Article #702 (825 is last): From: "Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things" Newsgroups: rec.toys.transformers.moderated,alt.toys.transformers Subject: [ADMIN] Rec.Toys.Transformers.Moderated FAQ & Charter Reply-To: "RTT.Mod Moderators" Date: Mon Jun 29 21:05:32 1998 [Note: This FAQ has one slight change from the prior version--the addition of an [ANI] tag for Animorphs discussion.] REC.TOYS.TRANSFORMERS.MODERATED MODERATION FAQ & CHARTER (v1.21) By Christopher E. Meadows With help from Tim Skirvin and many others CONTENTS (* denotes a new or revised section) HELP! I Can't Read and/or Post to Rec.Toys.Transformers.Moderated! IF YOUR SITE DOES NOT CARRY REC.TOYS.TRANSFORMERS.MODERATED IF YOUR SITE DOES NOT HAVE REC.TOYS.TRANSFORMERS.MODERATED CONFIGURED PROPERLY IF THAT DOESN'T WORK... DEJANEWS & REFERENCE.COM FREE NEWS SERVERS COMMERCIAL NEWS SERVERS LOCAL OR NATIONAL ISP POSTING BY EMAIL: rtt-mod@uiuc.edu How to Get Your Posts Sent IMMEDIATELY NOTE: HOW TO POST NOTE: SPAM-BLOCKING FORMATTING: HTML, MIME, 80-CHARACTER MARGINS * SUBJECT-LINE KEYWORD TAGS CROSSPOSTING OVERQUOTING AUTOAPPROVAL NOTE: APPROVAL-FORGERY Have We Made a Mistake? (Etiquette for Complaining) REC.TOYS.TRANSFORMERS.MODERATED CHARTER THE REC.TOYS.TRANSFORMERS.MODERATED MODERATION FAQ (v1.0) HELP! I Can't Read and/or Post to Rec.Toys.Transformers.Moderated! Before explaining the policies _for_ posting to it, we should first be certain that you _can_ post to rec.toys.transformers.moderated. This section of the FAQ will go over what steps you might take to gain access to the group if you don't currently have it, and will also make some suggestions about what to do if none of these steps work. IF YOUR SITE DOES NOT CARRY REC.TOYS.TRANSFORMERS.MODERATED The first thing to try is, of course, asking your sysadmin to add it. Since rec.toys.transformers.moderated is a Big Eight newsgroup, and furthermore since it is moderated, most sysadmins should be fairly willing to add it to their list. When you ask, attach a copy of the most recent newgroup message for moderating rec.toys.transformers.moderated, which will be the very last message in the file found at: (enter the URL as one line into your web browser) If you have trouble retrieving it, please email a moderator for help. This message contains all the necessary information for adding rec.toys.transformers.moderated as a moderated group, meaning that you are saving your sysadmin the trouble of hunting it down for himself. Be sure to include all the headers--they include the PGP signature that can be used to verify that it is an official newgroup message from David Lawrence. If your sysadmin tells you that the problem is that none of the upstream news sites carries rec.toys.transformers.moderated (which means that, even if he did carry it, he would have no way of getting articles for it), you should try the same procedure with the sysadmin of the upstream site (or ask _your_ sysadmin to). If this does not work, see "If That Doesn't Work..." below. IF YOUR SITE DOES NOT HAVE REC.TOYS.TRANSFORMERS.MODERATED CONFIGURED PROPERLY If you see your posts show up immediately after you send them, with no "X-Approved: rtt-mod@uiuc.edu" line in the header, your site probably has not properly configured rec.toys.transformers.moderated as a moderated newsgroup. In all likelihood, this will be quite rare, as RTTM is a new group and so there will not be any sites that have a prior, unmoderated version; creation and configuration of the group as moderated should be done simultaneously. Still, anything is possible. If your site has RTTM listed as unmoderated, this means that you will see whatever spam and unapproved posts are made to the newsgroup from other unregistered sites, and also means that the news server will attempt to inject your post into the newsgroup itself, rather than emailing it to the moderation address. This _could_ lead to your article getting lost completely (many properly-configured news sites will helpfully forward unapproved posts they receive to the moderation address, but it is not good to depend on this). In order to correct this, please send your sysadmin a copy of the newgroup message mentioned above, along with the request that he configure RTTM properly. Most sysadmins who already do carry the group should be happy to do this for you. If they are reluctant to do this, please let a RTTM moderator know so that we may contact them ourselves. In the interim, you may inject your posts directly into the moderators' queue by emailing them to rtt-mod@uiuc.edu rather than posting via the news server (see instructions below). IF THAT DOESN'T WORK... Some sites (universities, for example) may be loathe to add another newsgroup, particularly one dealing with "toys." If this is the case, it is probable that no amount of complaint to your sysadmin will change it, and it is time to look for other alternatives. I'll list the "free" ones first. DEJANEWS & REFERENCE.COM DejaNews and Reference.Com are two of many Usenet archival/newsgroup sites that carry