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Why Is SRH Reorg RFD Biased: Moderation Policy Comparision


Namaskar,

When we pointed out personal vendetta and petty politics, the proponents
of the SRH (Soc.Religion.Hindu) Reorg. RFD pointed out that their goals
are not these, but only the betterment of the newsgroup SRH.  They
suggested that the charter of SRH was poorly written, and that the 
moderation policy was ill defined etc. etc.

Since many of the proponents of the re-organization of SRH were amongst
the proponents and/or most vocal supporters and/or moderators of SRV, 
I looked up the charter of the newsgroup Soc.Religion.Vaishnava, and found 
that most of the proposed changes for SRH are not in SRV charter as well.

Surely, most of the readers will sense double standards here.
 

This is one clear indication that the proposed reorganization move is
a sinister political attempt to control the newsgroup, unfortunately.

Here are some proposed moderation policies for SRH, which find no equivalent
in SRV moderation policies. What the proponets claim as "oversight" in 
the moderation policy is prefixed by ">" in this post.

> ii>  - provisions for replacement of moderators;

SRV charter has no such policy!  Why impose it on SRH?  Sure, the proponents
will argue that the moderation is to be done by the software, however,
the following questions are not answered:

a. what if, in the future the readers want to replace the software with
human beings? why is the charter silent about this?

b. where are the provisions for replacing the moderators who share the
hardware and software maintanence responsibilities? (note that I am not
advocating their replacement)

Note that most moderated newsgroups, like SRH and SRV do not have the
policy for replacement of moderators.  
   
> iii> - clear definitions of moderation guidelines;

Anyone who has taken time to read the SRH Moderation policies will dispute
this.  These policies are available for review:

http://rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu:8080/soc_hindu_home.html

> iv>  - provisions for handling disputes between an author and a
>       moderator;

Interestingly enough, there is no such policy for SRV either.  SRV is
an automoderated newsgroup, and the posts may be rejected if some
key words are missing.  There is a hardware and software maintainer, but
the charter does not spell out who one would appeal to if the software
rejects your post.  Nor a provision for the readers to suggest / comment
upon keywords that the software may accept/reject.  


> v>   - clarifications regarding what constitutes unacceptable behavior
>       by a moderator.

Another clause missing in SRV charter.

For the benefit of SRH, SCI.* and news.groups readers I am enclosing the
charter and moderation policy of SRV.

This just goes to show that the proponents of the reorganization are
not really interested in the improvement of the charter/moderation
policy, because if they truly  felt this, then they would have implemented 
it in SRV first!

Please note that the intention here is not to show that the SRV charter is 
poorly written.

In fact, SRH is one of the most democratic newsgroups.  In the event
of any moderation policy change, a proposal is first posted, eenough time is 
granted for input from the readers and then the modified policy
is implemented.  In past three and a half months, we have done this
twice. 

My contention remains, that the move to reorganize Soc.religion.hindu
is entirely politically motivated.  Those who fought hard to keep the word
Hindu out of the Vaishnava newsgroup now seek to control the Hindu newsgroup
and if they were indeed interested in more Hindu newsgroups,  they would have
suggested more groups along the lines of Soc.religion.Vaishnava, such as

soc.religion.hindu.shivaite
soc.religion.hindu.vedas
soc.religion.hindu.puranas
soc.religion.hindu.bhajans
etc.

or accepted my suggestion for expanding the SRH hierarchy along these 
lines.  But they have done neither.  Perhaps not surprising!!

I hope that the readers of this newsgroup will see through this petty
political move.

regards,

Ajay Shah
ajay@mercury.aichem.arizona.edu


-----------------charter and moderation policy of SRV------------------
CHARTER: soc.religion.vaishnava

The newsgroup soc.religion.vaishnava will be an auto-moderated forum
for discussion of all topics having a bearing on the study of, and
devotion to, Vishnu, the Supreme Lord. General topics will include,
but will not be restricted to, scripture and its interpretation
according to various Vaishnava schools, the lives, works, and
teachings of various prominent Aachaaryas, and issues relating to
devotion and the study of Vaishnava doctrine. The moderation of this
newsgroup is not to be done directly by humans, and will always be
only for the purpose of preventing inflow of irrelevant material;
there will be no restriction otherwise, and the newsgroup will provide
for the free exchange of diverse views.

Moderation Policy:

The moderation will be primarily for the purpose of eliminating all
cross-postings, and will be done by auto-moderation tools
(custom-built computer programs), with human intervention kept to the
minimum level required to keep said programs operating
satisfactorily. The tools will be utilized to auto-moderate posts to
the forum by:

a) rejecting cross-posts;
b) limiting the number of submissions from one individual per
   twenty-four hour period to four;
c) rejecting "shouting" articles
   (THOSE WITH THE SUBJECT AND/OR ARTICLE IN ALL CAPS), and those that
   use too many special characters in the subject -- as for example,
   Re: $$$ Make Big Bucks now!!!! $$$', 'You're insane!!!!!!!!', etc.;
d) rejecting postings which have twice or more as much quoted text as
   new text, as well as those with too many blank lines (four or more
   blank lines in succession, and/or a third or more of the posting
   length due to blank lines);
e) rejecting articles that do not feature certain keywords (which
   will be specified in the regularly-posted FAQ for the newsgroup,
   to ensure that people read said FAQ).

moderation will be done by a program
Mani Varadarajan ODERATOR INFO: soc.religion.vaishnava

Moderator: Mani Varadarajan <mani@srirangam.esd.sgi.com>
Moderator: Henry Groover <HGroover@Qualitas.com>
Administrative contact address: srv-request@atlantis.mae.cornell.edu
Article submission address: srv@atlantis.mae.cornell.edu

END MODERATOR INFO.




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