From tale@uunet.uu.net Tue Oct 22 10:35:02 1996
Path: uunet!bounce-back
From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence)
Newsgroups: soc.history.african.biafra
Subject: cmsg newgroup soc.history.african.biafra moderated
Control: newgroup soc.history.african.biafra moderated
Approved: newgroups-request@uunet.uu.net
Message-ID: <845994604.25715@uunet.uu.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 14:30:04 GMT
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X-Info: ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README.html
	ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README
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	D2PAqkv+tu4=
	=7ex0
Xref: uunet control.newgroup:17871

soc.history.african.biafra is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for
creation by 156:25 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 17 Oct 1996.

Group submission address:  biafra@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
Moderator contact address: biafra@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
                        (Tochi Omenukor, Patience Akpan, Akobuije Chijioke,
                         Alexander Ukoh, Uzoma Onyemaechi, Kasirim Nwuke,
                         Alexander Dan'Iyan)

For your newsgroups file:
soc.history.african.biafra	History of Biafra (Eastern Nigeria). (Moderated)

The charter, culled from the vote result announcement:

Issues:
-------
History of Eastern Nigeria up to May 30, 1967. History of events
leading to the declaration of the state of Biafra; the war between
Biafra and Nigeria; The Ahiara Declaration; Biafran experiences (food
crisis, survival strategies, mistrust between different groups in
Biafra, Biafran technologies, poetry, war songs, diseases (kwashiokor,
etc)); The roles of the international bodies (UN, OAU, etc); The
effects of cold-war and pre-colonial policies on the state of Biafra;
The structure and the de-structure of the Aburi Accord; The Biafran
national anthem; Biafran women of war (their role in the execution of
the war and other activities); Relief aid (its effectiveness,
difficulties of food distribution, relief efforts by western and
non-western agencies and the political involvements of the relief
agencies in the war); The alliance between Biafra and Israel: the big
deal between them; Biafran military strategies and technologies, The
use of mercenaries by both Biafra and Nigeria, The international media
and the "Biafran Babies", TV images and coverage of the Biafran life,
The lost children of Biafra (who are they and where are they now?, can
they ever be linked and/or returned to their kits and kins in
Nigeria?); Rumor mongering and its effects on Biafra; Biafra's
internal sociopoli- tical problems and their effects; The
effectiveness of OAU in settling internal African problems; The
politics of Biafran recognition within and outside Africa; Radio
Biafra and war propaganda; the abandoned property issues; the
implementation of the 3R's; The unity of Eastern Nigeria, the
imperatives; Aftermath effects of the Biafran war on Nigerian unity,
progress, and sociopolitical dynamics; The place of Biafra in Nigerian
and world history.

Topics:
-------
Possible specific topics include, but not limited to: The political
history of Eastern Nigeria prior to the emergence of Biafra. Could
Biafra have survived to this day? Where did the Biafran war of
survival go wrong? Did Ojukwu fight for Biafrans or for his personal
interests? Is there any way that the Biafran secession could have been
avoided? What did the Biafran military scientists invent and not
invent?  What went wrong with the Nigerian 2nd Division - did anyone
leak their plans to Biafra? Did Biafrans destroy the Nigerian 2nd
Div. by sheer chance or by some form of advanced warheads developed in
secrecy? How and why did Biafran soldiers kill fellow Biafran
soldiers? The Biafran "Boys Company", were Ojukwu and his commanders
justified in using them for intelligence gathering and other war
engagements? Did the Boys Company help the cause of the war? Did the
Biafran military scientists try to develop nuclear/biological weapons?
To what extent did the Nigerian/Biafran army use chemical weapons in
strategic battles? How effective were the Biafran-made weapons of mass
destruction (Ogbunigwe and Flying Ogbunigwe) and self-guided
surface-to-air missiles? The words and music of the Biafran anthem
(who wrote the anthem - Zik or Jean Sibelius (the author of the
Finlandia)?

