rec.photo.moderated Posting Guidelines

[FAQ Autoposter]

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Archive-name: rec-photo-moderated-intro.txt
Posting-frequency: bimonthly
Last-modified: 2005/01/15 23:41:17
Version: 1.2
URL: http://www.robomod.net/rec.photo.moderated/


rec.photo.moderated Posting Guidelines

Copyright 2003-2005, Brian Edmonds
$Revision: 1.2 $ $Date: 2005/01/15 23:41:17 $

The latest version of this document can be found at
* http://www.robomod.net/rec.photo.moderated/
* post to the newsgroup or mailing list with the following text in
the subject (without the quotes): "send file: guidelines.txt"

Any inquiries, comments or suggestions should be sent to the group
moderation coordinator at rpm-t...@robomod.net.
_________________________________________________________________

Contents

* Introduction
* Charter
+ Miscellaneous Policies
+ Robomoderation
* How To Submit a Post
* The Mailing List
_________________________________________________________________

Introduction

The rec.photo.moderated newsgroup was created on May 8, 1995. The
group was originally moderated by Pete Bergstrom and Yasha Karant, but
fell into disuse in late 1997.

In April 2003 moderation of the group was passed to Brian Edmonds, who
is running the group and a companion, gated mailing list with the
assistance of his robomoderation software.

Since its creation a number of control messages have been sent which
at some sites appear to have erroneously changed the status of the
group to unmoderated. If this is the case at your site, you should
bring it to the attention of your news admin, as any postings you make
to a moderated group which is not properly recognized as such at your
site will be silently discarded at any site where the group is
correctly carried as moderated.
_________________________________________________________________

Charter

Rec.photo.moderated is a moderated Usenet newsgroup for the discussion
of topics related to the art and science of photography and that are
of interest to the serious amateur recreational photographer.

Articles must be relevant to the art or science of photography and of
interest to serious amateur recreational photographers, must be in
reasonably good taste, and must conform to Usenet guidelines. Suitable
topics include: the technical aspects of photographic equipment,
technique, optics, film, photographic philosophy, ethics and conduct,
photography as fine art, and brief reviews of new products and
announcements of events. Other topics may be accepted at the
moderators' discretion, with the main criterion being interest to
serious amateur recreation photographers.

Articles about topics usually associated with commercial/professional
photography may be accepted on a limited basis as long as they are
relevant to serious amateur recreational photographers. Thus, for
example, postings regarding wedding photography may be accepted if
they meet the relevancy test, but articles regarding the business
aspects of wedding photography are not acceptable.

Advertising is prohibited, except that brief notices of events, shows,
workshops, and the like will be considered if they relate to the art
or science of photography and are of interest to serious amateur
recreational photographers.

Postings must bear the submitter's real name and contain a valid reply
address. Authors that are affiliated with or have other financial
interest in manufacturers, distributors, or service providers must
disclose this fact in postings mentioning those products or services.

Picture (binary) postings are not accepted.

The moderators reserve the right to cut off the discussion of a topic
when its "signal to noise ratio" has dropped too low and reject
postings on recently discussed topics. They will also normally reject
postings comparing or seeking comparisons of equipment, "what xxx
should I buy?" and "me too" postings, and postings asking questions
the author could have answered for himself/herself with a minimal
amount of work. Flames will be rejected. Postings may be rejected
because of inappropriate crossposting, and postings to multiple
moderated groups will normally be rejected. (Approved FAQs, RFDs, and
CFVs are a special case.)

Miscellaneous Policies

The moderation software may (now or possibly in the future) enforce
the following policies:
* Postings must be in plain text. In particular no HTML or mixed
text and HTML posts will be allowed. Excessive quoting and large
sigs are strongly discouraged.
* Postings should be formatted within 80 characters in width
(limiting your lines to 72 characters is recommended), and also
should not exhibit the long/short/long/short/etc misformatting
that some posting agents can produce when misconfigured.
* No binary postings of any sort will be accepted. Exceptions will
be made for cryptographic signatures and such. S/MIME signatures
are usually far too bulky and will probably not be accepted.
* Crossposting is allowed to two groups other than
rec.photo.moderated, and followups must be to a maximum of two
groups. If the followups header is not set by the poster it will
default to rec.photo.moderated alone. Crossposts are not allowed
to another moderated group. Contact the moderator if you feel you
need to bypass any of these restrictions.
* Mail address blacklisting and whitelisting may be implemented as
deemed necessary. In addition a number of anti-spam filters are in
place, and will be expanded as needed.

All posts (with a working return address) will either be returned with
a rejection notice, or posted to the newsgroup and mailing list. One
exception is that rejection notices for the same error are suppressed
for a few minutes after the first one is sent to reduce the danger of
the robomoderator being used as a mailbombing agent.

Posting with a non-replyable address is strongly discouraged. If you
feel you must post with such an address, please make sure you are not
using one in a valid mail domain; appending .invalid to the address is
the recommended way to ensure this.

Robomoderation

The robomoderation software (robomod) enforces various anti-spam and
text formatting requirements. Note that in order to receive rejection
notices or other information from robomod it must have a valid email
address for you. More information on the registration process,
including how to use munged addreses, can be found at
* http://www.robomod.net/register.html
* post to the newsgroup or mailing list with the following text in
the subject (without the quotes): "send file: register.txt"

The moderators may at their discretion register addresses for
auto-approval, or revert them to hand moderated status.
_________________________________________________________________

How To Submit a Post

At a correctly configured site you should simply be able to post to
rec.photo.moderated and everything will be managed for you behind the
scenes. If you find this does not work for you, you can submit
directly to the submission agent by mailing your posting to
rec-photo...@robomod.net.

Please try the newsgroup first, and be sure to bring any problems to
the attention of your local news administrator so that they can be
dealt with.
_________________________________________________________________

The Mailing List

All postings to rec.photo.moderated are also distributed to the
mailing list rec-photo...@robomod.net, which is available in
both regular and digest format. For subscription information, send
email to rec-photo-mod...@robomod.net or visit the list
webpage at
http://www.robomod.net/mailman/listinfo/rec-photo-moderated.

Likewise, all postings to the mailing list are also distributed to the
newsgroup, so subscribers can use whichever of the newsgroup, list, or
digest formats is most comfortable.
_________________________________________________________________


Brian Edmonds
$Date: 2005/01/15 23:41:17 $