Archive-name: objectivism/newsgroup-admin
Posting-Frequency: weekly
Last-modified: 2005/04/26
Version: 1.37.01
URL:
http://wiki.killfile.org/projects/usenet/faqs/hpo/ humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Administration FAQ, v1.37
(Disclaimers: The author of this document is in no way liable for misuse
of the information contained within, nor is he in any way responsible
for damages related to the use or accuracy of the information.)
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Table of Contents * = updated since last minor version
I. What is HPO?
a. What is humanities.philosophy.objectivism?
b. How do I read and post to the group...
1. ...via Usenet?
2. ...via E-Mail?
3. ...via the web? *
c. How is the group moderated?
1. What are moderation guidelines? *
i. Can I get the source code? *
2. How does the moderation work?
3. What are the moderator's policies?
II. So your post was rejected...
a. Why was my post rejected? *
b. Why aren't my posts showing up on my system?
c. How do I turn off confirmation messages?
III. What other resources are there?
a. What other sources for information on Objectivism are there? *
b. What is planned for the future of HPO? *
Appendix A: The official charter of humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Appendix B: Why ban Neo-Tech?
Appendix C: What is PGPMoose?
Appendix D: Why is my news server broken, and how do I fix it?
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I. What is HPO?
a. What is humanities.philosophy.objectivism?
humanities.philosophy.objectivism (hereby referred to as HPO)
is a moderated group for discussion of ideas related to Objectivism,
the philosophy created by Ayn Rand. HPO was created on June 12, 1996,
having won its vote for creation by a margin of 362:46.
The HPO Homepage at http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/hpo/, and
contains the newsgroup's charter, past logs of the group, and other
information regarding HPO.
b. How do I read and post to the group...
1. ...via Usenet?
If your news server already carries HPO, simply add the group to
your list of active newsgroups. If your news server doesn't carry HPO,
it might be a bit more of a challenge; just ask your news administrator
(politely!) to add it. Include the following details:
Moderation Address: humanities-philosophy-objectiv...@moderators.isc.org
-or- tskirvin+...@killfile.org
Moderator Contact Address: tskir...@killfile.org
Once this is done, messages should automatically appear on your
system, and you can post as you would to any normal newsgroup; if you
have questions about how to do this, ask your news administrators.
If your news server does not receive HPO, or if there are problems
with your local site, you can also read and post through HPO's main news
server. Just point your newsreader at news.killfile.org - there should be
instructions in your newsreader's manual.
2. ...via E-Mail?
At this point, there is no mailing list for distribution of HPO;
however, such a list would not be difficult to create if there were
sufficient desire. Email contributions to HPO are accepted, if mailed to
tskirvin+...@killfile.org .
3. ...via the web?
Archive for the past many years can be read through Google Groups
(http://groups.google.com/). The group can also be read seen using the
news<->web gateway at http://news.killfile.org/ .
c. How is the group moderated?
1. What are moderation guidelines?
HPO is controlled by a moderation bot, which is maintained
by an impartial operator. Messages are automatically posted, based
on the following criteria:
o The message is posted only to HPO, and is not crossposted to any
other groups;
o The message is not an encoded binary message;
o The message is formatted to have 80 or less characters per line
of text;
o The message contains less than 80% quotes from previous messages;
o The message is not related to any subjects that have been deemed
off-topic by the moderator, and;
o The message is not authored by any that the operator feels have
violated any of the above rules repeatedly or maliciously.
Commercial advertising and discussion of Neo-Tech are specifically
off-topic for HPO. Also, morphing (changing your 'From' line) to avoid
killfiles is a bannable offense.
As most posting is automatic, there is a strong potential for
messages to be posted that violate the rules of the newsgroup. To this
end, the operator of the moderation bot is authorized to issue cancel
messages that he deems inappropriate for the group.
The operator of the moderator bot may change or ignore any and all
moderation policies as necessary to ensure the survival of the newsgroup.