What deal did Cameroon and Nigeria make to facilitate Biafra's defeat;
What deal did China and Biafra make and why did it fail to materialize?
What would Nigeria have been if Biafra had survived? Did Nigerian forces
lack confidence in Gowon? Did Awolowo actually betray Biafra?  Did Awolowo
and Zik work together to see to it that Biafra did not succeed? What role
did America, Britain, France, South Africa, Russia, and Egypt play in the
Biafran war? Did Cuba ever offer help to Ojukwu and Biafra and what happ-
ened? What role did the eastern minorities play in the Biafran struggle?
Who actually killed Nzeogwu, Nigerian federal forces or a group of envious
Biafrans? Why did Biafrans experiment with the scorched-earth strategies?
Did Biafran and Nigerian federal forces swap foods, women, and ammunition?
What shall be done to the living Biafran war criminals? Are there any
lessons from the Biafran war for the posterity?  Where did the Biafran
war leave the people of Eastern Nigeria? Is there any way out of it?
And many more but they must have something to do with Biafra.

Status:
-------
The 1st RFD was for an unmoderated soc.history.war.biafra. But due to the
opposition and advice received from readers of news.groups and other
history newsgroups changes in status and name were made in the 2nd RFD.
Our thanks to all involved. It is, therefore, proposed that
soc.history.african.biafra shall be a moderated newsgroup for the
discussion of Biafran history and affairs.

Participation:
--------------
Both Nigerian and non-Nigerian prospectives and ideas will be greatly
encouraged for the purpose of stimulating lively debate and mutual
education. It is expected, however, that due to the international
character of newsgroups, the discussions will be uniquely varied in
prospective and quite different from any other forum now existing. It
is requested, therefore, that this potential for international
prospectives on the Biafran history/Biafran war be encouraged by the
creation of a newsgroup specifically for that purpose.

Gateway:
--------
In order to give netters who have no access to USENET newsgroups the
opportunity to participate in the discussions,
soc.history.africa.biafra will be gated to Igbo--net
<igbo--net@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu> and any other Nigerian-interest
mailing list which desires it, through a moderated bi-directional
gateway so that only topics relevant to the charter of
soc.history.africa.biafra can be allowed passage. It is the
responsibility of the list-owner(s) or manager(s) to ensure that only
such articles are allowed passage to the moderators of
soc.history.africa.biafra. The moderators of soc.history.africa.biafra
reserve the right to shut off any mailing list which repeatedly
forwards articles that do not meet the requirements of the group
charter or any extinct mailing list. The vote to shut off any erring
mailing list is by simple majority of the current moderators.

Posts which deal extensively on contemporary Nigerian political
commentary of any kind are not acceptable and will be STRONGLY
discouraged by the moderators.

Moderation Mechanism and Off-topic Posts
--------------- ------------------------
We believe that moderation is not equal to censorship and shall never be
allowed to degenerate to censorship. However, we also believe that a
newsgroup should be free of irrelevancies. The following shall
be off-topic in soc.history.africa.biafra:

1) Posts not related to the purposes of soc.history.africa.biafra

2) Posts that exceed 75 characters per line. There is no restriction
   on the length of an submission.

3) Crossposts shall be allowed if the moderators feel that they
   have information which will interest readers of the newsgroup.

4) "Me too" posts; posts that contain an unreasonable amount of quoted
   text. As a general rule, a post will be rejected if less than 1/3 of
   it is new text. Posts, which in the opinion of the moderators, do not
   contribute any new discussion to an ongoing thread; intensely
   repetitive posts.

5) Commercial advertisements or personal advertisements that have nothing
   to do with biafra; "spam" articles; and robogenerated articles.

6) Obscene plagiarism and academic dishonesty, including the deliberate
   misattribution of quotations from historical documents and figures.
   The moderators shall interpret this rule loosely -- newsgroups are
   not academic journals -- but deliberate misattributions have poisoned
   the atmosphere in other newsgroups.

7) Posts containing profanity or excessive rudeness; posts that lack
   appropriate civility.  While well-placed heckles are acceptable,
   flamewars are not.  Any post full of personal abuse, slander or
   libel, or unauthorized reference to private e-mail addresses or
   mailing lists shall also be rejected.

8) Propagation of national, religious, racial, sexual, or ethnic
   hostility or animosity -- including posts openly justifying
   violence (in particular, violence against disabled people, women and
   children), war crimes, or ethnic cleansing.