rec.toys.transformers.moderated. Their newsfeeds are fairly good, and certainly better than nothing at all. DejaNews's policy formerly would not allow you to post to moderated groups, though I have been told that they have recently changed this. However, in some cases, posts made from DejaNews and Reference.Com have arrived in moderator queues garbled beyond all readability. I would recommend posting by email to rtt-mod@uiuc.edu (see instructions below) as being a much more reliable means of getting your messages through than posting via webpage newsfeed sites. FREE NEWS SERVERS There are a number of news servers that allow anyone to read news from them, and some servers will even allow anyone to post through them. Lists of these servers may be found in However, I really should note that these sites often have poor newsfeeds, and posting through them can be extremely unreliable. They often come about due to someone overlooking security measures on his site, and are closed one at a time as soon as someone spams through them. (The pre-moderation mass-spam attacks on rec.games.mecha were launched through servers such as these.) If you normally read news via AOL or Prodigy, you will probably have to download a third-party newsreader to use these servers; newsreader recommendations may be found further down under the "HTML" section of this FAQ. COMMERCIAL NEWS SERVERS Newsguy , formerly Zippo , is a service that offers newsreading and posting access via its news servers and/or a WWW interface for $5 per month, as well as, I've been told, some form of free web-based newsreading access. I've never used the service myself, but my friends who have note that it has a very good newsfeed and a good reputation for reliable service. Other commercial news servers can be found in If you normally read news via AOL or Prodigy, you will probably have to download a third-party newsreader to use these servers; newsreader recommendations may be found further down under the "HTML" section of this FAQ. LOCAL OR NATIONAL ISP If you are an AOL or Prodigy user, you might want to consider switching over to an Internet Service Provider, either local or national. This largely depends on what level of service you are looking for and what level they offer, and may be unfeasible, but it is worth mentioning as an alternative. POSTING BY EMAIL: rtt-mod@uiuc.edu If you want to be as certain as you can that your post makes it into our moderation queue, you can email your article directly to rtt-mod@uiuc.edu. Just write the post as you would a normal email message, then send it. Once we receive it, it will go through the same moderation procedure as any other posted message. Best of all, this posting method works with _any_ of the above options for reading rec.toys.transformers.moderated. If you want to follow up to someone else's post, choose "reply by e-mail" instead of "post a follow-up" and change the address in the "To:" line to rtt-mod@uiuc.edu. (If your newsreader will not let you do this, perhaps you should consider downloading better software.) How to Get Your Posts Sent IMMEDIATELY Naturally, everyone who posts to rec.toys.transformers.moderated wants his posts to go out immediately, and not have to sit waiting in the "inspection area" for a moderator to check and send them. That's why this FAQ is being put together...to give you the secrets to getting your post just right, so it goes through and saves us moderators the work of looking at it. :) Many of the moderation criteria are automated. If you meet all the criteria, your message will be posted automatically, and will probably even propagate _faster_ than it would have if it had just been posted through your own news server--the Moderation site is on a regional news hub with _very_ good distribution. These criteria are in no particular order of importance. Insofar as speed-of-posting is concerned, each one is equally important, because if you miss even one, your post will end up in the moderators' mailbox and have to be inspected before being sent on its merry way. This is not an inclusive list of what may or may not be posted to rec.toys.transformers.moderated; for that, see the newsgroup charter, which is included later in this FAQ. However, one paragraph of that charter is so important that it should be quoted right up front (slightly modified), for reference as you read the following sections: # "Off-topic" refers to anything not pertaining to Transformers or # other topical material (as defined in the first paragraph of the # Charter). However, "on-topic" will be interpreted very broadly; # almost anything that is not directly objectionable (by the criteria # for disallowed posts given above) will be let through. The moderation scheme is intended to keep out spam, newsgroup-bombing, unprotected spoilers, and the like, while promoting the normal flow of Transformers-related conversation--not to block every single message that might possibly be considered off-topic. Toward that end, if there's a reasonable amount of doubt as to whether a post should be rejected, we