is no further avenue of appeal for rejected articles.

12.  Adjunct Venues

All participants in misc.writing.moderated are requested to refrain from
taking their moderation grievances to other newsgroups.  Appeals,
complaints, and general dissatisfaction with the policies or behaviors of
the Moderators or those moderated should be discussed through channels
appropriate to misc.writing.moderated, to wit:

- Grievances or questions can be sent directly to the Moderation Board at
  <mwm-request@panix.com>.

- General complaints, dissatisfaction, and grousing about Moderators or the
  Moderation Policy can be aired on the public, unmoderated mailing list
  <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.  That list is open to all and is read by at
  least one member of the Board at all times.

13.  Changes to This Policy

The Moderation Policy shall be reviewed for possible changes, and input for
changes to the Policy shall be sought from the readership of the group
annually.  Changes to the Moderation Policy may be made by a simple majority
vote of the Board.  Any proposed changes should be discussed via the
associated mailing list <mwmDiscuss@egroups.com>.

14.  Moderator Contacts

Send mail related to the moderation of the group to <mwm-request@panix.com>.

The Moderation Board in charge of moderation for misc.writing.moderated is
made up of:

Head Moderator:
Kelly Madeleine <kmadeleine@home.com>

Associate Moderators:

John V Ashby <J.V.Ashby@rl.ac.uk>
David M. Harris <coldspring@earthlink.net>
Jen Jensen <jensen@peavine.com>
Hound of Cullen <pziselberger@iname.com>

Backup Moderators:
Carol Flynt <carol@cflynt.com>
Gerald Clough <clough@texas.net>

Technical Administrator:
piranha <piranha@gooroos.com>

END MODERATION POLICY.


DISTRIBUTION:

Pointers directing readers to this CFV will be posted in these groups:

alt.fiction.original
misc.writing.screenplays
rec.arts.books
rec.arts.mystery
rec.arts.poems


