RFD: rec.arts.furry moderated
Kay Shapero
moderated group rec.arts.furry
This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.furry. This is not a
Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural
details are below.
Newsgroups line:
rec.arts.furry Funny Animal fandom discussions. (Moderated)
RATIONALE: rec.arts.furry
For many years, the newsgroup, alt.fan.furry has been the site of
lively discussion by fans of fictional animals which resemble humans
in some fashion, mentally (as per Watership Down) or physically (such
as Bugs Bunny, or the gods of Ancient Egypt). This also includes
science fictional aliens, fictional beings composed of anmal and human
genes (see _Forests of the Night_ by S. Andrew Swann), "funny animals"
in comic books and cartoons, and so forth. There is also discussion
of the activities of "furry" fans, and discussion themes may cover
just about everything that humans get involved in.
Unfortunately, this also includes a number of themes that attract
flames as well as rational discussion, (most notably politics) and of
recent years the newsgroup has been repeatedly disrupted by
particularly nasty arguments, accusations, and "trolling" to the point
where some have taken to calling it alt.flame.furry. Many users have
been driven away by this sort of thing, and the rest tend to keep huge
killfiles.
After extensive discussion, it has become clear that moderating the
extant newsgroup is undesirable at best, impossible at worst.
Argument does have its place. But there also seems a place for a
separate, moderated group, hence the proposal of Rec.Arts.Furry
CHARTER: rec.arts.furry
The purpose of Rec.Arts.Furry is for the discussion of fictional
animals with human characteristcs, physical and/or mental
("anthropomorphic") as used in literature, artwork and the like, and
to serve as a resource for the exchange of news and information
relevant to the fandom. The newsgroup is moderated; deliberate
disruption ("trolling") ad-hominem arguments and flaming in general
are banned. Messages may not be crossposted to other newsgroups. No
binaries will be allowed.
There will be a minimum of three moderators, each of whom may approve
messages. They will use the server at fur.news-admin.org, the
moderatior address will be moder...@fur.news-admin.org. These will
be elected by the users of the newsgroup, with the aid of an impartial
vote taker. The moderation server will hold mssages until approved by
a moderator, or 10 days has psssed. Any messages not approved will be
returned to the poster with an explanation. Moderators will be
allowed to pre-approve all messages from the same poster (other than a
moderator).
Moderators will be chosen by ballot as follows:
An impartial vote taker will be agreed on, and candidates for
moderator will be presented to the users of the group as a whole for
approval and voted on. All candidates with approval ratings of 60% or
over w ill be accepted. If this yields fewer than 3 moderators, the
three with the hig hest ratings will be accepted. Replacement
elections will be held on a 2-yearly basis. A moderator may also be
subject to a vote of "no confidence", versus a proposed replacement
candidate on the same basis. No more than one vote of "no confidence"
may be held per month.
For the first election only, the election will be held by users of
alt.fan.furry, and the various newsgroups and furry mailing lists as
shown below.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: rec.arts.furry
Moderation will be done from the server at fur.news-admin.org (points
to www.taronga.com); the moderator address will be
moder...@fur.news-admin.org. There will be a minimuam of 3
moderators.
Moderator: Moderation Team <moder...@fur.news-admin.org>
END MODERATOR INFO.
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) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion
warrants it. 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:
alt.fan.furry, fur.announcements, Furry...@onelist.com,
furry...@topica.com
Proponent: Kay Shapero <kay.s...@salata.com>
Proponent: M. Mitchell Marmel <marm...@drexel.edu>
Ken Arromdee
(What _is_ it that makes people put absolute 'no binaries' clauses in
newsgroups?)
--
Ken Arromdee / arro...@rahul.net / http://www.rahul.net/arromdee
"Eventually all companies are replaced." --Bill Gates, October 1999
Jay Denebeim
Ken Arromdee <arro...@rahul.net> wrote:
>I suggest you allow PGP signatures and other similar small binaries.
>
>(What _is_ it that makes people put absolute 'no binaries' clauses in
>newsgroups?)
Because it's easier to say that. Talking abut pgp signatures and
x-faces etc gets klunky. Besides everyone knows those are
acceptable.
Jay
--
* Jay Denebeim Moderator rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated *
* newsgroup submission address: b5...@deepthot.aurora.co.us *
* moderator contact address: b5mod-...@deepthot.aurora.co.us *
* personal contact address: dene...@deepthot.aurora.co.us *
Bob McClenon
dene...@deepthot.aurora.co.us (Jay Denebeim) wrote:
> In article <84s5ds$en2$1...@samba.rahul.net>,
> Ken Arromdee <arro...@rahul.net> wrote:
> >I suggest you allow PGP signatures and other similar small binaries.
> >
> >(What _is_ it that makes people put absolute 'no binaries' clauses in
> >newsgroups?)
>
> Because it's easier to say that. Talking abut pgp signatures and
> x-faces etc gets klunky. Besides everyone knows those are
> acceptable.
>
> Jay
> --
In other words, "no binaries" is understood to mean "no binaries
except PGP signatures and certain other small binaries". Of course,
isn't "no binaries" really a required restatement of a general rule
for all non-binary newsgroups? Haven't you and others pointed out
that news administrators won't permit binaries in a non-binary
hierarchy, regardless of what the charter says? In that case, isn't
the "no binaries" clause really required simply to ensure that the
proponent isn't trying to advocate something unworkable?
Also, what are some of the synonymous ways of stating that binaries
are not permitted, except for PGP signatures, etc.?
Also, what sorts of small binaries besides PGP signatures are
permitted in non-binary newsgroups?
- - Bob McClenon
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Jon Bell
Kay Shapero <kay.s...@salata.com> wrote:
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group rec.arts.furry
[snip]
>CHARTER: rec.arts.furry
[snip]
>There will be a minimum of three moderators, each of whom may approve
>messages. They will use the server at fur.news-admin.org, the
>moderatior address will be moder...@fur.news-admin.org. These will
>be elected by the users of the newsgroup, with the aid of an impartial
>vote taker. The moderation server will hold mssages until approved by
>a moderator, or 10 days has psssed. Any messages not approved will be
>returned to the poster with an explanation. Moderators will be
>allowed to pre-approve all messages from the same poster (other than a
>moderator).
I suggest that you avoid specific references to the "mechanical" details
of moderation (server name, etc.) in the charter, and put those in a
separate document which you might call the "Administrative Statement". In
news.newusers.questions, for example, the charter contains only the
general principles of moderation and the procedures that the moderators
use for managing themselves (choosing new moderators etc.). The
Administrative Statement lists the current specific criteria for rejecting
postings, the current moderators, etc. See
http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/ for details.
The idea is that the moderators can change the Administrative Statement
easily to meet changing conditions, but they cannot change the charter as
easily (nor do they need to change it under normal conditions).
Keep in mind that although the moderators can change the rules under which
the group operates, and any copies of the charter that they control (on a
Web site or regularly posted to the group), they cannot change the copy
that is archived at ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/
as part of the RFD, CFV and vote results. So in the interest of avoiding
confusion, it's a good idea to avoid changing the charter unless it's
absolutely necessary.