will probably go ahead and approve it. Before we get to the tips on how to get your articles approved, here are a couple of tips about how to be sure your article is reaching us at all. NOTE: HOW TO POST I bet you think you know this one already, right? "I just use the post command in my newsreader, or postnews." Well, yes...but there's also another way. You see, when you post to a moderated group, the posting software (if it's configured properly) will automatically email your post to a moderation address, rather than posting it. If you want, you can bypass the news-posting step entirely by emailing your post directly to our moderation address, rtt-mod@uiuc.edu. If your posts to RTTM seem to vanish into the void, it might mean that your site's newsposting software is improperly configured, and you should try the email address instead. NOTE: Do not send complaints, questions, requests, inquiries, etc. to this address--it's for posting your articles only. The RTTM Moderation Team's administrative address is rtt-request@uiuc.edu; please address that kind of correspondance there. NOTE: SPAM-BLOCKING Some posters to rec.toys.transformers.moderated use "spam-blocks" in their email addresses--that is to say, altering their address so that "postmaster@earthlink.com" becomes "postSPAMmaster@earthlink.com" to use an example. The efficacy of this method is a matter of some dispute in the news.admin.net-abuse hierarchy, given that many spammers have begun to use spamblock-decoding software, but it does violate an RFC, and many sysadmins feel that it causes more trouble for others than it prevents for the user in question, particularly where autoresponder systems (such as those used in newsgroup moderation) are concerned. There is currently no requirement on rec.toys.transformers.moderated that posters must post with non-spamblocked email addresses. However, you should be aware that posting with a spamblock _could_ cause your messages to vanish. The reason for this is that, at the time of this FAQ's writing, four out of the seven moderation relay sites--the computers whose job is to forward posts to moderated newsgroups to the moderators of those newsgroups--are set to drop emailed messages sent from invalid domain names. (Please note that the R.T.TF.Mod moderation crew has _no control_ over these relay sites--it's not our fault, and there's nothing we can do about it.) Some users of other newsgroups have reported their spamblocked messages being dropped. Spamblocking may also cause you not to receive potentially important autoresponses from the Modbot (such as acknowledgements of receipt, posting, or rejection), and creates extra work for the moderators and an extra load on the site being used for moderation--in some cases, spamblocking has caused newsgroup moderation autoresponse to have to be disabled altogether. I strongly suggest looking into an alternative to spamblocking your posting email address. A couple of such options include - Setting up filters on your incoming email; an excellent site for this purpose is http://www.best.com/~ariel/nospam/ . Other resources can be found through a websearch, or by inquiring on news.admin.net-abuse.email. - Getting a hotmail.com, yahoo.com, or other free email account; you can put your hotmail address in your "From" header, with instructions on how to reply to your _real_ address in your .signature or wherever. You can then check your hotmail address as often or as rarely as you like, and be assured that any spam you get will go there, rather than your _real_ address. FORMATTING: HTML, MIME, 80-CHARACTER MARGINS Posting to rec.toys.transformers.moderated in HTML, Hypertext Mark-Up Language, is not allowed. HTML posting wastes bandwidth and obscures readability. HTML has a forum specifically devoted to its use--the World Wide Web--and has no place on Usenet. The same may be said for MIME or similar forms of file-attachment encoding. They also obscure readability; furthermore, the purpose of these formats is to distribute binary files, and no binary files will be allowed on rec.toys.transformers.moderated anyway, so there is no point to using it. Article right margins should not go over 80 characters; preferably they should be 64-70 characters to allow for several layers of quoting without text overflow. Not everyone has a newsreader that handles >80 character margins, and to those who do not, it obscures readibility. Messages posted to rec.toys.transformers.moderated in HTML, MIME, and/or >80-character lines will be passed to the human moderators, who may reject them. If your newsreader posts in HTML and you want to post to rec.toys.transformers.moderated, you should either disable HTML posting or use a different newsreader. (As a side benefit, dedicated newsreaders also tend to be more efficient at reading news than Netscape or Internet Explorer.) Here is how to disable HTML posting in Netscape 4.0: 1) Start Netscape 4.0 2) Select menu "Edit, Preferences, Mail and News Preferences" 3) Select tab "Compositions" 4) Remove the check mark for "Use HTML Composition Window" And at same time make sure 1) That "Allow 8-bit" is checked 2) That "MIME compliant" is unchecked Here is how to disable HTML posting in MSIE Newsreader: 1) Start MSIE Newsreader 2) Select menu News 3) Select Options 4) Select the Send tab and check the Plain Text box. If you are using Windows or Macintosh-based systems and would like to find a new newsreader, open http://www.shareware.com , select your operating system, and search on "newsreader". Recommended for Windows are Free Agent (for ease of use) or WinVN (supports a killfile); recommended for Macintosh is NewsWatcher [insert other recommendations here?]