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RFD: soc.religion.hindu-reorganization
The following message was just posted to news.announce.newgroups, and
the submitter requested that it also be posted to your group. Since I
did not have prior approval for posting there, it is being submitted
to you separately. If you accept it for your group, please use the
headers below.
Please let me know whether any following "official" stages of this
proposal can be cross-posted directly to your group from
news.announce.newgroups, and if so whether that permission extends to
other future proposals which are relevant to the topic of your group.
If you have already contacted me about this, I am sorry for the redundancy.
My posting script does not have enough AI to know.
Thank you.
David Lawrence, moderator, news.announce.newgroups
Newsgroups: soc.religion.hindu
From: shrao@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Shrisha Rao)
Reply-To: reorg@srirangam.esd.sgi.com (SRH-Reorg Group)
Subject: RFD: soc.religion.hindu-reorganization
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: .
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group talk.religion.hindu
moderated group soc.religion.hindu.moderated (renames soc.religion.hindu)
moderated group soc.religion.hindu.info
This is a formal Request For Discussion on the reorganization of the
soc.religion.hindu.* hierarchy.
Newsgroups lines:
soc.religion.hindu.info (moderated) Information of interest to Hindus. (Moderated)
soc.religion.hindu.moderated Moderated forum for Hindu-related matters. (Moderated)
talk.religion.hindu About Hindus and Hinduism.
RATIONALE: all groups
It is beyond question that there exists a very high level of interest
in the UseNet community in having one or more newsgroups devoted to
the discussion of Hinduism in all its aspects.
There exists at present a moderated newsgroup soc.religion.hindu,
which unfortunately has several shortcomings in its existing
setup. These have recently been apparent, and this proposal seeks to
fill in a number of such oversights in SRH's construction, by making:
i> - provisions for multiple moderators to ensure quick response and
fairness;
ii> - provisions for replacement of moderators;
iii> - clear definitions of moderation guidelines;
iv> - provisions for handling disputes between an author and a
moderator;
v> - clarifications regarding what constitutes unacceptable behavior
by a moderator.
There is also some interest in the 'Net user community for expanding the
SRH.* hierarchy to include an unmoderated newsgroup talk.* group, and also
another newsgroup that will just be for informational postings only. These
additions will help provide suitable avenues for all types of
Hindu-related discussions, and the presence of multiple moderators will
ensure that submissions move faster, and that there is always a check to
prevent any one moderator from having an undue influence.
Also, in spite of the existing soc.religion.hindu newsgroup having a
large audience, it has a relatively low volume of postings. This may
be attributed to the long delays that are usual to that newsgroup,
which tend to prevent meaningful discussion. It is certain that faster
moderation and the addition of more specific groups will remove the
artificial encumbrances that now restrict the volume of postings on
the existing newsgroup, or drive it into other newsgroups like
soc.culture.indian. By having dedicated unmoderated groups to discuss
some of the topics that now clutter the soc.culture.indian.*
hierarchy, it is expected that groups in that hierarchy will be made
less noisy as well.
CHARTER: soc.religion.hindu.moderated
The newsgroup soc.religion.hindu.moderated will be for discussions of
any and all matters pertaining to the practice or study of
Hinduism. Moderators will reject inappropriate postings according to
the moderation policy outlined, but will not restrict discussions as
such. Political announcements, hortatory articles, calls-to-action,
reminders of past misdeeds, special-format postings, etc., will be
rejected, as will postings that espouse hate. Moderators will
discourage political discussions, but will permit postings that
mention politics, as long as such are of an interest to a
non-political audience.
Except for announcements by a moderator, no posting is to be crossposted
between this group and the other moderated group, soc.religion.hindu.info.
However, followups from soc.religion.hindu.info, talk.religion.hindu, or
other groups, will be accepted if such are suitable.
Moderation policy:
Each moderator will serve until he resigns voluntarily, or is
dismissed by an unanimous vote of the other moderators. New moderators
will be appointed as needed, taking into account the sentiments of the
SRH.* readership, by a unanimous vote of all moderators, or by a
unanimous vote of the remaining moderators, in case of dismissals by
vote. The number of moderators is not to be less than three, except
possibly during brief periods of transition. All new moderators must
be be people who understand and adhere to the charters and moderation
policy. All additions of new moderators will be announced a minimum of
one week before taking effect; departures of old ones will be
announced as soon as they are known to, or caused by, other
moderators.
