[ADMIN] Posting Guidelines for net.support.* (draft)
Wednesday
This is the initial version of posting guidelines for
the net.support.* hierarchy. They will be posted semi-
regularly, at an interval to be decided shortly, to
net.support.config and net.support.announce. (At the
bare mimimum, anyhow.)
Input on these guidelines should be either posted to
net.support.config or mailed to <wedn...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>.
A more formal version will be drafted and implemented over the
next few weeks.
These are policy for the time being, but may well be
subject to heavy revision. Hell, they probably will be,
but it's been too long, you know?
(And sorry about that. *sigh*)
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All posts to net.support.* are subject to the restrictions
and requirements for sound headers as set forth for USENET
2 in general. (USENET 2's web pages are available at
http://www.usenet2.org/ and contain all manner of guidelines.)
Above and beyond these basic requirements, net.support.* has
a few of its own.
1) Crossposts.
Crossposts outside of net.support.* are discouraged, with
the exception of posts being redirected inside or outside
the hierarchy with a Followup-To: header (for example, if
a discussion of Prozac has drifted into a game of Mornington
Crescent, crossposting to net.general and setting followups
there is appropriate). In all cases where crossposting is
inappropriate, the user will be asked to cancel and repost
their article.
2) Anonymous posting.
No provisions have yet been made for an anonymous posting
service for net.support.* (a sound penet-style server is in
progress, but far from being completed). As all posts to
USENET 2 must have a valid, replyable-to From: header,
anonymizing oneself by using a bogus From: field is right
out (it wouldn't keep you from being traced anyhow). At the
moment, your options are:
* Obtain a separate account (or mailbox) not tied to your
regular identity.
* Have a friend post the article for you.
* Ask the czarina nicely to post the article for you (she will,
for the time being, until and unless demand gets too high).
Alias-based, penet-style remailers not cleared by the czarina
run the risk of getting all posts originating from them cancelled.
Only remailers whose administrators have demonstrated both
soundness and trustworthiness to the czarina and those she trusts
to advise her (this may well likely include, but not be limited
to, letting her see your code, and/or making it publically
available) will be permitted. This is a harsh policy based on
unfortunate past experiences with malicious admins.
3) Subject: tags.
When at all possible, please tag your message in such a way
that it is clear what the post is about from the Subject:
header. For example:
Subject: [ADMIN] Posting Guidelines for net.support.*
indicates that this is an administrative post. Making use of
the Keywords: header is also recommended in adjunct to this.
This will allow people who do not feel safe discussing certain
subjects to be better able to killfile accordingly.
A list of suggested tags will be compiled if there is demand.
4) Body formatting.
Posts formatted so poorly as to be unreadable are discouraged.
If a post fits this category, the user will be asked to cancel
and repost their article. Remember: delete all irrelevant quoted
text, keep your lines 79 characters long at most, keep your .sigs
to a reasonable length, common sense.
MIME and HTML posts will be cancelled on sight, if no one else
gets to them first.
5) Content.
Please do not be abusive towards other posters. This includes
mocking/belittling them or a condition they might have, calling
them names, whatever. By extension, be sensitive when making
generalizations or jokes about a group of people, a condition,
and/or a situation.
Venting is okay. Occasionally, strong words are quite
appropriate. However, be careful; this *is* a space for
people with complicated, often highly emotionally charged
personal problems, and many matters may need to be tread
lightly upon/around.
If you are posting something particularly explicit or disturbing,
and you do not think the keywords and subject tag are enough warning,
include a few blank "spoiler" lines and/or a ctrl-L code to give
the reader an extra out should you feel it necessary. Use this
sparingly (we're a fairly hardy bunch, really) and don't go
overboard when you do it. Posts with pages and pages of spoiler
space will very likely be cancelled and reposted without spoilers
at all.
Topic drift is necessary and expected; a support group often
serves the purpose of not only being a place to talk about the
immediate concerns, but to take one's mind off of matters by
talking about the tangents as well. However, if it seems a
thread is getting very much out of the scope of the newsgroup
in question, please redirect the thread elsewhere.
If you are looking to do a survey, a study, an experiment or
a paper, please look elsewhere. Support groups do not exist
as places for guinea pigs to reside. Posts asking for what
amounts to "help with your homework" will be cancelled.
net.support.* is not designed as a home base for political
action or mass movements. Posts along the lines of "can we
get rid of this web site that is hurtful to X population" or
"please take X action to get rid of horrible Y thing that
happens to millions of Z people" are off-topic. If you feel
such a post might be of interest to people reading, please
feel free to post a pointer to an article elsewhere.
Use common sense. Don't be mean, do be respectful, and don't
be stupid. The czarina has long since lost patience with
stupid people.
---
Thus concludes the thingamajiggie for the moment until
the czarina has more stuff to put in there.
--
wedn...@chiark.greenend.org.uk / wedn...@tezcat.com / like, see, and
I just wanna say that being voted as this month's Miss August is, like,
a compliment I'll remember for as long as I can... -- Miss Julie Brown