rec.radio.amateur.moderated Posting Guidelines

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Archive-name: radio/ham-radio/moderated/guidelines
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rec.radio.amateur.moderated Posting Guidelines

Welcome to rec.radio.amateur.moderated! RRAM is an online community for
amateur ("ham") radio operators and other people having an interest in
the Amateur Radio Service, as defined by national regulations and
international treaties.

The posting guidelines for this group include the following sections:

1. Acceptable and unacceptable topics
1.1 Acceptable topics
1.2 Unacceptable topics
1.3 Buy/sell/trade posts
2. Crossposting
3. Netiquette
3.1 Civility
3.2 Posting form
3.3 Anonymity and pseudonyms
3.4 Signature (.sig) files
3.5 Excessive quoting
3.6 Pointers to outside sources
3.7 Other sources of netiquette advice


1. Acceptable and unacceptable topics

rec.radio.amateur.moderated participants are invited to discuss amateur
radio issues and to exchange information about the hobby/service in an
atmosphere of civility, friendship, and fun.

Submitted posts must be on-topic for amateur radio. A rule of thumb that
our moderation team applies is whether the article mentions amateur
radio, ham radio, some synonym for amateur or ham radio, some technique
or practice of amateur or ham radio (including closely related technical
topics such as antennas or portable power), or regulatory policies that
directly affect amateur radio. This rule of thumb also determines
whether a thread has drifted too far off-topic. For example, articles
drift into general rants or monologues will probably be returned with a
polite request to rewrite them to include a reasonable amateur radio
connection or angle.

1.1 Acceptable topics

Acceptable topics for RRAM include (but are not limited to) questions
and discussions about amateur radio licensing and regulations, tips on
various aspects of setting up an amateur radio station, and operating
experiences and insights.

Posts that contain reasoned, civil, and fact-based discussion of the
activities and internal politics of national amateur radio societies are
also permitted. Relatively unbiased announcements or reviews of amateur
radio-related products or services may be permitted at the discretion of
the moderators. Please see the section "Buy/sell/trade posts" for
limitations on promoting products or services on this newsgroup.

1.2 Unacceptable topics

Unacceptable topics include (but are not limited to) buy/sell/trade
offers, promoting or defending unlawful activities, topics that are not
relevant to amateur radio, and meta-discussions about the group itself.

Mentions of unlawful operation in the Amateur Radio Service should be
limited to discussions of verified violations (documented in criminal
convictions or other government enforcement actions), factual
descriptions of the laws in various jurisdictions, and reasoned debate
over whether certain operating practices should or should not be
lawful. Posters' opinions as to what practices they consider unlawful
are not permitted. In particular, posters are cautioned not to
extrapolate their country's laws and regulations to those in other parts
of the world, as they may be quite different.

Posts that entirely concern themselves with other radio services or
hobbies--such as Citizen's Band, General Mobile Radio Service/Family
Radio Service, and scanner or shortwave listening--are considered
off-topic for the rec.radio.amateur.moderated newsgroup. Newsgroups such
as rec.radio.cb, rec.radio.scanner, and/or rec.radio.shortwave are more
appropriate venues for such posts.

Posts about the moderation policies of the newsgroup--including comments
about whether a specific posting should have been approved or
rejected--are also not permitted. Please direct any such feedback to our
administrative contact address, which is included in the headers of
every RRAM posting and is given at the end of these guidelines. Your
comments will be carefully considered by the moderators. If you are
objecting to a specific decision by the moderators, your message will be
forwarded to our appeals team, which is distinct from the initial team
of moderators that approves or rejects article submissions and thus can
provide independent oversight of moderation decisions.

1.3 Buy/sell/trade posts

Posts containing offers to buy, sell, or trade are not permitted on
RRAM. The rec.radio.swap newsgroup was created for this purpose, and
should be used instead. All such articles will be rejected by the
moderators with the advice to re-post to that newsgroup.

References to online sales or auction sites are acceptable as long as
they are incidental to the posting and do not directly benefit the
poster, a friend/relative of the poster, or the poster's
employer. Postings that are entirely advertisements or other public
relations materials will not be permitted. Posters are asked to disclose
their financial or professional interest, if any, in the products or
services they discuss.

Mentions of small amounts of free items for giveaway will be permitted
on an occasional basis from casual, non-commercial posters, and at the
discretion of the moderators. The items should be free except for
reasonable direct costs such as shipping. They must be directly related
to amateur radio, in serviceable condition, and practical to ship to a
distant recipient. This is intended as a common-sense exception to our
ban on for-sale postings, provided that such postings do not overwhelm
the basic character of our discussion newsgroup.


2. Crossposting Frequently-Asked-Questions lists and other
information/bulletin/announcement postings may be crossposted to
rec.radio.info, rec.answers, and news.answers only with prior approval
of the moderators of those newsgroups. In all such cases, an appropriate
"Followup-To" header containing only rec.radio.amateur.moderated will be
added by the moderators if one is not already provided.

Limited simultaneous crossposting is permitted between RRAM and
appropriate unmoderated newsgroups. Approved rec.radio.amateur.*
newsgroups are those listed in the latest version of the "List of Big
Eight Newsgroups" which is posted monthly to news.announce.newgroups,
news.groups, and news.lists.misc. Approved alt.radio.amateur.* and
alt.ham-radio.* newsgroups are those that have been created consistent
with the suggestions in "So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup" at
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-creation-guide. Approved regional hierarchy
newsgroups are those that contain either "radio.amateur" or "ham-radio"
in their names, including uk.radio.amateur and aus.radio.amateur.misc.