9) Binary files, even if they are related to Biafra.
   Biafran-related binaries should be posted to the appropriate
   alt.binaries.* group with a pointer in soc.history.africa.biafra
   indicating where the binary in question may be found.

Moderators will neither screen postings for intellectual content nor
for accuracy beyond that contained in the charter of
soc.history.africa.biafra.

Moderators reserve the right to terminate any thread which degener-
ates into unacceptable namecalling, rudeness, vulgarity, or which they
feel has reached its end or flash point. Such threads shall be
terminated by a 2/3 supermajority of the current moderators.

Individuals who believe a particular moderator has unfairly rejected a
submission can appeal to the entire panel of moderators. The panel
will reevaluate the submission and make a majority decision as to
whether it will be posted.  In the event that the moderation panel is
evenly split over whether a submission ought to be posted, the
submission shall be posted.

Anyone may volunteer to join the moderation panel with the consent of
a two-thirds supermajority of the current moderators.  Moderators also
may be removed by a 2/3 supermajority of the moderation panel.  Of
course, moderators may resign of their own volition at any time.

The moderators may, at any time, develop a robomoderation script to
assist in their duties.

From tale@uunet.uu.net Tue Oct 29 10:35:03 1996
Path: uunet!bounce-back
From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence)
Newsgroups: soc.history.african.biafra
Subject: cmsg newgroup soc.history.african.biafra moderated
Control: newgroup soc.history.african.biafra moderated
Approved: newgroups-request@uunet.uu.net
Message-ID: <846603005.11771@uunet.uu.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 15:30:05 GMT
Lines: 193
X-Info: ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README.html
	ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README
X-PGP-Sig: 2.7 Subject,Control,Message-ID,Date,From,Sender
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	8/9YNHk4CntaSAAP61kWuimA40B1S3iI54l0ID252TWADWrvxkqgd1q+E29VZBFr
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	OETQUpB8odI=
	=6/jp
Xref: uunet control.newgroup:18078

soc.history.african.biafra is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for
creation by 156:25 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 17 Oct 1996.

Group submission address:  biafra@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
Moderator contact address: biafra@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
                        (Tochi Omenukor, Patience Akpan, Akobuije Chijioke,
                         Alexander Ukoh, Uzoma Onyemaechi, Kasirim Nwuke,
                         Alexander Dan'Iyan)

For your newsgroups file:
soc.history.african.biafra	History of Biafra (Eastern Nigeria). (Moderated)

The charter, culled from the vote result announcement:

Issues:
-------
History of Eastern Nigeria up to May 30, 1967. History of events
leading to the declaration of the state of Biafra; the war between
Biafra and Nigeria; The Ahiara Declaration; Biafran experiences (food
crisis, survival strategies, mistrust between different groups in
Biafra, Biafran technologies, poetry, war songs, diseases (kwashiokor,
etc)); The roles of the international bodies (UN, OAU, etc); The
effects of cold-war and pre-colonial policies on the state of Biafra;
The structure and the de-structure of the Aburi Accord; The Biafran
national anthem; Biafran women of war (their role in the execution of
the war and other activities); Relief aid (its effectiveness,
difficulties of food distribution, relief efforts by western and
non-western agencies and the political involvements of the relief
agencies in the war); The alliance between Biafra and Israel: the big
deal between them; Biafran military strategies and technologies, The
use of mercenaries by both Biafra and Nigeria, The international media
and the "Biafran Babies", TV images and coverage of the Biafran life,
The lost children of Biafra (who are they and where are they now?, can
they ever be linked and/or returned to their kits and kins in
Nigeria?); Rumor mongering and its effects on Biafra; Biafra's
internal sociopoli- tical problems and their effects; The
effectiveness of OAU in settling internal African problems; The
politics of Biafran recognition within and outside Africa; Radio
Biafra and war propaganda; the abandoned property issues; the
implementation of the 3R's; The unity of Eastern Nigeria, the
imperatives; Aftermath effects of the Biafran war on Nigerian unity,
progress, and sociopolitical dynamics; The place of Biafra in Nigerian
and world history.