>Moderators will be chosen by ballot as follows:
[snip election procedures]
>For the first election only, the election will be held by users of
>alt.fan.furry, and the various newsgroups and furry mailing lists as
>shown below.
You should do this *before* bringing this proposal to a vote, and list the
prospective moderators in a revised RFD. I don't think I've ever seen a
CFV for a moderated group that didn't specify the initial set of
moderators. People should know who the initial moderators are going to be
if the group passes, because that may very well affect their vote on the
group itself.
--
Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
[ Questions about newsgroups? Ask in news:news.newusers.questions ]
[ or visit http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/6882/ ]
Genna Reeney
news:9469647...@isc.org...
| REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
| moderated group rec.arts.furry
|
|
| For many years, the newsgroup, alt.fan.furry has been the site of
| lively discussion by fans of fictional animals which resemble humans
Can you give us some specifics on traffic?
--
Cheers,
Genna
Jay Denebeim
Bob McClenon <mccl...@erols.com> wrote:
>Of course, isn't "no binaries" really a required restatement of a
>general rule for all non-binary newsgroups? Haven't you and others
>pointed out that news administrators won't permit binaries in a
>non-binary hierarchy, regardless of what the charter says?
Well, in my case there's a couple of reasons. First is educational.
I think it's important that everyone on usenet has this no binaries
thing beaten into their heads until it's so ingrained that they start
beating others over the head. Second it can do some good. There are
sites that won't stop people from posting binaries as a general rule,
but will enforce the charter.
Also, remember that most of the damage has already been done. Yes
running cleanfeed or whatever keeps the binaries off your spool and
prevents the miscreant from enjoying the fruits of their labor.
However, as people have mentioned, disk space is cheaper than
bandwidth and since most transit servers run without any filtering
they're still going to be chewing up the bandwidth.
>In that case, isn't the "no binaries" clause really required simply
>to ensure that the proponent isn't trying to advocate something
>unworkable?
Yes, but they don't know any better or else it would already have been
mentioned in the RFD, therefore it's an educational exercise.
>Also, what sorts of small binaries besides PGP signatures are
>permitted in non-binary newsgroups?
I believe the concensus is anything smaller than a vcard. IOW vcards
are right out, but smaller things arn't.
This works out to be cryptographic signatures, xfaces (I should get
that working :-)), and geek codes (if you wanna call those binary)
Russ Allbery
> "Kay Shapero" <kay.s...@salata.com> wrote:
>> For many years, the newsgroup, alt.fan.furry has been the site of
>> lively discussion by fans of fictional animals which resemble humans
> Can you give us some specifics on traffic?
Yes, there are about 100 articles a day in alt.fan.furry, another 100 or
more in alt.lifestyle.furry (which is somewhat related, although not as
directly so), and probably 200-300 articles a day scattered around other
random newsgroups and hierarchies.
This proposal definitely does not have a problem with traffic levels, at
least in my opinion.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Jim Doolittle
dene...@deepthot.aurora.co.us (Jay Denebeim) wrote:
> In article <yl3dsd8...@windlord.stanford.edu>,
> Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> >This proposal definitely does not have a problem with traffic levels, at
> >least in my opinion.
>
> Yeah, furries tend to be busy little, er, beavers.
>
> I do have a slight problem with this though. Furry is a fetish, and
> as such I'm a little uncomfortable with the way it's being
> described. This newsgroup would not be for kids, but it would be
> difficult to tell from the description.
Hmm. Well, that certainly depends on who you ask. I certainly don't
consider it a fetish, unless you count spending money on fancy wildlife
art contaning wolves to be one. Or printing fanzines. Or organizing
conventions. Which are about the craziest things I do in furry fandom.
Most of the discussion topics on alt.fan.furry (if you can get away from
the flames) center on furry (anthropormophic) art, comics (yes, there
are some X-rated titles, but certainly not the majority), and various
online activities.
As a datapoint, a large amount of the artists on the http://www.yerf.com
furry art archive are teenagers under the age of 18. I don't see any
problem with the description remaining as it is, because in my opinion,
the newsgroup should be quite suited for the kids. Especially with a
moderation system in place to cut back on the flamers spewing
profanity-laden posts.
-Jim
--
Jim Doolittle CornWuff Press
dool...@tbcnet.com http://www.cornwuff.com
Art Show Director, Midwest FurFest
http://www.furfest.org
Russ Allbery
> Yeah, furries tend to be busy little, er, beavers.
> I do have a slight problem with this though. Furry is a fetish, and as
> such I'm a little uncomfortable with the way it's being described. This
> newsgroup would not be for kids, but it would be difficult to tell from
> the description.
Um....
Furry is quite a bit more than a fetish. This group doesn't appear to be
the place to talk about fetishes (and there's a separate group for that
already in the alt.sex.* hierarchy). Anthropomorphic animals are quite
popular in genres totally outside of erotica, and there certainly is
interest for other reasons than it being a fetish.
Christopher Biow
>Jay Denebeim <dene...@deepthot.aurora.co.us> wrote:
>>I believe the concensus is anything smaller than a vcard. IOW vcards
>>are right out, but smaller things arn't.
>vcards aren't binary to start with, though. The information in them is human-
>readable.
vcards are better dealt with as overlong .sigs or attachments. The
misc.kids.moderated standards have worked well:
|1) The robomoderator screens every article submitted to
|misc.kids.moderated. It returns any article that falls into any
|of the following categories, automatically sending a note explaining
|the reasons for rejection:
|...
| D) Encoded binary files (except PGP and other short digital
| signatures)
| E) Other non-plaintext formats at the moderators' discretion
| F) Attachments to posts
We've also got a 6-line (not including first separator) .sig standard, but
that seems not to be in our charter.
Jay Denebeim
>This proposal definitely does not have a problem with traffic levels, at
>least in my opinion.
Yeah, furries tend to be busy little, er, beavers.
I do have a slight problem with this though. Furry is a fetish, and
as such I'm a little uncomfortable with the way it's being
described. This newsgroup would not be for kids, but it would be
difficult to tell from the description.
Jay
Kate Wrightson
Jay Denebeim <dene...@deepthot.aurora.co.us> wrote:
>I do have a slight problem with this though. Furry is a fetish, and
So are a lot of other things. Furry is not *only* a fetish, and the
furries I know or have run into on the net are overly scrupulous about
marking things as Appropriate for Under 18 and Adults Only.
>as such I'm a little uncomfortable with the way it's being
>described. This newsgroup would not be for kids, but it would be
>difficult to tell from the description.
I think you need to do a little more research. alt.fan.furry is not
alt.fetish.plushies.
--
___________________________________________________________________________
ka...@eyrie.org Kate Wrightson www.eyrie.org/~kate
Just another psycho bitch elf maiden, let loose on an unsuspecting USENET.
Please do not mail me copies of material posted to newsgroups.
