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soc.culture.hindu and soc.RELIGION.hindu
[also posted to sci and news.groups separately]
Since the RFD (Request for Discussion) debate on
soc.religion.hindu group took place long ago, i am presenting
the charters (the charter of the current group, as
existing, and charters of the groups under reorganization
proposal)
please note that the full details of the rationale etc can
be found the original RFD document posted on
news.announce.newsgroups in Dec, 1995.
you will notice that current group as existing today sounds
like soc.CULTURE.hindu, while the proposed reorganization
will attempt to *separate* articles into separate groups:
(1) those that *primarily* deal with *religious* aspects
will go to soc.RELIGION.hindu.moderated.
(2) those that are about announcements, informative links
etc will go to soc.religion.hindu.info and
(3) all other posts that deal with hindus and hinduism
including political articles will go to UNMODERATED
talk.religion.hindu group.
Please *note* that the group was referred to as
soc.CULTURE.hindu in the last para of the charter
of the current existing srh group.
please note that under the reorganization proposal, the
srh.moderated will focus on hindu-dharma. purely political
articles will go to talk.religion.hindu unmoderated group.
gopal
Charter of Currently *existing* Soc.religion.hindu group
------------------------begin inclusion #1-----------------
-------------------charter of *current* srh------------------
CHARTER
Hindu dharma (religious philosophy and way of life) is followed by over
650 million people in the world. Prominent among its teaching are the
acceptance of various religious paths, and the sprit of universal family.
Although there is soc.religion.eastern, soc.religion.hindu will be
different. It will be the forum to discuss various Hindu docterines as
they are applicable to day to day living. Unlike soc.religion.eastern, =
it
will also be used as a forum to discuss various issues that affect Hindus
living around the world. These issues include, environmental awareness
from the Hindu perspective, war and peace, human rights and =
participlation
of Hindus in political process to promote the universal ideals mentioned
above. It will also be used as a forum for cultural news about Hindus
from around the world.
This forum will also be different from soc.culture.indian (sci) because,
sci is more concerned with the issues affecting India, whereas
soc.culture.hindu will be of interest to the people from around the world
who are eager to learn about the Hindu dharma (religious philosophy + way
of life) and culture.
---------------end inslusion--------------------------------------------
Charter of the proposed groups after reorganization
please note that i am including only soc.religion.hindu.moderated
and talk.religion.hindu (unmoderated) groups. the third
group soc.religion.hindu.info is meant for announcements and info
posts and its charter is not being included herer.
Charter for groups under reorganization proposal
---------------------------begin inclusion #2 ----------------
--charters of srh.moderated and talk.religion.hindu (unmoderated)--
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: 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.
-------------------------------END inclusion -------