Topics:
-------
Possible specific topics include, but not limited to: The political
history of Eastern Nigeria prior to the emergence of Biafra. Could
Biafra have survived to this day? Where did the Biafran war of
survival go wrong? Did Ojukwu fight for Biafrans or for his personal
interests? Is there any way that the Biafran secession could have been
avoided? What did the Biafran military scientists invent and not
invent?  What went wrong with the Nigerian 2nd Division - did anyone
leak their plans to Biafra? Did Biafrans destroy the Nigerian 2nd
Div. by sheer chance or by some form of advanced warheads developed in
secrecy? How and why did Biafran soldiers kill fellow Biafran
soldiers? The Biafran "Boys Company", were Ojukwu and his commanders
justified in using them for intelligence gathering and other war
engagements? Did the Boys Company help the cause of the war? Did the
Biafran military scientists try to develop nuclear/biological weapons?
To what extent did the Nigerian/Biafran army use chemical weapons in
strategic battles? How effective were the Biafran-made weapons of mass
destruction (Ogbunigwe and Flying Ogbunigwe) and self-guided
surface-to-air missiles? The words and music of the Biafran anthem
(who wrote the anthem - Zik or Jean Sibelius (the author of the
Finlandia)?

What deal did Cameroon and Nigeria make to facilitate Biafra's defeat;
What deal did China and Biafra make and why did it fail to materialize?
What would Nigeria have been if Biafra had survived? Did Nigerian forces
lack confidence in Gowon? Did Awolowo actually betray Biafra?  Did Awolowo
and Zik work together to see to it that Biafra did not succeed? What role
did America, Britain, France, South Africa, Russia, and Egypt play in the
Biafran war? Did Cuba ever offer help to Ojukwu and Biafra and what happ-
ened? What role did the eastern minorities play in the Biafran struggle?
Who actually killed Nzeogwu, Nigerian federal forces or a group of envious
Biafrans? Why did Biafrans experiment with the scorched-earth strategies?
Did Biafran and Nigerian federal forces swap foods, women, and ammunition?
What shall be done to the living Biafran war criminals? Are there any
lessons from the Biafran war for the posterity?  Where did the Biafran
war leave the people of Eastern Nigeria? Is there any way out of it?
And many more but they must have something to do with Biafra.

Status:
-------
The 1st RFD was for an unmoderated soc.history.war.biafra. But due to the
opposition and advice received from readers of news.groups and other
history newsgroups changes in status and name were made in the 2nd RFD.
Our thanks to all involved. It is, therefore, proposed that
soc.history.african.biafra shall be a moderated newsgroup for the
discussion of Biafran history and affairs.

Participation:
--------------
Both Nigerian and non-Nigerian prospectives and ideas will be greatly
encouraged for the purpose of stimulating lively debate and mutual
education. It is expected, however, that due to the international
character of newsgroups, the discussions will be uniquely varied in
prospective and quite different from any other forum now existing. It
is requested, therefore, that this potential for international
prospectives on the Biafran history/Biafran war be encouraged by the
creation of a newsgroup specifically for that purpose.

Gateway:
--------
In order to give netters who have no access to USENET newsgroups the
opportunity to participate in the discussions,
soc.history.africa.biafra will be gated to Igbo--net
<igbo--net@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu> and any other Nigerian-interest
mailing list which desires it, through a moderated bi-directional
gateway so that only topics relevant to the charter of
soc.history.africa.biafra can be allowed passage. It is the
responsibility of the list-owner(s) or manager(s) to ensure that only
such articles are allowed passage to the moderators of
soc.history.africa.biafra. The moderators of soc.history.africa.biafra
reserve the right to shut off any mailing list which repeatedly
forwards articles that do not meet the requirements of the group
charter or any extinct mailing list. The vote to shut off any erring
mailing list is by simple majority of the current moderators.

Posts which deal extensively on contemporary Nigerian political
commentary of any kind are not acceptable and will be STRONGLY
discouraged by the moderators.