Aahz Maruch
Kate Wrightson <ka...@eyrie.org> wrote:
>
>I think you need to do a little more research. alt.fan.furry is not
>alt.fetish.plushies.
Heh. You should see our stuffed anteater.
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het <*> http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6
The problem with an ever-changing .sig is that you have to keep changing it.
Kate Wrightson
Aahz Maruch <aa...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <84u97t$9re$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>,
>Kate Wrightson <ka...@eyrie.org> wrote:
>>
>>I think you need to do a little more research. alt.fan.furry is not
>>alt.fetish.plushies.
>
>Heh. You should see our stuffed anteater.
Given the context, and despite how I adore you, no thanks.
Camstone Fox
I am all for this (considering the amount of spam on the newsgroup),
but what happened to alt.fan.furry.moderated ? It seems to have no
posted messages or discussions... it also seems like three moderators
are a bit few for the number of hits the NG should be generating.
On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 05:45:42 GMT, kay.s...@salata.com (Kay Shapero)
wrote:
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group rec.arts.furry
(Snip for the purpose of saving bandwidth...)
Peter H.M. Brooks
From: Peter H.M. Brooks <peter@peter@psyche.demon.co.uk>
Subject: RFD: za.local.cape-town
Newsgroups: news.groups,soc.culture.south-africa,za.misc
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
unmoderated group za.local.cape-town
This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
world-wide unmoderated Usenet newsgroup za.local.cape-town. This is not
a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural
details are below.
CHANGES from previous RFD:
None, this is the first RFD
Newsgroup lines:
za.local.cape-town - Cape Town, the Mother City of South Africa
RATIONALE: za.local.cape-town
The newsgroup soc.culture.south-africa is for general matters and does
not cater particularly to local Cape Town questions. A number of people
have supported the idea of a newsgroup specifically for Cape Town
matters related to it and the Cape Peninsular [later groups could be
established for particular parts of the Peninsular if interest and
traffic supported the idea]. The rational for me proposing this, despite
having a UK address, is that I have moved to Cape Town and am living
here permanently even though I do not yet have a South African ISP.
RATIONALE: za.local.*
At the moment the za.* hierarchy does not have a local sub-domain.
Other countries have found it useful to create such a sub-domain for the
discussion of matters relating to local communities. Recent discussion
in soc.culture.south-africa has raised the fact that a matter relating
to a local Cape Town newspaper, for example, will not be relevant to a
reader in Durban. Other cities may wish to create their own entries
under this newsgroup.
CHARTER: za.local.cape-town
za.local.cape-town The city of Cape Town, South Africa
Charter for unmoderated group za.local.cape-town
za.local.cape-town is for discussion of issues relating to Cape Town,
South Africa.
All adverts are forbidden. Short (i.e. under ten lines) announcements
for local events may be posted provided they are
non-commercial, relevant to the Cape Town area, and that they are not
posted more frequently than once per month. Such
announcements should have a subject line with the prefix "ANNOUNCE: ".
Messages posted to this newsgroup must not be cross-posted to more than
a TOTAL of four za.local.* newsgroups; these may be geographically
adjacent or overlapping, or connected by the subject of the post (e.g.
"moving house from Cape Town to
George").
Note that the advertising of widely available goods or services is
*not* relevant in this context, and that most za.local.* groups will
have restrictions on advertising, or prohibit it. Cross-posted
adverts, where allowed, must meet the requirements of the charters of
*all* groups involved.
All posts must be in plain text. Attachments, HTML and other types of
formatted text are not permitted, however short
(under four-line) references to relevant FTP-able material and web
URL's are welcome.
END CHARTER
CHARTER: za.local.*
This is a supplemental charter section that applies to all the above
groups. It's optional and does not replace any of the above charters,
nor does it mean that any of the regular group charters can be
omitted. When the group is created, this section will be appended to
the individual charter in each group's creation message.
This section is here because there is no za.local.* hierarchy as yet,
this will
Create one.
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) may be
posted by a neutral vote taker. Please do not attempt to vote until
this happens. The precedent of za.health which was created with no RFD
and no
CFV suggests and has not been rmgrouped suggests that a vote may not be
required - this will be determined by the discussion in this RFD.
Normally this message would be posted to one of za.admin, za.config,
za.news or za.usenet, since none of these exist I have chosen to post it
as shown below
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. This is the most likely looking proposal
around as there isn't one for the za.* hierarchy.
DISTRIBUTION:
This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups:
news.groups,soc.culture.south-africa, za.misc
Proponent: Peter H.M. Brooks <pe...@psyche.demon.co.uk>
David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus)
<dene...@deepthot.aurora.co.us> wrote:
[...]
>I do have a slight problem with this though. Furry is a fetish, and
>as such I'm a little uncomfortable with the way it's being
>described.
Furry is not a fetish, its simply anthropomorphic animals. While some
people may have a fetish for furries, there is quite a lot of G-PG13
matrial out there.
--
Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia. See
http://www.zeta.org.au/~dformosa/Spelling.html to find out more.
Jay Denebeim
>In the case of this group, it's because it needs to be made clear that it
>isn't a binary group. The anthropomorphic (furry) fandom is very art
>oriented
That's putting it mildly. Every furry party I've ever been to
consists mostly of people sitting around drawing pictures or showing
them to others.
Jay Denebeim
>As far as things that might concievably change (server name), this is
>a good idea. Otherwise there is a very good reason for including
>them. There are (for whatever reason) some highly opinionated
>individuals with severely different viewpoints on the fandom who
>don't necessarily trust each other not to try to silence their
>viewpoints. That's why all the gory details of moderation are
>included. The fact that it can't be easily changed will make it a lot
>more likely to get passed by those who'd presumably use the new
>group.
This is a huge honkin mistake. *no* group can be moderated without
needing tweaks after creation. What you'll find yourself doing is
being forced to break the charter. We tried very hard to get it right
the first time, but we still ended up being forced to break the
charter after a year.
What you'd be better off doing is having a split FAQ with the gory
details (a recent group included the FAQ in the CFV marked where it
would be torn off and changed) and put in your charter what you're
*not* allowed to do.
Doing it this way addresses all the fears of the people who would vote
against you and still leaves your hands free to fix problems as they
occur.
Jay Denebeim
>How would you suggest making it clear that it's not a group sanitized
>for the younger set while avoiding making it apear to be a red light
>district.
Well, honestly I can't answer that other than to say usenet period is
not for kids.
Rog. Muttchinson
Jay Denebeim <dene...@deepthot.aurora.co.us> wrote:
> >I do have a slight problem with this though. Furry is a fetish, and
> >as such I'm a little uncomfortable with the way it's being described.