Moderators will strive to maintain consistent standards of acceptance
and rejection, and will attempt to maintain transparency in their
actions. While not being so restrictive as to cause abridgment of
free speech, they will reject:
1> completely irrelevant postings, and off-topic responses;
2> postings with ad hominem attacks;
3> personals and personal messages;
4> postings with large ASCII graphics;
5> special-format files, such as binaries, MIME, BinHex, etc.;
6> grossly profane or indecent writings;
7> badly formatted postings (lines over 80 characters long, entire
paragraphs written in capital letters, too many blank spaces, etc.);
8> postings violative of Netiquette, such as discussions of ongoing RFDs;
9> articles that exactly repeat the same answer as given in another
recent posting, in response to a query on the group(s), and have
nothing new;
10> repeated postings, that are wholly or substantially the same as
previously posted ones;
11> anonymous postings, and postings with fake/incomplete/non-replyable
'From:' headers;
12> forwarded postings sought to be made in another person's name;
13> postings sent to administrative address, a moderator's personal
address, or other incorrect address;
14> articles with excessive quoting -- those that:
i) quote all or much of a previous long posting only to make a short
comment;
ii) quote long passages from copyrighted works, without extensive
commentary as required for fair use.
In addition, material whose copyright is not owned by the poster, or
specifically given to the poster by its owner, may, at the moderator's
discretion, not be accepted for posting, to avoid any possible charges
against moderators of complicity in copyright infringement.
All announcements and other informational postings must appear only in
soc.religion.hindu.info, and not in soc.religion.hindu.moderated; no
advertisements for specific products or services, want ads, etc., are
to be permitted on SRH.info, unless such are of substantive
informational value to the global Hindu community.
No article except administrative announcements by a moderator may be
crossposted between the two moderated groups. Moderators are to discourage
crossposts in general, and shall reject inappropriate crossposted
responses coming from postings to other groups, but will accept suitable
followups to SRH.moderated, from postings to SRH.info or talk.religion.hindu.
Articles may also be crossposted between SRH.moderated/info and
talk.religion.hindu, provided they are acceptable on the former.
If a moderator is of the opinion that a posting submitted for
soc.religion.hindu.info is more appropriate on SRH.moderated, or vice
versa, he will inform the author of the posting of this, and offer the
latter the choice of either withdrawing the posting, or having it
posted appropriately. If the moderator's view is disputed by the
author, the latter may request a review by a second moderator; if the
second moderator agrees with the author, then the posting will be made
as originally requested. Otherwise, the author will have to make a
final choice of either withdrawing the submission, or having it posted
at the appropriate place.
No article is to be rejected because it espouses views the moderator
disagrees with. For this reason, moderators will not be held responsible
for the contents of postings to the moderated groups. Moderators will not
edit postings as such, but may, at their discretion, remove large
signatures and graphics, excessive whitespace, etc., and may correct bad
formatting. Moderators may also add notes reminding readers of specific
aspects of the moderation policy, or such, or may correct or change
inappropriate headers.
Each article that is rejected by a moderator once shall be kept for a
period of one week, during which time it may be reviewed and passed by
another moderator. A second rejection will be considered final, and
the rejected article may not be resubmitted without substantive
changes. An attempt must be made to inform authors of rejected
postings of rejection, and a copy of the message sent archived for a
period of at least one month, for reference. If a moderator wishes to
participate in an ongoing discussion, or wishes to make a new posting,
then his posting may _only_ be approved by another moderator, and all
other aspects of the moderation policy apply as to any other author. A
moderator will not be considered as such with respect to his own
(prospective) postings.
In case an author/poster willfully and repeatedly submits clearly
inappropriate material to hassle readers or moderators, the moderators
may, by a unanimous vote, announce that person banned from the
moderated groups for a certain period. This privilege is not to be
lightly used, and should always be announced before taking effect.
This option is available _only_ to keep known abusers of the UseNet
from harassing moderators, and is not meant to curtail discussion.
For this reason, on no account may any individual be banned by less
than a unanimous vote of all moderators.
No person serving as moderator of the SRH.* groups may claim status as
such in any message except communication in his capacity as moderator
(such as with authors of postings to SRH.* groups), and in
administrative postings to said groups that relate to the newsgroup(s)
themselves. Specifically, no moderator may use the official
moderator's account for any purpose except performance of moderation
duties. Any claim to status in matters unrelated to the SRH.*
newsgroups, or misuse of the official moderation account for any
purpose other than performance of moderation duties, will be
considered grounds for automatic dismissal.