misc.writing.moderated Final Voter list

Voted YES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kwrected#bigpond.com.au                                           Andrew Csonka
toivo#ucs.uwa.edu.au                                              Toivo Pedaste
thompson#chariot.net.au                                           Paul Thompson
chris#stallion.oz.au                                          Christopher Biggs
metatron#escape.ca                                                    Sylvia Li
feistywriter#netcom.ca                                              JL Senatore
trevort#vianet.on.ca                                             Trevor Tymchuk
randywatt#4autos.com                                               Randall Watt
simblet#acmecity.com                                              Carla Simblet
rallen#plaza.ds.adp.com                                               Rob Allen
kemnunn#americamail.com                                                Kem Nunn
AnWinEsp#aol.com                                                  Anne Winthrop
Coinlord#aol.com
Cynth91183#aol.com                                              Cynthia Damiano
DenaJo#aol.com
Gizmophreax#aol.com                                           Jason Dimmelstein
MWyck0828#aol.com                                        Malia McCawley Wyckoff
WoofWoofWoofWoof#aol.com                                          Gina Andresen
vitavitavegamin#axoskate.com                                      Ted Borkowski
enigma#BayView.COM                                                Holly L. Ward
hermit#BayView.COM                                              William R. Ward
damien#bernafamily.com                                        Eric Damien Berna
cowboystud#bigger.com                                           Joseph D. Smith
mschiffer#birdmail.com                                            Mike Schiffer
brookter#btinternet.com                                        David Bertenshaw
ichard#cadence.com                                                    Ian Chard
stef#cat-and-dragon.com                                             Stef Maruch
carol#cflynt.com                                                 Carol A. Flynt
clif#cflynt.com                                                      Clif Flynt
jdudley#chequemail.com                                              Jane Dudley
72027.3605#compuserve.com
paulh#computerbits.com                                             Paul Harwood
jzh#cyberscience.com                                               Jon Huxtable
hollyholly#dotcool.com                                            Holly Pulaski
howdyhowdy#dotcool.com                                             Rick Hammond
kittybobitty#dotcool.com                                      Katherine Bittman
mcclenon#erols.com                                                 Bob McClenon
gae#esworthy.com                                           George Alan Esworthy
pbowne#execpc.com                                             Patricia S. Bowne
biow#ezmort.com                                                Christopher Biow
david#farrar.com                                                   David Farrar
dave#frackit.com                                                 Dave Ratcliffe
starswirler#geocities.com                                       Paine Ellsworth
dougob55#go.com                                            D. David Oberthroogd
dilickjm#home.com                                                   John Dilick
kmadeleine#home.com                                             Kelly Madeleine
Carterj98#HOTMAIL.COM                                          Carter Jefferson
gethorny1#hotmail.com                                                Andy Cohen
lostpuppy3#hotmail.com                                             Bradley Pitt
shrao#hotmail.com                                                   Shrisha Rao
toejam_78#hotmail.com                                             Toejammn Mann
mulveyk#iname.com                                                   Katy Mulvey
pziselberger#iname.com                                          Hound of Cullen
dietz#interaccess.com                                             Paul F. Dietz
whytcrow#io.com                                                  Jennifer Brinn
zephyn#io.com                                                   Keith E. Peyton
lavina#islandnet.com                                           Lavina Galbraith
iceberg#iw3p.com                                           William Thomas Quick
chris#kzim.com                                      Christopher Robin Zimmerman
mdoherty#mac.com                                                  Miche Doherty
kindall#manual.com                                                Jerry Kindall
bglake#mindspring.com                                        Barbara Grace Lake
chyla#mindspring.com                                               Cindy Hyland
olav#viking.mv.com                                              Olav Nieuwejaar
the_guy_at_node3#my-deja.com                                       Burt Kendall
aahz#netcom.com                                                            Aahz
fi#oceanstar.com                                                  Fiona Webster
sleepy#os.com                                                 Alexander Pennace
gaillard#panix.com                                                  Ed Gaillard
tindall#panix.com                                                 Bruce Tindall
jensen#peavine.com                                              Jennifer Jensen
buff#pobox.com                                                   William Denton
piranha#pobox.com                                                       piranha
tybalt#prime-online.com                                            Craig Burley
gloriamralak#purpleturtle.com                                     Gloria Mralak
rootbeer#redcat.com                                                 Tom Phoenix
rjuliano#cfl.rr.com                                                 Bob Juliano
serenebabe#serenebabe.com                                      Heather Santmire
kurtullman#sprintmail.com                                           Kurt Ullman
nsmith#micro.ti.com                                                  Neal Smith
entropy#timestreamer.com                                           anna halbert
davidsen#tmr.com                                                  Bill Davidsen
rickychang#torchmail.com                                            Ricky Chang
self#towse.com                                                        Sal Towse
tyrichards#truckracers.com                                      Tyrone Richards
dsgood#visi.com                                                     Dan Goodman
bjf#wavefront.com                                                 Beth Friedman
brad#whidbey.com                                           Bradley E. Robertson
davidhoag#workmail.com                                               David Hoag
kmeyer360#yahoo.com                                                Kathie Meyer
stonebugdotnet#yahoo.com                                           Scott Elyard
jase.innez#yeehaa.com                                                Jase Innez
torex#kholdan.in-berlin.de                                          tobias erle
naddy#mips.inka.de                                         Christian Weisgerber
bouvin#daimi.au.dk                                            Niels Olof Bouvin
jthomas#aug.edu                                              Jenna Thomas-McKie
hough#gps.caltech.edu                                               Susan Hough
pm39#andrew.cmu.edu                                                  P Mazaitis
dsr#mail.lns.cornell.edu                                        Daniel S. Riley
harvey#iupui.edu                                                   James Harvey
cmclaugh#mcw.edu                                               Chris McLaughlin
bmoses#stanford.edu                                                Brooks Moses
rufinus#mbe.ece.wisc.edu                                              J Rufinus
kwelch#facstaff.wisc.edu                                            Kevin Welch
kristian.liimatainen#helsinki.fi                              Lauri Liimatainen
ts#UWasa.Fi                                                          Timo Salmi
llehmann#club-internet.fr                                       Laurent Lehmann
porter.clark#msfc.nasa.gov                                      J. Porter Clark
popstar#mail.lv
cemanuel#accs.net                                                  Curt Emanuel
doc#america.net                                                       Rob Wynne
annabanana#annabanana.net                                           Anna Banana
joyseymour#worldnet.att.net                                  Joyleen E. Seymour
willowbrookemill#worldnet.att.net                                  Genna Reeney
dfdoyle#bellsouth.net                                            Donna F. Doyle
baird#gate.net                                                   Baird Stafford
Aspsusa#gmx.net                                                  Antonia Palmn
jmh#gmx.net                                                            Jan Haar
tlhise#inav.net                                                        Tom Hise
alexdw#locl.net                                                  Alex LaHurreau
aslan#magicforest.net                                                Mark Holtz
ErinBarrett#pacbell.net                                            Erin Barrett
mingo#pacbell.net                                                    Jack Mingo
greyhosky#physicist.net                                Barbara "Babs" Greyhosky
wakelyn#pinn.net                                                  N. T. Wakelyn
Pastorio#rica.net                              Bob Pastorio (pastorio#rica.net)
evert#royal.net                                                Evert Meulie esq
laurel#sff.net                                                 Laurel Amberdine
b.nachison#snet.net                                               Beth Nachison
dfreeman#sonic.net                                                  Dan Freeman
clough#texas.net                                 Gerald Clough clough#texas.net
critic#these-survive.net                                          Joe Bernstein
tclarke#tiac.net                                                 Timothy Clarke
algernonbeckwith#usa.net                                      Algernon Beckwith
doctorsmut#usa.net                                               Jerry Feinberg
judithrascoe#usa.net                                              Judith Rascoe
kenyonpyle#usa.net                                                  Kenyon Pyle
misspancake#usa.net                                              Mary Marciniak
bdonovan#wightman.net                                         Willondon Donovan
terje27#online.no                                                      Terje=20
John_David_Galt#acm.org                                         John David Galt
mooring#acm.org                                                      Ed Mooring
chessler#capaccess.org                                           David Chessler
clore#columbia-center.org                                             Dan Clore
berniex#efn.org                                                   Bernard Rogge
goddess#peak.org                                                  Marg Petersen
djb#v2000.scream.org                                               Dan Birchall
D.W.H.McNair#durham.ac.uk                                                Duncan
jva#inf.rl.ac.uk                                                   John V Ashby
jibberwigs#020.co.uk                                               Alan Bennett
Jo#bluejo.demon.co.uk                                                 Jo Walton
chriseb#ukshells.co.uk                                           Chris Ebenezer
steve#spelbind.demon.co.uk                                      Steve Pritchard
talacko#yarn.demon.co.uk                                           Paul Talacko
ian#lastime.freeserve.co.uk                                          Ian Neeson