A dictionary on psychological terms describes "Furry" as "pertaining to
an animal sex fetish," and (unfortunately) the fetish thing is what
makes Furry material so different from the mainstream and more
traditional Funny Animal/Anthropomorphic genres. In Furry art, story,
and comics, there is a great deal of emphasis of sexually attractive
animal-morphs and their (imagined) sexual appearance/activities. Some
recent threads on alt.fan.furry have dealt with animal-morph nipples
and whether furry males would have sheaths (which gets into the entire
hot-button bes tiality issue). I have found that most Furry fans
avidly collect the sexually-explicit Furry artwork known as spooge and
I would say that fantasizing about erotic images of cartoon animals in
compromising postions would certainly quality as a sexual fetish.
Some fans in Furry Fandom have often attempted to grandfather/shoehorn
in the older Funny Animal or Anthropomorphic genres under the catchall
name of "Furry" in order to legitimize the fetish-oriented Furry
material. Furry material IS differentiated by it's unseeming focus on
odd sex fetishes (centered around animals). I suppose that you would
call Furry the "Slash genre" of the old Funny Animal/Anthropomorphic
genre. Would you allow a rec.arts.startrek.slash or erotica?
The other problem with the term Furry is that it has become known an
Alternate Lifestyle (sexual preferences) issue and there is often much
confusion about who posts what where. On any given day in
alt.fan.furry (the main furry newsgroup) you'll find a number of posts
from Furry Lifestylers, none of which belong in the regular newsgroup.
It also depends who the moderators or any new group would be. If you
have Furry fetishists or Furry Lifestylers as moderators, then you WILL
have a newsgroup where Furry fetish (i.e. adult) material is
encouraged/allowed.
In article <84u97t$9re$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, Kate Wrightson
<ka...@eyrie.org> wrote:
> So are a lot of other things. Furry is not *only* a fetish, and the
> furries I know or have run into on the net are overly scrupulous about
> marking things as Appropriate for Under 18 and Adults Only.
It has been my experience that many Furry web sites (while they might
be labelled as adults-only) are readily available to children and that
some Furries do seek out young people to interest them in this
material. There are even links that lead from art pages on the one
"clean" furry art archive to sites with sexually-explicit content in
them. On the primary Furry webring (called the FurRing) there are many
sexually-oriented links (including explicit Furry artwork and bes
tiality links).
> I think you need to do a little more research. alt.fan.furry is not
> alt.fetish.plushies.
The plushiephiles do indeed claim that they are Furry fans --- once
again, another attempt to legitimize a fetish. If you check the Furry
Lifestyler FAQ, you'll see that many fetishes fall under the name of
Furry.
In article <slrn876dth....@dformosa.zeta.org.au>, David
Formosa (aka ? the Platypus) <dfor...@zeta.org.au> wrote:
> Furry is not a fetish, its simply anthropomorphic animals. While some
> people may have a fetish for furries, there is quite a lot of G-PG13
> matrial out there.
Furry is a fan subset of mainstream Anthropomorphics, however, true
Furry material appears to deal primarily with a number of odd sexual
fetishes centering around animals. Out of all fandoms and the
different sorts of material I've seen, Furry fandom appears to have the
highest ratio of adult material:to:clean material (at least in the art
archives).
---- R M ----
Christopher Biow
><spam-...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>...That's why all the gory details of moderation are
>>included. The fact that it can't be easily changed will make it a lot
>>more likely to get passed by those who'd presumably use the new
>>group.
>This is a huge honkin mistake. *no* group can be moderated without
>needing tweaks after creation.
Absolutely. I'd suggest the bare minimum that will avoid extensive No
voting (you'll have plenty of Yes votes, it seems). Include a charter
change provision, also.
pete...@furry.fan.org
"Rog. Muttchinson" <rmut...@att.world.net> wrote:
>A dictionary on psychological terms describes "Furry" as "pertaining to an
>animal sex fetish," and (unfortunately) the fetish thing is what makes
>Furry material so different from the mainstream and more traditional Funny
>Animal/Anthropomorphic genres.
Citation? Title, author and ISBN or Library of Congress number? The term
"furry" as psychological jargon may indeed relate to an abnormal fetish, but
I suspect that same dictionary contains a lot of fairly common words that
have similar connotations, e.g. "leather" or "water sports."
In general usage on the Internet, however, "furry" is simply a synonym for
"anthropomorphics," which cannot be used for the proposed group because it
has more than 14 characters. It's also an extension of the "funny-animal"
concept, in that very serious material is included in the genre, along the
lines of as Art Spiegelman's "Maus." Erotic material does exist, and is
undeniably popular with those who like that sort of thing, but it is a small
part of the total.
>[snip]
>Furry is a fan subset of mainstream Anthropomorphics, however, true
>Furry material appears to deal primarily with a number of odd sexual
>fetishes centering around animals. Out of all fandoms and the
>different sorts of material I've seen, Furry fandom appears to have the
>highest ratio of adult material:to:clean material (at least in the art
>archives).
I've been in this fandom for almost ten years, and the reality is almost the
exact opposite of the statement above. I run the Art Show for Anthrocon, a
furry convention held each July near Philadelphia, with an attendance of
more than 800 last year. Demand for space in the Art Show Main Room, which
did not allow explicit material, outstripped demand for space in the Adult
Room by about three-to-one (about 75 artists in the Main Room vs. 25 in the
Adult Room).
Erotic material tends to stand out in any fandom (e.g. Star Trek) because
non-erotic material is widely available from mainstream sources. If one
takes into account all the furry material available from Disney and other
publishers and producers, it's obvious that furry material, in fact, deals
mainly with animals with human characteristics (or vice-versa). "Furry" has
an erotic connotation only to those who are *looking* for an erotic
connotation, it seems to me.
--
The Furry InfoPage! http://www.tigerden.com/infopage/furry/
pete...@furry.fan.org (PeterCat)
Jay Denebeim
>This sounds like a reasonable idea to me.
*sheesh* this is the second time this week I've been accused of being
reasonable. I must be slipping :-)
Rob Wynne
:>Would you allow a rec.arts.startrek.slash or erotica?
Depends. What do the traffic figures look like?
Rob
--
Rob Wynne / The Autographed Cat / d...@america.net
The best original science-fiction and fantasy on the web:
Aphelion Webzine: http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/
Gafilk 2000: Jan 7-9, 2000, Atlanta, GA -- http://www.gafilk.org
"I have a very wide violence background. I'm a violence
professional, if you will." --F. Braun McAsh
austin
Xydexx the Silly Squeaky Pony
> Furry is a fetish,
That is incorrect.
Furry fandom is the appreciation, promotion, and production of stories
and art about anthropomorphic animals, as well as the exploration,
interpretation and examination of humanity and human values through
anthropomorphic expression. This includes works such as animated
cartoons, comic books and strips, text stories and articles, artwork,
costumes, and stuffed animals.
Anthropomorphics are human qualities or characteristics ascribed to
animals or objects. Specific to furry fandom, anthropomorphics are
animal characters with human qualities or characteristics. Some examples
of anthropomorphic characters are:
* Cartoon animals ("funny animals") featured in
animation such as Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, or Tom
& Jerry. Some may also appear as mascots or
advertising characters, like McGruff the Crime
Dog or the Exxon Tiger.
