Frequently Asked Questions
soc.culture.african.american.moderated
The FAQ for the newsgroup will be posted on the first of the month.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 ABOUT THIS FAQ
1.1 What's the purpose of this FAQ?
1.2 Where can I find the FAQ?
1.3 Who maintains the FAQ?
1.4 How often is it updated?
2.0 THE FAQ RFD PROCESS FOR THE SELECTIVE ARCHIVE
CURRENTLY UNDER REVISION.
3.0 WHAT IS SCAA.Mod?
3.1 There's currently an unmoderated Usenet newsgroup called
soc.culture.african.american (scaa). Why the need for a
separate, moderated newsgroup that covers essentially the same
topic?
3.2 So, how did the vote go?
3.3 What is the charter and moderation policy of
soc.culture.african.american.moderated?
3.4 Who are the moderators?
3.5 What are the contact addresses for SCAA.Mod?
4.0 POSTING INFORMATION AND GUIDELINES
4.1 How do I post to the newsgroup?
4.2 What happens to my post?
4.3 How long before I know about my post?
4.4 Hey, I sent my post, but I didn't get any type of response. Why
not?
4.5 It's been 36 hours and I haven't received an approved or
rejected
message. Now what do I do?
4.6 I sent a post in the heat of the moment and now I want it back.
What should I do?
4.7 There's a comment attached to my approved post.
4.8 My post was rejected! Why?
4.9 Well, I don't think my post is offtopic, rude, or insulting. I
want to speak to your supervisor.
4.10 Can I curse?
4.11 Hey, all I posted was an article from a
magazine/newspaper/journal that I think is relevant to African
Americans and it was rejected. Why?
4.12 So and so is a known TROLL on SCAA! Why is he being allowed to
post to SCAA.Mod?
4.13 What is a manual crosspost and how is it different from a
crosspost?
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1.0 ABOUT THIS FAQ.
1.1 What's the purpose of this FAQ?
This FAQ is a combination of the technical guidelines for the
newsgroup and a selective archive of SCAA.Mod. It gives the reader
an
idea of the breadth and depth of discussion on the group. The FAQ
is
not meant to define us (every black person in the U.S or every
black
reader) as a whole.
1.2 Where can I find the FAQ?
The FAQ is posted on the first of the month to the newsgroup
SCAA.Mod,
news.answers, and soc-answers. It is also available at
http://www.clark.net/pub/jeter/scaa/faq.htm.
Other readers of the
group may also keep copies of the FAQ.
1.3 Who maintains the FAQ?
The FAQ is maintained by L.A. Jeter, a moderator for SCAA.Mod.
1.4 How often is it updated?
The selective archive section of the FAQ is currently being
revised.
2.0 THE FAQ RFD PROCESS FOR THE SELECTIVE ARCHIVE
Currently under revision.
3.0 WHAT IS SOC.CULTURE.AFRICAN.AMERICAN.MODERATED?
3.1 There's currently an unmoderated Usenet newsgroup called
soc.culture.african.american (scaa). Why the need for a separate,
moderated newsgroup that covers essentially the same topic?
The following rationale for a moderated group was contained in
both the request for discussion (RFD) and the call for votes (CFV)
for reorganizing the unmoderated group into two groups, one
moderated and the other unmoderated:
The currently existing Usenet newsgroup
soc.culture.african.american (SCAA) was originally created in 1990
for the purpose of civil debate and discussion of African-American
cultural issues. Recent events had fundamentally altered the
nature, focus and scope of SCAA as follows. For the past two years
(1996-97), SCAA had been continually plagued by extremely high
traffic of irrelevant crossposts, spamming, flaming, tasteless
jokes, and ethnic baiting. Though they had repeatedly and firmly
been asked to leave, both publicly and by e-mail, the perpetrators
of such abuses continued to disturb SCAA. The problems endured by
SCAA are particularly great because the very concept of African-
American culture invokes great passions in some posters,
especially those who are extremely hostile to it. The
intractability of these problems to solution by voluntary means
resulted in an atmosphere of intimidation on SCAA. Such an
atmosphere made civil debate and discussion of any topic virtually
impossible on the newsgroup. These developments were effectively
dealt with by reorganizing soc.culture.african.american into two
newsgroups, one moderated (soc.culture.african.american.moderated)
and the other unmoderated (soc.culture.african.american).