Voted NO
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ing.blueyes#sympatico.ca                                         ingrid gadsden
AutmDragon#aol.com                                                Kaichi Satake
LAWunder#aol.com                                               Linda Wunderlich
kimdv#best.com                                                     Kim DeVaughn
stainles#bga.com                                                   Dwight Brown
dchigley#bigfoot.com                                               D. C. Higley
eae#bigfoot.com                                                         Eric=20
momblanche#bigfoot.com                                           Blanche Nonken
reverie#clarityconnect.com                                               Smokey
SSipes#comsoltx.com                                              Sonya M. Sipes
tjmc#enteract.com                                                          tjmc
smeghead#erols.com                                              Alex Jay Berman
fouts#fogey.com                                                    Martin Fouts
dwyman#home.com                                                      Doug Wyman
stan_kid#hotmail.com                                                   Stan Kid
tamara_bradley#hotmail.com                                       Tamara Bradley
ajcarol#mindspring.com                                            Carol Schmidt
blnadri#mindspring.com                                               B.L. Nadri
gprrspw#mindspring.com                                                G.P. Ryan
illbegood#mindspring.com                                                   Lily
jmartalo#mindspring.com                                            John Martalo
rainfield#mindspring.com                                            Andy Elfway
r5555c#email.sps.mot.com                                           Alan Chapman
tgm#netcom.com                                             Thomas G. McWilliams
Laura#nitelinks.com                                                Laura Higley
john1#world.std.com                           john1#world.std.com (Fred Cherry)
julian#tele.com                                                 Julian Macassey
Abhay.Natu#wcom.com                                                  Abhay Natu
silly#well.com                                                  Thomas Armagost
jkent#writelinks.com                                                 Janet Kent
Ekkehard.Uthke#gmx.de                                            Ekkehard Uthke
Hugh_Watkins#net.dialog.dk                                         Hugh Watkins
rick#bcm.tmc.edu                                              Richard H. Miller
bblair#aa.net                                                       Bruce Blair
arjanz#worldnet.att.net                                             Arleen Janz
aobensam#concentric.net                                           Arlene Bensam
deck#gate.net                                                      Deck Deckert
kneecap#netnet.net                                                  Neal Cappel
mmontcha#OregonVOS.net                                       Matthew Montchalin
patm7#prodigy.net                                                  Pat Marcello
billo#Radix.Net                                               William R. Oliver
anghara#ihug.co.nz                                                  Alma Hromic
katepc#ihug.co.nz                                            Kate Parker-Corney
ari.cword#mbox304.swipnet.se                                      Ari Nordstrm
jon#thomson2273.freeserve.co.uk                                     Jon Thomson

Abstained
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ahope#skynet.be                                                       Alan Hope
yan#storm.ca                                                  Yves Bellefeuille
sforsell#aol.com                                                  Scott Forsell
wcgreen#cris.com                                            Wendy Chatley Green
moira_d#iname.com                                                       moira d
wiz#lart.com                                                         Mike Craig
glynne#mindspring.com                                            Glynne Gilmore
kathy#newsreaders.com                                           Kathy I. Morgan
rra#stanford.edu                                                   Russ Allbery
bard#digital-marketplace.net                                               Bard
r.vanette#pink.nl                                           Robert-Jan van Ette

Invalid ballots
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No invalid votes


To restore the email addresses above, pipe the ack list through the
following command:

    sed -e 's/#/@/g'

-- 
Voting question & problems: Dave Cornejo <dave@dogwood.com>
Voting address: vote@dogwood.com