* Talking animals featured in fairy tales and
fantasy stories, such as Watership Down, Winnie
the Pooh, or Aesop's Fables.
--
__________________________________________________
Karl Xydexx Jorgensen / Xydexx Squeakypony, K.S.C.
http://www.xydexx.com [ICQ: 7569393]
"If you can dream it, you can do it." -Walt Disney
Peter H.M. Brooks
"austin" <ja...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> We would love this...we are from Cape Town and living in the U.S.
>
sounds as if it may not be too difficult to get this going.
--
Peter H.M. Brooks
'Use Hume, the brain conditioner that will give your brain more body
bounce and lift, banishing the nasty wrinkles, snags and frayed ends
Megan Lowry
>In article <84u2ip$apd$1...@dent.deepthot.aurora.co.us>,
>>I think you need to do a little more research. alt.fan.furry is not
>>alt.fetish.plushies.
>
>The plushiephiles do indeed claim that they are Furry fans --- once
>again, another attempt to legitimize a fetish. If you check the Furry
>Lifestyler FAQ, you'll see that many fetishes fall under the name of
>Furry.
Allow me to sanitize that part of his argument.
By the words above, if any individual claims membership in any number of
distinct groups, that makes all of
the groups related. Utterly ridiculous.
It would be like claiming all sci-fi fans are republicans because there are
republicans within the sci-fi fandom. Or all republicans are sci-fi fans
because there are sci-fi fans in the republican party. If he would just do
some basic research, he would discover that Fandoms do _not_ work that way.
Furry Fans can belong to any number of unrelated groups. That will _not_
make those groups part of Furry Fandom. Plushie Fans can be Furry Fans as
well, but that does _not_ make Furry Fandom and Plushie Fandom one in the
same.
Thank you.
- Devaki, friendly panfress -
David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus)
<Cams...@NOSPAMemail.com> wrote:
>I am all for this (considering the amount of spam on the newsgroup),
>but what happened to alt.fan.furry.moderated ?
All the newsgroup suggestions in alt.* for the moderated groups where
posioned by people sending unmoderted newgroups for them.
David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus)
<rmut...@att.world.net> wrote:
>In article <84u2ip$apd$1...@dent.deepthot.aurora.co.us>,
>
>> >I do have a slight problem with this though. Furry is a fetish, and
>> >as such I'm a little uncomfortable with the way it's being described.
>
>an animal sex fetish,"
I'm extreemly curious about this, which dictionary would this be?
> and (unfortunately) the fetish thing is what
>makes Furry material so different from the mainstream and more
>traditional Funny Animal/Anthropomorphic genres. In Furry art, story,
>and comics, there is a great deal of emphasis of sexually attractive
>animal-morphs and their (imagined) sexual appearance/activities.
While some of the artwork is adult there are a lot of art (like all of
yerf, furlough and fur.artwork.misc) that is G - PG13.
> Some
>recent threads on alt.fan.furry have dealt with animal-morph nipples
>and whether furry males would have sheaths (which gets into the entire
>hot-button bes tiality issue).
Other topics have included Deer Revenge,Tuna Free dolphin meat,
Grafics standards and the best ones to store art with and reviews of
verious books and movies.
[...]
>It also depends who the moderators or any new group would be. If you
>have Furry fetishists or Furry Lifestylers as moderators, then you WILL
>have a newsgroup where Furry fetish (i.e. adult) material is
>encouraged/allowed.
Whoever is selected as the moderator is expected to follow the charter.
[...]
>> I think you need to do a little more research. alt.fan.furry is not
>> alt.fetish.plushies.
>
>The plushiephiles do indeed claim that they are Furry fans --- once
>again, another attempt to legitimize a fetish. If you check the Furry
>Lifestyler FAQ, you'll see that many fetishes fall under the name of
>Furry.
The Furry Lifestyler FAQ convers the newsgroup alt.lifestyle.furry not
alt.fan.furry. This is a newsgroup for the fans not the lifestylers.
If it was for the lifestyler it would be something in soc.*
[...]
>Furry is a fan subset of mainstream Anthropomorphics
Furry is just anonther name for Anthropomorphics.
David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus)
>Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu> wrote:
>: I suggest that you avoid specific references to the "mechanical" details
>: of moderation (server name, etc.) in the charter, and put those in a
>: separate document which you might call the "Administrative Statement".
>
>As far as things that might concievably change (server name), this is a
>good idea.
The server name will not change as its simply a CNAME.
Forrest
"Megan Lowry" <dev...@mindspring.com> wrote :
>It would be like claiming all sci-fi fans are republicans because there are
>republicans within the sci-fi fandom. Or all republicans are sci-fi fans
>because there are sci-fi fans in the republican party. If he would just do
>some basic research, he would discover that Fandoms do _not_ work that way.
To use this analogy, I think "communist" might be a better choice than
"republican"; when SF fandom was as old as furry fandom, it too had a
curious, highly noticeable minority in it, namely those that saw a
leftist-progressivist agenda -- as a necessary/important part of SF fandom.
E.G.:
"MICHELISM is the belief that science-fiction fans should actively work for
the realization of the scientific socialist world-state as the only genuine
justification for their activities and existence..."
http://www.sff.net/people/diccon/MIKE.HTM
Forrest
"Rog. Muttchinson" <rmut...@att.world.net> wrote :
>Some fans in Furry Fandom have often attempted to grandfather/shoehorn
>in the older Funny Animal or Anthropomorphic genres under the catchall
>name of "Furry" in order to legitimize the fetish-oriented Furry
>material.
Sex-oriented furry material is a subset of the genre; those who are
primarily interested in that subset are known as "furverts". At the
opposite end you've got the Furrymuck Christian Fellowship.
>On any given day in
>alt.fan.furry (the main furry newsgroup) you'll find a number of posts
>from Furry Lifestylers, none of which belong in the regular newsgroup.
Too many irrelevant posts resulting from no charter is one reason for the
rec. proposal.
>Out of all fandoms and the
>different sorts of material I've seen, Furry fandom appears to have the
>highest ratio of adult material:to:clean material (at least in the art
>archives).
By my last count on the VCL archive (the structure of which allows an easy
estimate), about 1:5. Which is double the average of adult:clean videotapes
rented in the USA, but not a majority by any means; deduct the output of one
or two prolific "spooge" artists and it would go down noticeably.
G.S
I just want to say that this proposal is great. But I would like to know if
somebody could tell me how many South African Newsgroups are available, if
possible ? I would really appreciate it if there could maybe be one for
Johannesburg, Durban, Pretoria and maybe just one for adverts for the South
African public. I believe the South African market is becoming more and more
internationally viable. But if we can start advertising locally, to each
other we can all benefit from this. I have seen people selling products
overseas and their prices where so good that I was interested in the product
but due to the fact that it was so expensive for importing I wasn't
interested anymore.