Moderation Mechanism and Off-topic Posts
--------------- ------------------------
We believe that moderation is not equal to censorship and shall never be
allowed to degenerate to censorship. However, we also believe that a
newsgroup should be free of irrelevancies. The following shall
be off-topic in soc.history.africa.biafra:

1) Posts not related to the purposes of soc.history.africa.biafra

2) Posts that exceed 75 characters per line. There is no restriction
   on the length of an submission.

3) Crossposts shall be allowed if the moderators feel that they
   have information which will interest readers of the newsgroup.

4) "Me too" posts; posts that contain an unreasonable amount of quoted
   text. As a general rule, a post will be rejected if less than 1/3 of
   it is new text. Posts, which in the opinion of the moderators, do not
   contribute any new discussion to an ongoing thread; intensely
   repetitive posts.

5) Commercial advertisements or personal advertisements that have nothing
   to do with biafra; "spam" articles; and robogenerated articles.

6) Obscene plagiarism and academic dishonesty, including the deliberate
   misattribution of quotations from historical documents and figures.
   The moderators shall interpret this rule loosely -- newsgroups are
   not academic journals -- but deliberate misattributions have poisoned
   the atmosphere in other newsgroups.

7) Posts containing profanity or excessive rudeness; posts that lack
   appropriate civility.  While well-placed heckles are acceptable,
   flamewars are not.  Any post full of personal abuse, slander or
   libel, or unauthorized reference to private e-mail addresses or
   mailing lists shall also be rejected.

8) Propagation of national, religious, racial, sexual, or ethnic
   hostility or animosity -- including posts openly justifying
   violence (in particular, violence against disabled people, women and
   children), war crimes, or ethnic cleansing.

9) Binary files, even if they are related to Biafra.
   Biafran-related binaries should be posted to the appropriate
   alt.binaries.* group with a pointer in soc.history.africa.biafra
   indicating where the binary in question may be found.

Moderators will neither screen postings for intellectual content nor
for accuracy beyond that contained in the charter of
soc.history.africa.biafra.

Moderators reserve the right to terminate any thread which degener-
ates into unacceptable namecalling, rudeness, vulgarity, or which they
feel has reached its end or flash point. Such threads shall be
terminated by a 2/3 supermajority of the current moderators.

Individuals who believe a particular moderator has unfairly rejected a
submission can appeal to the entire panel of moderators. The panel
will reevaluate the submission and make a majority decision as to
whether it will be posted.  In the event that the moderation panel is
evenly split over whether a submission ought to be posted, the
submission shall be posted.

Anyone may volunteer to join the moderation panel with the consent of
a two-thirds supermajority of the current moderators.  Moderators also
may be removed by a 2/3 supermajority of the moderation panel.  Of
course, moderators may resign of their own volition at any time.

The moderators may, at any time, develop a robomoderation script to
assist in their duties.

From tale@uunet.uu.net Fri Nov 22 10:35:01 1996
Path: uunet!bounce-back
From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence)
Newsgroups: soc.history.african.biafra
Subject: cmsg newgroup soc.history.african.biafra moderated
Control: newgroup soc.history.african.biafra moderated
Approved: newgroups-request@uunet.uu.net
Message-ID: <848676606.952@uunet.uu.net>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 15:30:06 GMT
Lines: 192
X-Info: ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README.html
	ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/news/misc/pgpcontrol/README
X-PGP-Sig: 2.7 Subject,Control,Message-ID,Date,From,Sender
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	znerUBaE4ljCEzi4WMF4zXGK9QOE4CzLL4I30UMYeQJY0/cFw1619DcNe8dWZKbp
	AZWdB3ECAkQ=
	=bJCg
Xref: uunet control.newgroup:19294

soc.history.african.biafra is a moderated newsgroup which passed its vote for
creation by 156:25 as reported in news.announce.newgroups on 17 Oct 1996.

