RFD: news.admin.net-abuse reorganization
Tim Skirvin
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group news.admin.announce (renames news.admin.net-abuse.announce)
unmoderated group news.admin.net-abuse.email
moderated group news.admin.net-abuse.policy
moderated group news.admin.net-abuse.reports
moderated group news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
unmoderated group news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
This is a formal Request for Discission (RFD) for the reorganization of
the news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy. This is not a Call For Votes
(CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below.
Newsgroup lines:
news.admin.announce Announcements for news adminstrators.(Moderated) (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.email Discussion of abuse of email systems.
news.admin.net-abuse.policy Discussion of net abuse policy.(Moderated) (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.reports Action reports about net abuse.(Moderated) (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.sightings Sightings of possible net abuse.(Moderated) (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet Discussion of abuse of the Usenet system.
RATIONALE: all groups
The topic of net-abuse is a pressing issue on Usenet today. Currently,
there are two major groups for discussion of the topic: news.admin.
net-abuse.announce, a moderated forum for announcements about net abuse,
and news.admin.net-abuse.misc, a group for everything else.
Unfortunately, each of these groups suffer from their problems. news.
admin.net-abuse.announce brings in fairly high traffic for a moderated
group (oftentimes upwards of 40-50 per day), mostly consisting of
reports of action taken against net abuse. However, this group is also
used for important announcements, of general interest to all news
administrators. Because of its high traffic levels, however, most
administrators are unable to follow the group.
news.admin.net-abuse.misc, on the other hand, is an unmoderated forum.
As a result of this, it is very high traffic - usually upwards of
several hundred messages per day, with a goodly portion of them
crossposted among many unrelated or only vaguely-related groups. The
traffic has gotten high enough to make it difficult to follow the group
for those that wish to learn about and discuss net abuse.
This proposal would help solve all of the major problems of the news.
admin.net-abuse hierarchy. First of all, news.admin.net-abuse.announce
would be split into two groups: news.admin.net-abuse.reports, a moderated
group for the reports of action that make up the bulk of the current
group, and news.admin.announce, a moderated, low-traffic replacement for
news.admin.net-abuse.announce that would be of interest to all news
administrators.
Secondly, the problems of news.admin.net-abuse.misc would be alleviated
by the creation of four supplmental groups in the news.admin.net-abuse
hierarchy: news.admin.net-abuse.email, for discussion of email abuse,
news.admin.net-abuse.sightings, a robomoderated forum for users to
announce sightings of net abuse, news.admin.net-abuse.usenet, for
discussion of Usenet abuse, and news.admin.net-abuse.policy, a robo-
moderated forum for discussion of policies regarding net abuse that
disallows crossposts. The additional groups will allow users to read
messages only on those topics that they are interested in.
Several automated tools will be used to help manage the groups. Most
moderation will take place via auto-moderation bots; all groups will be
watched over by "Dave the Resurrector", a program that automatically
reposts cancelled messages. Other tools may be used as circumstances
require.
MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.announce
Moderator: Dave Barr <ba...@math.psu.edu>
Moderator: Abby Franquemont-Guillory <abb...@tezcat.net>
END MODERATOR INFO.
MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.net-abuse.policy
Moderator: Scott Forbes <for...@ihlpf.att.com>
Moderator: Tim Skirvin <tski...@uiuc.edu>
END MODERATOR INFO.
MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.net-abuse.reports
Moderator: Dave Barr <ba...@math.psu.edu>
Moderator: Paul Phillips <pa...@cerf.net>
Moderator: Joel Furr <jf...@acpub.duke.edu>
END MODERATOR INFO.
MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
Moderator: J.D. Falk <jdf...@cybernothing.org>
Moderator: Tim Skirvin <tski...@uiuc.edu>
END MODERATOR INFO.