There's another point I would like to highlight on these newsgroups we could
start complaining about the level of service in our country. I recently
moved from the Randburg to Carletonville. I am now a consumer where as in
Randburg I use to work for Foodies Convenience stores. I've noticed that
service, at just to name one place "Mr. Price", is pathetic. I was learnt by
Foodies that the customer is the one who pays you salary, ensures you have a
job and what do you do to that person that does that for you ? Well for you
one you don't tell him to learn to read, what happened was that the manager
at the above mentioned store told me to open my eyes ! hmmm.. ???
They where selling shorts for the advertised , which is the sign board above
the shorts, price of R 29-99 per pair. The cashier of trying to convince me
that in fact they cost R 50-00 per pair. After that I told him to have a
look at the shelf. He then told me that they where making space for another
line of products and it was the wrong price but to his surprise he nearly
overcharged me because another staff member told him that they cost R 39-99.
Totally confused we asked for the manager. She told me to "open my eyes",
because now all of a sudden the price supposedly starts at R 29-99, but
these pairs of shorts is priced higher at like I said R 50-00 per pair.
Who is the one to open her eyes ?? You tell me !
Graham
BBlackmoor
Xydexx the Silly Squeaky Pony <xyd...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Jay Denebeim wrote:
> > Furry is a fetish,
Speaking as someone who is neither a news.groupie nor greatly
interested in talking animals (other than Tigger, whom I love dearly),
I only conflate the everyday-furries with the perv-furries
intentionally, when I'm ridiculing them (which is almost too easy to do
-- no one takes furries seriously, despite anthropomorphics' admittedly
impressive place in the history of popular USAn culture).
But I don't think perv-furries are representative of furries as a whole
any more than BDSM slave-girl John Norman groupies are typical of SF&F
fans in general. We're just more prone to notice them in the crowd. At
least, I am.
BBlac...@sff.net
11.january.2000
--
The highest human achievement, and perhaps the most difficult, is
merely being reasonable.
David Mescher
> In article <852q6q$9kr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Xydexx the Silly Squeaky Pony <xyd...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > Jay Denebeim wrote:
> > > Furry is a fetish,
> Speaking as someone who is neither a news.groupie nor greatly
> interested in talking animals (other than Tigger, whom I love dearly),
Tom & Jerry? Woody Woodpecker?
> I only conflate the everyday-furries with the perv-furries
> intentionally, when I'm ridiculing them (which is almost too easy to do
> -- no one takes furries seriously, despite anthropomorphics' admittedly
> impressive place in the history of popular USAn culture).
>
> But I don't think perv-furries are representative of furries as a whole
> any more than BDSM slave-girl John Norman groupies are typical of SF&F
> fans in general. We're just more prone to notice them in the crowd. At
> least, I am.
I read some John Norman a while back, and found the prose too shallow,
and the plot a bit too one-sided. I did finish the book, and it wasn't
nearly as bad as L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series. (Now that
was merely an exercise in intellectual masturbation solely created by
LRH to stroke his own ego. Reading the whole thing in simply a
demonstration of masochistic tendencies. It starts off bad, and only
gets worse.)
Russ Allbery
> But I don't think perv-furries are representative of furries as a whole
> any more than BDSM slave-girl John Norman groupies are typical of SF&F
> fans in general.
Or, for that matter, than BDSM slave-girl John Norman groupies are typical
of BDSM practitioners in general. While we're taking pot-shots at
stereotypes and all.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Kate Wrightson
Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>BBlackmoor <BBlac...@sff.net> writes:
>
>> But I don't think perv-furries are representative of furries as a whole
>> any more than BDSM slave-girl John Norman groupies are typical of SF&F
>> fans in general.
>
>Or, for that matter, than BDSM slave-girl John Norman groupies are typical
>of BDSM practitioners in general. While we're taking pot-shots at
>stereotypes and all.
Or, for that matter, than BDSM slave-girl bunnyfur-bikini-wearing John
Norman groupies are typical of SCAdians who go to major events like
Pennsic War.
My God, Gor has a lot to answer to.
David Mescher
Several things wrong w/ your RFD.
First of all, it's in the wrong place.
News.groups is not for regional hierarchies such as za.*.
(Check za.config.)
Secondly, it hasn't been posted to news.announce.newsgroups,
so any discussion taking place now, even if it was for
a Big8 group wouldn't have (much) effect on other discussion,
as well as the timer (21 days minimum before a vote can be
held) wouldn't start until then.
Third, it's not a good idea to create hierarchies with only
one group in them, although that might not be a requirement
in za.*.
Any other gripes I would normally have about this RFD don't
really matter, since it's not a Big8 group anyway.
Jon Bell
G.S <g.s...@pmail.net> wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>I just want to say that this proposal is great. But I would like to know if
>somebody could tell me how many South African Newsgroups are available, if
>possible ?
Here are the ones listed in the big list at ftp.isc.org (which in any
event probably should be not considered authoritative.
za.ads.jobs
za.ads.lifts
za.ads.misc
za.archives
za.culture.xhosa
za.edu.comp
za.environment
za.events
za.flame
za.frd.announce
za.humour
za.info-policy
za.misc
za.net.maps
za.net.misc
za.net.stats
za.net.uninet
za.org.cssa
za.politics
za.schools
za.sport
za.sport.rugby
za.test
za.travel
za.tv.misc
za.tv.satellite
za.unix.misc
--
Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
[ Questions about newsgroups? Ask in news:news.newusers.questions ]
[ or visit http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/6882/ ]
Russ Allbery
> First of all, it's in the wrong place. News.groups is not for regional
> hierarchies such as za.*. (Check za.config.)
> Secondly, it hasn't been posted to news.announce.newsgroups, so any
> discussion taking place now, even if it was for a Big8 group wouldn't
> have (much) effect on other discussion, as well as the timer (21 days
> minimum before a vote can be held) wouldn't start until then.
I think it was posted there too, but like you say, no reason for it to
be. For folks following along in news.groups, this group appears to have
already been created, at least by *someone*. If the za.* folks don't
consider that control message canonical, I'd be interested to know that as
I've now picked up the newsgroup at least here (but news.admin.hierarchies
may be a better place for that discussion).
Jay Denebeim
Kate Wrightson <ka...@eyrie.org> wrote:
>Or, for that matter, than BDSM slave-girl bunnyfur-bikini-wearing John
>Norman groupies are typical of SCAdians who go to major events like
>Pennsic War.
Tuchuxs excepted, of course. (granted they arn't scadians usually)
Kate Wrightson
Jay Denebeim <dene...@deepthot.aurora.co.us> wrote:
>In article <85fr6s$26d$1...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>,
>Kate Wrightson <ka...@eyrie.org> wrote:
>
>>Or, for that matter, than BDSM slave-girl bunnyfur-bikini-wearing John
>>Norman groupies are typical of SCAdians who go to major events like
>>Pennsic War.
>
>Tuchuxs excepted, of course. (granted they arn't scadians usually)
You make my point so nicely, Jay. :)
Joe Bernstein
My apologies for the broken References: header; this is meant to be a
followup to the original RFD, but that turns out to have expired from
my server, and YA-NewsWatcher turns out not to make changing
References: headers easy.