Group submission address:  biafra@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
Moderator contact address: biafra-mod@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
                (Patience Akpan, Akobuije Chijioke, Alexander Dan'Iyan,
                 Tochi Omenukor, Alexander Ukoh)

For your newsgroups file:
soc.history.african.biafra	History of Biafra (Eastern Nigeria). (Moderated)

The charter, culled from the vote result announcement:

Issues:
-------
History of Eastern Nigeria up to May 30, 1967. History of events
leading to the declaration of the state of Biafra; the war between
Biafra and Nigeria; The Ahiara Declaration; Biafran experiences (food
crisis, survival strategies, mistrust between different groups in
Biafra, Biafran technologies, poetry, war songs, diseases (kwashiokor,
etc)); The roles of the international bodies (UN, OAU, etc); The
effects of cold-war and pre-colonial policies on the state of Biafra;
The structure and the de-structure of the Aburi Accord; The Biafran
national anthem; Biafran women of war (their role in the execution of
the war and other activities); Relief aid (its effectiveness,
difficulties of food distribution, relief efforts by western and
non-western agencies and the political involvements of the relief
agencies in the war); The alliance between Biafra and Israel: the big
deal between them; Biafran military strategies and technologies, The
use of mercenaries by both Biafra and Nigeria, The international media
and the "Biafran Babies", TV images and coverage of the Biafran life,
The lost children of Biafra (who are they and where are they now?, can
they ever be linked and/or returned to their kits and kins in
Nigeria?); Rumor mongering and its effects on Biafra; Biafra's
internal sociopoli- tical problems and their effects; The
effectiveness of OAU in settling internal African problems; The
politics of Biafran recognition within and outside Africa; Radio
Biafra and war propaganda; the abandoned property issues; the
implementation of the 3R's; The unity of Eastern Nigeria, the
imperatives; Aftermath effects of the Biafran war on Nigerian unity,
progress, and sociopolitical dynamics; The place of Biafra in Nigerian
and world history.

Topics:
-------
Possible specific topics include, but not limited to: The political
history of Eastern Nigeria prior to the emergence of Biafra. Could
Biafra have survived to this day? Where did the Biafran war of
survival go wrong? Did Ojukwu fight for Biafrans or for his personal
interests? Is there any way that the Biafran secession could have been
avoided? What did the Biafran military scientists invent and not
invent?  What went wrong with the Nigerian 2nd Division - did anyone
leak their plans to Biafra? Did Biafrans destroy the Nigerian 2nd
Div. by sheer chance or by some form of advanced warheads developed in
secrecy? How and why did Biafran soldiers kill fellow Biafran
soldiers? The Biafran "Boys Company", were Ojukwu and his commanders
justified in using them for intelligence gathering and other war
engagements? Did the Boys Company help the cause of the war? Did the
Biafran military scientists try to develop nuclear/biological weapons?
To what extent did the Nigerian/Biafran army use chemical weapons in
strategic battles? How effective were the Biafran-made weapons of mass
destruction (Ogbunigwe and Flying Ogbunigwe) and self-guided
surface-to-air missiles? The words and music of the Biafran anthem
(who wrote the anthem - Zik or Jean Sibelius (the author of the
Finlandia)?

What deal did Cameroon and Nigeria make to facilitate Biafra's defeat;
What deal did China and Biafra make and why did it fail to materialize?
What would Nigeria have been if Biafra had survived? Did Nigerian forces
lack confidence in Gowon? Did Awolowo actually betray Biafra?  Did Awolowo
and Zik work together to see to it that Biafra did not succeed? What role
did America, Britain, France, South Africa, Russia, and Egypt play in the
Biafran war? Did Cuba ever offer help to Ojukwu and Biafra and what happ-
ened? What role did the eastern minorities play in the Biafran struggle?
Who actually killed Nzeogwu, Nigerian federal forces or a group of envious
Biafrans? Why did Biafrans experiment with the scorched-earth strategies?
Did Biafran and Nigerian federal forces swap foods, women, and ammunition?
What shall be done to the living Biafran war criminals? Are there any
lessons from the Biafran war for the posterity?  Where did the Biafran
war leave the people of Eastern Nigeria? Is there any way out of it?
And many more but they must have something to do with Biafra.

Status:
-------
The 1st RFD was for an unmoderated soc.history.war.biafra. But due to the
opposition and advice received from readers of news.groups and other
history newsgroups changes in status and name were made in the 2nd RFD.
Our thanks to all involved. It is, therefore, proposed that
soc.history.african.biafra shall be a moderated newsgroup for the
discussion of Biafran history and affairs.