CHARTER: news.admin.announce
news.admin.announce is a forum for important announcements for news
administrators. It is a moderated forum, watched over by a team of
moderators for added speed. Possible topics for messages include
announcements regarding news transport or browsing software,
Frequently Asked Questions lists, announcements of new EMP cancellers,
announcements of new cancellation criteria, reports that directly
relate to the future of Usenet, reports of major net-related
censorship (such as the Communications Decency Act), and so forth.
news.admin.announce is moderated by a team of moderators. The moderators
will approve any message that they feel fits the following criteria:
1. The moderators feel the message is important for most or all news
administrators.
2. The formatting has <75 characters per line.
3. The message is not a binary, nor will it break standard Usenet
readers.
4. Followups for the message are set to one group only.
Unapproved messages will be cancelled. At any time, moderators can be added
or removed by a majority vote of the then-current moderators.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.email
news.admin.net-abuse.email is a forum for discussion of possible abuses
of e-mail. Possible topics include mailbombing, denial-of-service attacks,
"listserv bombs", unsolicited and/or unwanted mail, email address lists,
mailing list abuse, large-scale mailings in general, chain letters, "email
viruses" such as Good Times, chain letters such as MAKE.MONEY.FAST,
filtering software such as procmail, and so forth. Flames received
through email are not on-topic, unless they are part of another
problem.
news.admin.net-abuse.email is unmoderated.
END CHARTER.
[CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.misc
news.admin.net-abuse.misc is a forum for discussion of possible net
abuse not covered by the rest of the news.admin.net-abuse.* hiearchy.
Possible topics include ping-storming, site aliasing, denial of service
attacks, and anything else that does not fit into the other forums in the
news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy.
news.admin.net-abuse.misc is unmoderated.
END CHARTER.]
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.policy
news.admin.net-abuse.policy is a moderated forum for discussion of
policy and site-management issues related to net abuse. Possible topics
include Acceptable Use Policies, what actions should be taken against
abusers, discussion of third-party cancel messages, possible actions against
abusive sites such as rogue site declarations, discussion of what is and
is not net abuse, and so forth.
news.admin.net-abuse.policy is a moderated forum. The robomoderator of
the group will disallow any and all crossposted messages, message spews,
binary messages, and any possible attacks on the group as required. Dave
the Resurrector will be run on the group, forged approvals will be
automatically cancelled, and other programs may be used as circumstances
require.
news.admin.net-abuse.policy is moderated by a robot moderator, run by a
team of operators. The robot will automatically approve and post messages
that:
1. Are not crossposted.
2. Are formatted for <75 columns.
3. Cannot be determined to directly violate the charter of the group by
the robot moderator alone (for which the criterion will be published.)
Messages not approved by the robot moderator will be sent back to the
sender with a copy of the charter, though at most one copy of the
information will be sent per week. Messages with forged Approval: headers
will be automatically cancelled, and a report may be mailed to the offender.
Changes to the robot moderator can only be enacted by a majority vote of
the then-current operators; similarly, operators can be added or removed
by a majority vote of the then-current operators.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.reports
news.admin.net-abuse.reports is a moderated forum for reports of action
against net abuse. Appropriate subjects include cancellation notices
(EMP/ECP, spew, binary, and others), status reports from individual
systems of action taken against abusers, results of tracking campaigns,
"rogue site" declarations, and the like.
news.admin.net-abuse.reports is moderated by a team of moderators.
Followups will be set to one of the other news.admin.net-abuse.* groups as
appropriate. Dave the Resurrector will be run on the group, forged
approvals will be automatically cancelled, and other programs may be run
at the discretion of the moderators.
news.admin.net-abuse.reports is moderated by a team of moderators.
The moderators will approve messages based on the following criteria:
1. The message is a report of actions taken relating to net abuse.
2. The message is formatted for <75 columns.
3. The message is not determined to directly violate the charter of the
group.
The moderators may auto-approve posts from certain individuals, at their
own discretion.