Kay Shapero <kay.s...@salata.com> wrote:
> REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
> moderated group rec.arts.furry
Skipping the very good rationale, we get to:
> CHARTER: rec.arts.furry
>
> The purpose of Rec.Arts.Furry is for the discussion of fictional
> animals with human characteristcs, physical and/or mental
> ("anthropomorphic") as used in literature, artwork and the like, and
> to serve as a resource for the exchange of news and information
> relevant to the fandom.
This is at once very good - leading off with a clear explanation of
what the group welcomes and is for - and kinda bad - awkwardly phrased.
Not especially important, but I'd encourage a change to "Rec.arts.furry
serves two purposes: it is a home for discussion of fictional ..., and
it is a resource for the exchange of ...". Also, "the fandom" is not
clear and could be expanded slightly ("furry fandom"?).
> The newsgroup is moderated; deliberate
> disruption ("trolling") ad-hominem arguments and flaming in general
> are banned.
I suggest adding a comma or three.
> Messages may not be crossposted to other newsgroups.
Not even if you end up doing an FAQ to news.answers? The standard
conservative workaround to this rule is something like "threads of
discussion may not be crossposted", the idea being that at most an FAQ
or an RFD or simply a pointer to a thread will be allowed, but with
followups set to go either into the group (only) or out of the group.
(I'm pretty sure I can assume a group Kay Shapero is involved with is
not going to go stupid on me now and suggest modifying people's
followups without their permission. Moderators should feel perfectly
free to reject cross-posts that don't have followups set acceptably, or
for that matter other cross-posts that they don't think meet a high
enough standard. Just blanket cross-post bans are Bad Things.)
> No
> binaries will be allowed.
Speaking of blanket bans as Bad Things...
> There will be a minimum of three moderators, each of whom may approve
> messages. They will use the server at fur.news-admin.org, the
> moderatior address will be moder...@fur.news-admin.org. These will
> be elected by the users of the newsgroup, with the aid of an impartial
> vote taker. The moderation server will hold mssages until approved by
> a moderator, or 10 days has psssed. Any messages not approved will be
> returned to the poster with an explanation. Moderators will be
> allowed to pre-approve all messages from the same poster (other than a
> moderator).
In other words, moderators may not be on the auto-approve list? Note
that this has interesting consequences for elections, as we shall
see...
I tend to agree that some of this paragraph should be moved out of the
charter. I also think there's some unclarity in it; "These will be
elected..." can only refer to the moderators if you stop to think about
it, but it's a glaring case of an unclear antecedent all the same.
> Moderators will be chosen by ballot as follows:
>
> An impartial vote taker will be agreed on, and candidates for
> moderator will be presented to the users of the group as a whole for
> approval and voted on.
Who are "the users of the group"? Anyone who reads a call for votes in
the group? The people on the pre-approved list? Anyone who's posted
to the group? Anyone who registers?
I've been enthusiastic about moderator election schemes ever since they
first started passing (soc.religion.paganism), because they tend to
confuse the painfully black-and-white division between moderators and
readers. But the division remains, beneath it all, as black-and-white
as ever, and it is much easier to conjure up an unworkable election
scheme than a workable one. For starters:
> All candidates with approval ratings of 60% or
> over w ill be accepted.
This implies a 60% quorum for elections. This is such a Bad Thing (ask
soc.religion.paganism about their rather lower quorum sometime) that
one notes with relief the next sentence:
> If this yields fewer than 3 moderators, the
> three with the hig hest ratings will be accepted.
But then why specify 60% in the first place?
At any rate, if I understand correctly, what we end up with is a system
in which some undetermined group of people is allowed to vote, and the
form of a vote is to say YES to any or all of the candidates, after
which whoever racks up the most YESes (or more than 60% - of the voter
roll, or of actual votes?) wins. Correct?
Now. Who gets to vote?
The last time I got into this argument, it took several months and
earned me at least one or two bona fide enemies, before I was able to
get across to the proponents (of
sci.psychology.psychotherapy.moderated) that allowing people to walk in
off the street and vote on their moderators would be a Bad Thing. I
really hope this won't happen again. You will understand that after
that experience I didn't follow news.groups quite so closely, and for
all I *know* there's now a group out there that has off-the-street
voting in its charter, and has done an election that way, and they did
not get taken over by vandals who would give Satanism a bad name. But
I doubt it.
The easiest answer (cf. again sr.paganism) is to say your auto-approval
list is your voter roll. The assumption is that *most* sub-Satanic
vandals are not capable of producing a series of on-topic posts that
would qualify them for such a list, and most creatures with billions of
addresses are not capable of producing such a series for each of the
billions of addresses. The upside is that this involves no extra
bookkeeping, since you need to keep the auto-approval list anyway. The
downside is that lurkers are disenfranchised, if you care; another
downside (again, if you care) is that the moderators are put in charge
of the voter roll.
Another option is to do voter registration. You schedule this for some
set date before the actual vote. I'd recommend you automatically
register everyone who's on the auto-approval list, except that human
nature being what it is, those people would then forget they were
registered, and start trying to register late, or complaining on the
group that their registration wasn't accepted, or not voting because
they think they aren't registered... ;-) Anyway, the idea is that most
sub-Satanic vandals lack patience, and so they probably won't bother to
register. But it's a less secure scheme than the auto-approval one.
It also lacks the auto-approval scheme's disadvantages: lurkers can
vote, and the moderators do not determine who votes. In addition,
turnout might be higher if people had to actually do something to get
onto the voter list. (Yes, they have to do something to get onto the
auto-approval list, but they probably aren't thinking about elections
when they do it, and anyway ultimately getting onto that list is not a
direct result of their action but of the moderators'.)
I think other ideas were proposed Back When, but I don't remember them
and am fairly sure no group actually implemented them before I ran
afoul of the psychologists and stopped following this issue.
> Replacement
> elections will be held on a 2-yearly basis.
Do you intend to turn over the whole moderation panel at once?
(Hint: Don't.)
> A moderator may also be
> subject to a vote of "no confidence", versus a proposed replacement
> candidate on the same basis. No more than one vote of "no confidence"
> may be held per month.
Um, does anyone know of any group that's done this so far? If so, how?
(For example, did they need elaborate rules to govern which moderator
could be challenged in a given month, so I couldn't just set up a cron
job to propose a no confidence vote on the same victim over and over
again?) And has any group actually needed this or used it? Have they
survived using it?
Strictly on the level of hypotheticals, this looks bad to me, but I'd
be willing to swallow it if it were tied to some sort of quorum of the
voter rolls. (Note that this is precisely what I did *not* want as a
pre-condition to normal elections. Yes, this constitutes stacking the
deck.) Say, you have to get 10% of the voters to agree that a no
confidence vote is worth having before you can have one.