In case of genuine and irremediable differences of opinion among
moderators, the moderators will be subject to binding arbitration by
moderators-advice at UUNET. This includes cases where two or more
moderators misuse the moderation account, or are unresponsive so that
neither can be removed by a unanimous vote of the others for the work
to carry on, and such.
The moderators shall reach an agreement as to sharing duties, so that
articles submitted are, to the extent possible, cleared daily, except
on weekends and major holidays.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: soc.religion.hindu.info
This will be a moderated newsgroup purely for informational postings
of current/topical value, and announcements of events. No discussion
as such is to be permitted on this newsgroup, and except for
announcements by a moderator, nothing is to be crossposted between
this and soc.religion.hindu.moderated. No commercial postings, ads,
personals, etc., are to appear, but announcements of religious,
social, or cultural events, and other useful information of current
value that is of use in studying or understanding Hinduism, are
appropriate. To be accepted, all postings must adhere to minimum
standards of decency. Hortatory postings, political announcements,
calls-to-action, articles that seek to remind of past misdeeds against
Hindus, etc., will not be accepted.
Moderation policy:
The moderation policy for this newsgroup will be the same as that of
soc.religion.hindu.moderated.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: talk.religion.hindu
This will be an unmoderated forum to permit a wide range of
discussions about matters of current or historical interest to those
who practice or study Hinduism. Issues related to politics, language,
religion, and such are to be discussed in a non-abrasive fashion, and
then only if they are specifically relevant to the past or present of
Hindus or Hinduism. Discussions promoting or advocating hatred,
especially on the basis of language, religion, ethnic origin, etc.,
are to be avoided.
Crossposting of articles not specifically relevant to Hinduism is
strongly discouraged. Also discouraged are personals and personal
messages, large ASCII graphics, special-format files, any postings of
a purely commercial nature, and ad hominem attacks of any kind.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: soc.religion.hindu.info
Moderator: Srinivas Kandala <srini@inrs-telecom.uquebec.ca>
Moderator: Anshuman Pandey <apandey@u.washington.edu>
Moderator: Srini Pichumani <srini@eecs.umich.edu>
Moderator: Raghu Seshadri <seshadri@cup.hp.com>
END MODERATOR INFO.
MODERATOR INFO: soc.religion.hindu.moderated
Moderator: Srinivas Kandala <srini@inrs-telecom.uquebec.ca>
Moderator: Anshuman Pandey <apandey@u.washington.edu>
Moderator: Srini Pichumani <srini@eecs.umich.edu>
Moderator: Raghu Seshadri <seshadri@cup.hp.com>
END MODERATOR INFO.
PROCEDURE:
The posting of this RFD initiates a discussion of at least three weeks'
(21 days') duration. The discussion is restricted to news.groups only;
do not discuss this on other newsgroups. At the end of that time, a
neutral party, the Usenet Volunteer Votetakers (UVV) will post a Call
For Votes (CFV) containing detailed instructions. Do not confuse this
RFD with a CFV; the voting will not commence until later.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD is cross-posted to the following newsgroups:
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, soc.culture.indian,
alt.india.progressive, soc.religion.vaishnava, soc.religion.hindu,
soc.religion.eastern
This message will also be sent to the following mailing lists after
the RFD has appeared in news.announce.newgroups.
HSC mailing list <hsc@umdnj.edu>
Indology mailing list <indology@liverpool.ac.uk>
Indo-European list <indoeuropean-l@cornell.edu>
Follow-ups have been directed to news.groups. Please honor that, and
keep the discussion to news.groups only, to the extent possible. Any
discussion of this RFD on other groups *must* be crossposted to
news.groups also.
To aid in keeping Netiquette, the proponents will ensure that all
their replies go to news.groups *only*, and anyone interested in
seeing such replies is advised to read news.groups; they will not
receive replies crossposted.
Proponent: reorg@srirangam.esd.sgi.com (SRH-Reorg Group)
Note: this is a mailing alias that will reach all proponents:
Mani Varadarajan <mani@srirangam.esd.sgi.com>
Henry Groover <HGroover@Qualitas.com>
Vijay Sadananda Pai <vijaypai@ece.rice.edu>
Vivek Sadananda Pai <vivek@cs.rice.edu>
Shrisha Rao <shrao@nyx.cs.du.edu>
--
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