At any time, moderators can be added or removed by a majority vote of
the then-current moderators. Messages with forged Approval: lines not
approved by the moderators will be cancelled.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
news.admin.net-abuse.sightings is a forum for reports of sightings of
net abuse in one form or another. It is a robomoderated forum, allowing
only properly formatted posts; violations will be either ignored or
cancelled, at the discretion of the bot's operator. Discussion of the
messages posted here is not on-topic for this group; followups are to be
set strictly out of the group, into the appropriate news.admin.net-abuse.*
group.
news.admin.net-abuse.sightings is moderated by a robot moderator, run by
a team of operators. The robot will automatically approve and post messages
according to the following criteria:
1. The message is formatted for <75 columns, excepting the copy of the
spotted abuse.
2. The message is formatted in plain text.
3. The message follows a publicized template specified by the operator
of the robot moderator. For example, the following format may be
standard for a Usenet abuse sighting:
--
(headers)
Subject: [usenet] (Standard Subject)
Followup-to: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
From: (valid address) -or- Reply-to: (valid address)
(other standard headers)
(body)
Abuse-spotted-in: (first group spotted)
Abuse-Subject: (subject from abuse)
Type-of-abuse: (EMP, ECP, binary, forgery, etc. No set rules here)
Description: (description and/or comments)
-
(Full headers of the abuse)
(Full body of the abuse)
--
Messages will be automatically reformatted by the robot moderator for
archival and standardization purposes, using procedures established by
the operator of the robot moderator. For example, the following changes
may be made, if deemed appropriate:
1. Only the first fifteen lines of the body of the abuse will be
posted; the rest will be archived, but not posted.
2. The abuse will be reformatted to fit into 75 columns.
3. If the abuse would cause technical problems with some newsreaders,
the problem text will be replaced with X's; if the abuse would
cause problems with most newsreaders, the article may not be
posted at all.
4. Several headers will be added at the discretion of the operator of the
robot moderator, such as the following:
a. X-Apparently-Complain-To: <postm...@apparent.site.of.abuse>
b. X-Archive-Number: (a unique number)
c. X-Note: Archives are kept at (a site for the archives)
Messages that do not meet these criteria will be sent back to the sender
with a copy of this charter and a listing of the published templates,
though at most one copy of this information will be sent out per week.
Messages with forged Approval: headers will be automatically cancelled,
and a report may be mailed to the offender. Changes to the robot
moderator can only be enacted by a majority vote of the then-current
operators; similarly, operators can be added or removed by a majority
vote of the then-current operators.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet is a forum for discussion of possible abuses
of Usenet (as defined in news.announce.newusers). Possible topics include
"spamming" or Excessive Multi-Posting (EMP), Excessive Cross-Posting (ECP),
forged or third-party cancellations, broken Usenet gateways, forgery of
another user, forged approval in moderated groups, massively crossposted
"flametrolls", abuse of the newsgroup creation system, general purpose
"netiquette", and so forth.
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet is unmoderated.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: all groups
The news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy is for discussion of abuse of Usenet
and/or the Internet; it is not for discussion of abuse on such networks,
such as flames or personal attacks.
Binaries are specifically prohibited from all groups in the news.admin.*
hierarchy, except as examples of other abuse. Dave the Resurrector, a
program that reposts cancelled articles, will be run on the hierarchy at
all times. Spams, gateway spews, and other attacks on the system itself
will be removed as appropriate.
END CHARTER.
PROCEDURE:
This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase
of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroups
should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue
for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this
proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For
Votes (CFV) will be posted by a neutral vote taker. Please do not
attempt to vote until this happens.
All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.
This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How
to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these
documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any
questions about the process.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD has been posted to to the following newsgroups:
news.admin.net-abuse.announce, news.admin.net-abuse.misc,
news.admin.censorship, news.admin.hierarchies, news.admin.technical,
news.groups, news.announce.newgroups
-
Proponent: Tim Skirvin <tski...@uiuc.edu>