The RFD/CFV proponent was Arthur Johnson.
3.2 So how did the vote go?
Well, it was mixed. The creation of the moderated group was
approved by a vote of 159 to 22. The rename of the unmoderated
group from soc.culture.african.american to
soc.culture.african.american.misc failed with 89 in favor of the
rename and 82 opposed. The official votetaker was David Bostwick.
Soc.culture.african.american.moderated (SCAA.Mod) was duly
authorized and created on March 24, 1997 by David Lawrence (tale).
For context, the original unmoderated group SCAA was duly
authorized and created on April 16, 1990, and continues to this
day.
3.3 What is the charter and moderation policy of
soc.culture.african.american.moderated?
An html version of the charter can be found at
http://www.clark.net/pub/jeter/main.htm.
3.4 Who are the moderators?
Moderator: Arthur Johnson ajohnson@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Moderator: L.A. Jeter lajeter@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
3.5 What are the contact addresses for SCAA.Mod?
Administrative contact address (technical questions, traces):
scaa-admin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Article submission address (posts only):
scaa@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reject appeals, complaints:
scaa-board@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
POSTING INFORMATION AND GUIDELINES
4.1 How do I post to the newsgroup?
You can post to the newsgroup using your newsreader software or
you can send your post by email to scaa@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
DO
NOT however, both post and e-mail your message to the newsgroup.
That will create duplicates.
4.2 What happens to my post?
Your post is sent the submission address where the auto-moderation
software distributes the message to a member of the moderation
team and sends you a received message containing a copy of the
post. Once your post is processed you will receive an approve or
reject message. Approved posts are sent to the news gateway to be
distributed.
4.3 How long before I know about my post?
Allow 36 hours for processing. Processing time does not include
the time it takes to appear on your news server.
Note: The following situation may increase the processing time for
your submission:
Forwarding mail (either private e-mail or from another list)
without the author's permission or other implied permission.
Cyberspace for black folk is too small to neglect this
consideration, so please get permission or include a disclaimer.
4.4 I sent my post, but I didn't get any response. Why not?
There are a couple of possibilities. If you've elected not to
receive auto- acknowledgements to your submissions, you won't get
a response. If you've added nojunkmail, nospam, etc. to your reply
address you won't get a response.
If you are currently on noack and wish to be removed, send an e-
mail to the scaa-admin address. The email must come from the same
account you wish to have removed from the list. We will not honor
third-party requests. We will send you a confirmation e-mail once
the process is complete.
4.5 It's been 36 hours and I haven't received an approved or rejected
message. Now what do I do?
Forward the entire, unedited copy of the received message that was
sent by the robomoderator to scaa-admin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Requests sent without the copy will not be investigated. If you
are on no- ack, send the entire message, *including message id*,
for the post in question. Allow a sufficient amount of time for
investigation.
4.6 I sent a post in the heat of the moment and now I want it back.
What should I do?
Send a copy of the message, including message id, to the admin
address with a request for the moderators to cancel. We'll
expedite the situation as quickly as possible. However, understand
that some system administrators don't honor cancel control
messages and your message may still end up on some servers. You
must also personally contact DejaNews to delete your article from
the archive.
Any followups to your post to SCAA.Mod will be rejected.
4.7 There's a comment attached to my approved post.
There are several instances and types of posts that may warrant
some type of comment that's not an admonishment to the author.
Some of these include:
Type of Post
Moderator Comment
Who is [a known troller]? questions.
Reply to sender, no followups.
Research
E-mail all direct replies to sender. Discussion OK.
O.J., AffAct, interracial dating type posts (topics that have
their own newsgroups)
Followups to [newsgroup inserted here].
Business Idea of the Decade Good idea.
Discussion okay, but are you concerned about competitors?
Save the whales type discussion.
In the spirit of fellow****p.
Charter violation (excessive quoting; 80 characters)
Excessive quoting/exceeds 80 characters, one warning only.
4.8 My post was rejected! Why?
All rejected posts are returned to the author with an explanation
which appears at the beginning of the message. Currently (ca.
April 97) most posts are rejected for technical violations, the
most common being excessive quoting, lines exceeding 80 characters
or using the wrong character set (resulting in unreadable posts).