We make every reasonable effort to keep our list of approved newsgroups
up-to-date. In case we have overlooked any, and a submission is rejected
in error as a result, the rejected submitter can email us at our
administrative contact address (at the bottom of this article, and the
default Reply-To for the rejection message) requesting that it be added,
and that the article be approved. We may still choose to reject articles
crossposted to any alt.* newsgroup with an inappropriate name, including
obscene language, embedded name-calling, or encouragement of unlawful
conduct.


3. Netiquette

3.1 Civility

Posters are encouraged to state their own views and share their
experiences, but to maintain a basic tone of civility and refrain from
making assumptions about the motivations of other newsgroup
participants.

Nastiness addressed at a person is considered name-calling. Criticizing
a person's actions is not, provided that it is done in a civil
manner. For example, "That's a lie" implies an intentional prevarication
and is considered name-calling. Acceptable ways of questioning the truth
of a poster's statement include the more tactful "I don't think that's
true," "I believe you are mistaken because..." or even simply "That's
not true."

Posts containing unsolicited advice questioning the right, worthiness,
suitability, and/or readiness of any individual (or members of any
group) to be an amateur radio operator are unacceptable in this
newsgroup. That includes posts that arbitrarily declare certain classes
of amateur radio licenses or certain members of amateur radio societies
to be more or less worthy than others. If an individual chooses to post
asking for advice on when or whether to obtain an amateur radio license,
or to participate in any type of lawful activity in the Amateur Radio
Service, respondents should be careful to address their comments only to
the original poster and not explicitly generalize to others in similar
situations.

Posters are not required to support the American Radio Relay League
(ARRL) or other national amateur radio societies, but are expected to
adhere to the spirit of the other parts of the ARRL's Amateur's Code:

http://www.arrl.org/amateur-code


3.2 Posting form

Any article that falls into any of the following categories will be
automatically rejected:

A. Articles that contain original text of more than 75 characters per
line
B. Crossposted articles to newsgroups not included in these guidelines
C. Articles that contain more than 400 lines
D. Encoded binary files (except PGP and other short digital signatures)
E. Attachments to posts
F. Articles containing obscene language
G. Articles from individuals who have been suspended or banned from the
newsgroup

Submitted articles must not have excessive spelling, grammar, or logical
argument errors affecting readability and understandability. The
moderation team understands that clear, understandable, technical or
expository writing is a skill that can only be perfected through a
lifetime of focused training and practice. Because the moderation team
does not want to hold submitters to a standard higher than what it can
achieve itself, nor disrupt the newsgroup and discourage submitters by
playing spelling or grammar police, it will only return for rewrite any
article that cannot be reasonably understood by multiple moderators.

3.3 Anonymity and pseudonyms

Contributors to rec.radio.amateur.moderated are encouraged to use their
real names and/or amateur radio callsigns. This not only creates a
greater sense of community in the newsgroup, it also lends credibility
to posters' opinions.

However, as a pragmatic concession to the realities of the present-day
Internet, and consistent with the practices of other moderated
newsgroups, pseudonyms and unroutable email addresses are permitted with
some restrictions. We ask that the From: lines of submitted articles not
misrepresent your identity, not be changed often, and not match a user
or domain name other than your own (spoofing). Please also realize that
if you use an unroutable email address, you will not be able to receive
acknowledgment or rejection messages for your submitted articles.

3.4 Signature (.sig) files

Many people close each article they write with a few lines of common
text. This may be a cute quip or quote, or include family information,
contact information, or disclaimers required by their employer, to give
the most common examples.

Signature files used on rec.radio.amateur.moderated postings must be no
longer than 8 lines.

The content of a poster's signature need not be relevant to amateur
radio, but it must not violate any of the other posting guidelines. (For
example, name-calling that would not be acceptable in the body of a
message is also unacceptable in a signature.) Posters may include
website URLs and business addresses as long as their signature files
comply with all the other RRAM guidelines regarding signatures.

3.5 Excessive quoting

Posts more than 20 lines long that also have more than 75% quoted text
will be carefully reviewed by a moderator to determine whether that
degree of quoting is warranted. Posts with excessive quoted text may be
rejected.

Posters must show a reasonable effort to trim the post they are replying
to, and to include just enough material to establish the context for
their follow-up comments. "Me too!" posts are discouraged, and when
posted, must follow the same rule about trimming.

3.6 Pointers to outside sources

As mentioned in Section 1, unsolicited announcements and pointers to web
sites that are strictly advertisements or other public relations
materials are not permitted. However, a pointer to a website or other
external source of information is permitted and encouraged in cases
where it is relevant to an existing thread, with appropriate context
being given in the post. A URL with no information about what a user
should expect to find there will be rejected. A pointer to information
that is off-charter for RRAM will be rejected, as will a pointer which
itself does not meet the RRAM guidelines (such as a URL containing
embedded name-calling).

Moderators are not responsible for verifying the contents of any
external information source.

3.7 Other sources of netiquette advice

Participants who are new to Usenet should familiarize themselves with
the "netiquette" of Usenet as well as the particular posting guidelines
for this group. Several useful posts for "newbies" can be found on the
newsgroup news.announce.newusers or on the WWW at:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/news/news.announce.newusers.html

Particularly helpful articles are:
Welcome to Usenet!
Rules for posting to Usenet
Hints on writing style for Usenet
A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community
Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet

Please direct any comments, questions, or criticisms about these
guidelines to rec-radio-amateur...@panix.com.