Note that this does *not* address the issue of who owns the moderation
address. That person's position is qualitatively different from the
position of any moderator who does not own the address. Some groups
have explicitly recognised this and made the address owner a moderator
who is not subject to elections (srp). Others (as I recall) have
instead banned the address owner from being an Official Moderator. The
theory behind this latter approach is that that way, the charter rules
about moderator replacement apply to all the Official Moderators, so
they can't go berserk, while if the address owner goes berserk, the
Official Moderators just go to tale and say "Please use a different
address now". I have never heard of tale actually dealing with such a
situation, so don't know if this theory would work; theories about
moderators going berserk are generally a tad speculative anyway.
(Unlike theories about election schemes breaking. Go ask on
soc.religion.paganism, ok?)
> For the first election only, the election will be held by users of
> alt.fan.furry, and the various newsgroups and furry mailing lists as
> shown below.
I think I will assume y'all are Smart People who will see all the flaws
in this as a paragraph in a charter, and will take it out, so I need
not go into an apoplexy at this time about it. Look, I don't care if,
before the CFV, y'all *have* an election that's just that slipshod -
although I really hope you're prepared to scrap the results if you find
that you end up with a proposed moderation team named Meow, Meower and
Meowest. I just hate the sight of anything like that in a
charter...where it can set a bad example for post-CFV elections.
> END CHARTER.
>
> MODERATOR INFO: rec.arts.furry
>
> Moderation will be done from the server at fur.news-admin.org (points
> to www.taronga.com); the moderator address will be
> moder...@fur.news-admin.org. There will be a minimuam of 3
> moderators.
>
> Moderator: Moderation Team <moder...@fur.news-admin.org>
Someone asked whether this had ever happened before. The first RFD for
soc.culture.malta as a moderated group had something like Moderator:
STUMP in it, and has been my Standard Example ever since of why
browbeating proponents into proposing moderation is dumb. Some while
after that, I'm fairly sure I saw an actual CFV with something very
similar in it, and yelled loudly about same, but can't remember for
sure now; a DejaNews search of my old posts with "soc.culture.malta" in
them would probably turn it up. I don't believe the CFV passed.
If I expected this bunch to go to CFV with this line in place, yes, of
course I'd be yelling and screaming.
Good luck with the proposal. I realise the above is mostly criticism,
and there is a very high chance that if you don't deal with these
criticisms adequately, I'll be voting NO. But I actually like your
proposal, and while I'm unlikely to read the group, so probably will
not vote YES, I'd like to be supportive, and am certainly willing to
provide some help in resolving the above issues.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer & accounting clerk newsw...@these-survive.net
Speaking for myself alone --- news.groups Survival Guide:
http://www.these-survive.net/newsgroups/debate.html
F.F. Jacot-Guillarmod
[...]
>I think it was posted there too, but like you say, no reason for it to
>be. For folks following along in news.groups, this group appears to have
>already been created, at least by *someone*. If the za.* folks don't
>consider that control message canonical, I'd be interested to know that as
>I've now picked up the newsgroup at least here (but news.admin.hierarchies
>may be a better place for that discussion).
It was created, officially, by me as one of the few suriving stirrers
behind za.* in 1993 a few days ago. As has been pointed out, the
discussions on the desirability or otherwise of a group in the za.*
regional hierarchy do not affect, other than peripherally, readers of
news.groups or news.admin.*.
Discussion should have taken place in za.net.misc. That it didn't is merely
an indication that the guidelines for group creation in za.* are so long
in the tooth that they're invisible. If required/desirable, though, I
can post the original copy of these guidelines from 1993.
Jacot
--
F.F. Jacot Guillarmod - Information Technology - Rhodes University - Grahamstown
Internet: Ja...@ru.ac.za Phone: +27 46 603 8284 Fax: +27 46 622 7764
The views expressed above are not necessarily those of Rhodes University
Jay Denebeim
F.F. Jacot-Guillarmod <ja...@rhodes.ac.za> wrote:
>Discussion should have taken place in za.net.misc. That it didn't is
>merely an indication that the guidelines for group creation in za.*
>are so long in the tooth that they're invisible. If
>required/desirable, though, I can post the original copy of these
>guidelines from 1993.
You should probably post it as a FAQ monthly or so.
Russ Allbery
> Discussion should have taken place in za.net.misc. That it didn't is
> merely an indication that the guidelines for group creation in za.* are
> so long in the tooth that they're invisible. If required/desirable,
> though, I can post the original copy of these guidelines from 1993.
Please do and copy news.admin.hierarchies; I was looking around for
details on za.* and za.* newsgroup creation a year or so ago and couldn't
find anything at all.
Thanks!
Dennis Calhoun
On 12 Jan 2000 19:35:30 GMT, cc...@ru.ac.za (F.F. Jacot-Guillarmod) wrote:
>On 11 Jan 2000 15:34:24 -0800, Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>I think it was posted there too, but like you say, no reason for it to
>>be. For folks following along in news.groups, this group appears to have
>>already been created, at least by *someone*. If the za.* folks don't
>>consider that control message canonical, I'd be interested to know that as
>>I've now picked up the newsgroup at least here (but news.admin.hierarchies
>>may be a better place for that discussion).
>
>It was created, officially, by me as one of the few suriving stirrers
>behind za.* in 1993 a few days ago. As has been pointed out, the
>discussions on the desirability or otherwise of a group in the za.*
>regional hierarchy do not affect, other than peripherally, readers of
>news.groups or news.admin.*.
>
>Discussion should have taken place in za.net.misc.
Ah, so za.net.misc is the designated newsgroup for discussion of group creation
within the za.* hierarchy. It is mighty hard to tell that from the Control
posting for the creation of the group (which can be found at
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/za/za.net.misc.Z ).
That posting just says...
For your newsgroups file:
za.net.misc Miscellaneous ramblings on networking in ZA
>That it didn't is merely
>an indication that the guidelines for group creation in za.* are so long
>in the tooth that they're invisible. If required/desirable, though, I
>can post the original copy of these guidelines from 1993.
As others have suggested, periodic posting of those Guidelines to za.net.misc
and other pertinent groups would be beneficial. That could be easily done by
submitting the FAQ to news.answers and, once it is approved and posted, it would
be automatically picked up by http://www.faqs.org/ too.
--
Dennis D. Calhoun <http://Web.InfoAve.Net/~dcalhoun/>
Member, news.newusers.questions Moderation Board
Webmaster, news.newusers.questions Official Home Page
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/6882/
artslink.co.za
za.art
za.culture
za.music
but they seemed to have dissapeared again
TJ
Robert Gillette
unsubscribed to this newsgroup and ALL newsgroups. I don't know how. I
got on some newsgroup lists somehow LONG ago, and to this day I have not
learned how to use ANY newsgroup stuff. I have THOUSANDS of unwanted and
un-needed newsgroup things waiting for me on my ISP and I don't know how
to put an END to it. I don't even know how to view the ones that come.
Sometimes I see one, like now, but it happens accidentally while
figeting with Netscape mail newsgroup buttons. What a mess. All I know
how to do is EMAIL. If anyone wants to reply, please just send me a
regular EMAIL, not via a newgroup list, or I probably wont ever see it.
Get me OUTA here!