In those cases, just reformat the post and resubmit.
4.9 Well, I don't think my post is offtopic, rude, or insulting. I
want to speak to your supervisor.
You may appeal a rejected post by sending the entire, unedited
copy of the rejection message to the scaa-board address. Include
your rationale for approving the post *as it was submitted*.
Appeals sent without the copy will not be heard. Third-party
appeals will not be heard. Any abuse to the moderators will not be
tolerated. A favorable vote by 50% of the moderator panel will
result in the post being approved.
From time to time, a post is submitted in which the theme is
acceptable, but also contains some kind of mean-spirited and
unacceptable flame (an epithet, personal attack, etc.) nested
inside it. In those cases, we will ask the submitter to revise the
post accordingly and resubmit it. We could, of course, be really
hard-headed about it, but we'd rather work with the submitter in
those cases where a post is genuinely salvagable. Of course, we'd
prefer not to have to do this at all, so please make an effort at
civility.
4.10 Can I curse?
_May_ I curse. We have no intention of choking off
cursing/profanity and humor containing an ethnic component.
However, excessive profanity, i.e. tirades, and humor that's
willfully mean-spirited will be looked at closely.
4.11 Hey, all I posted was an article from a magazine/newspaper/journal
that I think is relevant to African-Americans and it was rejected.
Why?
Copies of entire articles from newspapers, magazine, et al.
without any relevant commentary are considered a copyright
violation by the moderators and will not be approved.
Here is an excerpt from Brad Templeton's Home Page, 10 Big Myths
about copyright explained.
"'My posting was just fair use!' See other notes on fair use for
a detailed answer, but bear the following in mind:
The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow
things such as commentary, parody, news re****ting, research and
education about copyrighted works without the permission of the
author. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are
im****tant considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the
New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the
quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time
to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to
pay for the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair
use, the others probably aren't.
Fair use is almost always a short excerpt and almost always
attributed. (One should not use more of the work than is necessary
to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value
of the work in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it
(which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is
generally forbidden.)
Note that most inclusion of text in Usenet followups is for
commentary and reply, and it doesn't damage the commercial value
of the original posting (if it has any) and as such it is fair
use. Fair use isn't an exact doctrine, either. The court decides
if the right to comment overrides the copyright on an individual
basis in each case. There have been cases that go beyond the
bounds of what I say above, but in general they don't apply to the
typical net misclaim of fair use. It's a risky defense to attempt.
Facts and ideas can't be copyrighted, but their expression and
structure can. You can always write the facts in your own words."
If you want more information you can read Brad's entire FAQ at:
http://www.clari.net/brad/copymyths.html
4.12 So and so is a known TROLL on SCAA! Why are they being allowed to
post to SCAA.Mod?
If the troll follows the requirements of the charter, then they,
like everyone else are allowed to post. Notify the moderators and
inform them of your opinion (scaa-board@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
). DO
NOT send your complaint to the posting address. Or you may use the
kill-file feature of your newsreader.
4.13 What is a manual crosspost and how is it different from a
crosspost?
On SCAA.Mod, a "crosspost" is defined as follows:
1. Automatic: any submission containing more than one newsgroup
name in the Newsgroups: header, or
2. Manual: any submission posted singularly to multiple
newsgroups, including SCAA.Mod, which is either of a
commercial nature or net-abuse as defined in the charter of
SCAA.Mod.
On SCAA.Mod, a "copy" is defined as follows:
Any submission posted singularly to multiple newsgroups, including
SCAA.Mod, which is neither of a commercial nature nor net-abuse as
defined in the charter of SCAA.Mod.
Bottom line, a "copy" is fine, a "crosspost" is not. The above
definitions clearly distinguish between the two. Our reasons for
the option of rejecting multiply posted ads and flames as manual
crossposts instead of as commercial or harassment have to do with
fighting spam. Multiple posting is becoming a routine trick used
by spammers and flamers to defeat crosspost screens. These
definitions give the moderators an additional tool for combatting
this trick while ensuring that any civil and on-topic article can
be posted to SCAA.Mod without moderator interference, even if the
article has also been posted to another group.
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end SOC.CULTURE.AFRICAN.AMERICAN FAQ
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