The current banlist:
Name Reason
Jerry Threatening the president
2. How does the moderation work?
The moderation bot, named Mackie, is based off of Verimod, a
moderation package written by Tim Skirvin, and procmail, a mail filtering
system. Put simply, the robot moderator will process your message and
post it, unless you violate one of the basic rules:
o Your article must have a From: and Subject: line.
o Your article isn't crossposted to any other newsgroups.
o No line of the body of your message is more than 80 characters long
(though lines will be wrapped if possible).
o Less than 80% of your message quotes another message.
o Your message doesn't look like a binary or off-topic message.
o Your message doesn't look like spam, based on a simple header and
body check (these guidelines are not published, as they change
near-constantly, but are pretty basic - don't put "XXX", "$$$",
or anything similar in your headers and you'll be okay).
o You are not on the banlist.
Messages that are approved are injected into the local news
server, and propagate standardly to the rest of Usenet.
i. Can I get the source code?
The source code for the moderation bot was never officially or
publicly released, in large part because I've grown kindof embarrassed of
it. If you're interested in it, give me a mail.
3. What are the moderator's policies?
<informal>
Policies...hmm, how best to describe them... Well, I'm not here
because I'm an Objectivist - I'm not, which is one of the reasons I was
requested to moderate this group in the first place. My goal here is to
help keep Usenet (and specifically HPO) working, hopefully without taking
up all of my time.
In general, I keep my hands as far away from the group as
possible. I read very few of the messages that go through the group;
mostly I just scan the subject headers, or I occasionally read a thread
about some topic that looks interesting. My main role is to cancel
blatantly off-topic messages that made it through the mod-bot, which
usually consist of MAKE.MONEY.FAST posts and other spams. When it is
brought to my attention, I also have to enforce the rest of the charter
- specifically the ban on Neo-Tech and advertisements. I don't enjoy
doing that kind of stuff, trust me, but I'm willing to do it to keep the
newsgroup alive.
If you're having any technical problems with the group, mail me
personally (at tskir...@killfile.org) - don't try to post about the problems,
I probably won't read it. If you see what appears to be a charter vio-
lation, mail me about it, and I'll take care of it. If you have any sug-
gestions, feel free to mail them to me too. Just leave me out of the
personality clashes on the group and I'll be happy...
</informal>
II. Why wasn't my message posted?
a. Why was my post rejected?
Well, step one is "check your rejection notice" - that's what
they're for, after all. The most common violations:
o Your message was crossposted to two or more groups. If this is
the case, please resubmit your message to HPO alone.
o Your address was identified as being on the banlist. If this is
the case, please, don't resubmit; if absolutely necessary, contact
me, at tskir...@killfile.org.
o Your message contained excessive quoting. If this is the case,
feel free to rewrite and resubmit your message according to the
group guidelines.
o Your message looked like spam, from a simple pattern match. If
your subject line is in all caps, or looks like a MAKE.MONEY.FAST
message, try changing that and resubmitting.
Of course, it's also possible that the 'bot just screwed up, or
there was some minor problem with the submission; if in doubt, mail the
moderator.
b. Why aren't my posts showing up on my system?
As with all things, there are many possibilities.
o If your post was rejected, you should have gotten a rejected notice
with the reasons for the rejection; feel free to fix the message up
and resubmit it.
o Even if your message was rejected, you may not have gotten a
rejection notice for your post if you use a "spam-block" email
address; all I can say to this is "stop using them".
o My local news server might not be working right. If this happens,
I'll do what I can to fix it, but give me some time - see Appendix D.
o Your posts may not have propagated to your site yet. The standard
delay for messages to appear at your system may vary from several
seconds to several days; if you are positive that your messages
are not propagating, please contact me.
o The moderator bot may never have received the message in the first
place. If this is the case, you will need to check your news
system; please check the submissions address, or contact your news
administrators.
o The moderator bot may have just screwed up. Trust me, it happens;
if you think this is the case, again, mail me.
c. How do I turn off confirmation messages?
If you include
...
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