Participation:
--------------
Both Nigerian and non-Nigerian prospectives and ideas will be greatly
encouraged for the purpose of stimulating lively debate and mutual
education. It is expected, however, that due to the international
character of newsgroups, the discussions will be uniquely varied in
prospective and quite different from any other forum now existing. It
is requested, therefore, that this potential for international
prospectives on the Biafran history/Biafran war be encouraged by the
creation of a newsgroup specifically for that purpose.

Gateway:
--------
In order to give netters who have no access to USENET newsgroups the
opportunity to participate in the discussions,
soc.history.africa.biafra will be gated to Igbo--net
<igbo--net@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu> and any other Nigerian-interest
mailing list which desires it, through a moderated bi-directional
gateway so that only topics relevant to the charter of
soc.history.africa.biafra can be allowed passage. It is the
responsibility of the list-owner(s) or manager(s) to ensure that only
such articles are allowed passage to the moderators of
soc.history.africa.biafra. The moderators of soc.history.africa.biafra
reserve the right to shut off any mailing list which repeatedly
forwards articles that do not meet the requirements of the group
charter or any extinct mailing list. The vote to shut off any erring
mailing list is by simple majority of the current moderators.

Posts which deal extensively on contemporary Nigerian political
commentary of any kind are not acceptable and will be STRONGLY
discouraged by the moderators.

Moderation Mechanism and Off-topic Posts
--------------- ------------------------
We believe that moderation is not equal to censorship and shall never be
allowed to degenerate to censorship. However, we also believe that a
newsgroup should be free of irrelevancies. The following shall
be off-topic in soc.history.africa.biafra:

1) Posts not related to the purposes of soc.history.africa.biafra

2) Posts that exceed 75 characters per line. There is no restriction
   on the length of an submission.

3) Crossposts shall be allowed if the moderators feel that they
   have information which will interest readers of the newsgroup.

4) "Me too" posts; posts that contain an unreasonable amount of quoted
   text. As a general rule, a post will be rejected if less than 1/3 of
   it is new text. Posts, which in the opinion of the moderators, do not
   contribute any new discussion to an ongoing thread; intensely
   repetitive posts.

5) Commercial advertisements or personal advertisements that have nothing
   to do with biafra; "spam" articles; and robogenerated articles.

6) Obscene plagiarism and academic dishonesty, including the deliberate
   misattribution of quotations from historical documents and figures.
   The moderators shall interpret this rule loosely -- newsgroups are
   not academic journals -- but deliberate misattributions have poisoned
   the atmosphere in other newsgroups.

7) Posts containing profanity or excessive rudeness; posts that lack
   appropriate civility.  While well-placed heckles are acceptable,
   flamewars are not.  Any post full of personal abuse, slander or
   libel, or unauthorized reference to private e-mail addresses or
   mailing lists shall also be rejected.

8) Propagation of national, religious, racial, sexual, or ethnic
   hostility or animosity -- including posts openly justifying
   violence (in particular, violence against disabled people, women and
   children), war crimes, or ethnic cleansing.

9) Binary files, even if they are related to Biafra.
   Biafran-related binaries should be posted to the appropriate
   alt.binaries.* group with a pointer in soc.history.africa.biafra
   indicating where the binary in question may be found.

Moderators will neither screen postings for intellectual content nor
for accuracy beyond that contained in the charter of
soc.history.africa.biafra.

Moderators reserve the right to terminate any thread which degener-
ates into unacceptable namecalling, rudeness, vulgarity, or which they
feel has reached its end or flash point. Such threads shall be
terminated by a 2/3 supermajority of the current moderators.

Individuals who believe a particular moderator has unfairly rejected a
submission can appeal to the entire panel of moderators. The panel
will reevaluate the submission and make a majority decision as to
whether it will be posted.  In the event that the moderation panel is
evenly split over whether a submission ought to be posted, the
submission shall be posted.

Anyone may volunteer to join the moderation panel with the consent of
a two-thirds supermajority of the current moderators.  Moderators also
may be removed by a 2/3 supermajority of the moderation panel.  Of
course, moderators may resign of their own volition at any time.

The moderators may, at any time, develop a robomoderation script to
assist in their duties.