. If you are using Unix, chances are there are several other newsreaders installed on your system already, such as trn, slrn, tin, or gnus. Ask your sysadmin. SUBJECT-LINE KEYWORD TAGS In order to make reading rec.toys.transformers.moderated a more satisfying and enriching experience for those people who have kill/select files, or who would like to be able to take in subject line lists at a glance, all posts to rec.toys.transformers.moderated must have a [subject line tag] that denotes the subject matter of the message. Please note that, due to our moderation software the only acceptible delineator for tags are [square brackets]. Please do not use (parentheses), {curly brackets}, offsetting with a colon, or any other form. Also, the tag should be at the beginning of the subject, or after a Re:, in order for our software to notice it. [Tag] Article subject - Properly Tagged Re: [Tag] Article subject - Properly Tagged Article [Tag] Subject - Untagged (Tag) Article subject - Untagged {Tag} Article subject - Untagged Tag: Article subject - Untagged Article subject - Untagged Below is a list of suggested tags; use one or as many of them as you think apply to your message. This list is _not_ meant to be all-inclusive--if you don't find a tag there for a Transformers- related subject or subtopic about which you want to post, make up your own. You won't be penalized for using a tag that's not there, if it gets the point across about what's in the message--we may even add it to the list. Keep in mind, though, if you don't put a tag on, one of the moderators will look at the message and add the tag he thinks should go there, and it might not be the one you would have chosen. Also note that if a poster consistently refuses to use proper tagging after being asked politely, we may begin rejecting rather than manually tagging untagged messages from that person. Subject or General Tags: Administrative announcements = [ADMIN] Animorphs = [ANI] Beast Wars = [BW] Beast Wars 2 = [BW2] General interest = [GENERAL] or [MISC] GoBots (Tonka) = [GB] or [GOBOTS] GoBots (Transformers Gen 2) = [G2GB] or [TFGB] Machine Wars = [MW] RoboMACs = [RMAC] Transformers "Generation One" (original TV series) = [G1] or [TFG1] Transformers Generation Two = [G2] or [TFG2] Transformers Japanese series = [JTF] or [J-TF] Topic Tags: Comic Book = [COMIC] Toy-related = [TOY] Useless but fun tidbit = [NOISE] or [Off-Topic] Humor tags = [HUMOR] (or [HUMOUR]), [PARODY], [SATIRE], etc. Song = [SONG] Request = [REQUEST] Role-Playing Game rules = [RPG] Any other TV show, anime, movie, etc. = [(show's title)] Philosophical discussion = [PHILO] And tags like [IRC], [WWW], [MUSH], etc. should be fairly self-explanatory. The tags don't have to be all caps, nor do they have to be exact, just as long as they make it obvious what the post is about. Also, threads that start to go astray due to topic drift should preferably have [Off-Topic] appended to the subject line at some point. CROSSPOSTING As the charter says, excessive crossposting is not allowed. What is excessive? Well, that varies. It's possible that a message might be on-topic for several newsgroups...though the more newsgroups to which it is posted, the less likely this becomes. Furthermore, excessive crossposting has been used in the massive binary-bomb spams that have shown up on other newsgroups in the past. As sort of a second line of defense (just in case a spammer forges someone's identity), any post sent to four or more newsgroups and/or all crossposts between rec.toys.transformers.moderated and any currently "unauthorized" newsgroup will be shunted to the manual moderation mailbox for the moderators to look at it. If it is on topic for all the groups to which it is posted, it will be approved. If not, it will be returned to the poster. Either way, the moderators will not alter the Newsgroups: line of any articles they receive; it will be up to the poster to do that himself. Groups that are currently "authorized" for automatic posting are: [Well, there won't be any "authorized" groups until moderation gets going, naturally; expect this to include the rec.toys.transformers.* groups, plus alt.toys.transformers, and various others.] New groups may be authorized by request or by enough legitimate crossposting between RTTM and that group to warrant it. If a newsgroup is not authorized, that fact does _not_ constitute any condemnation on the part of the moderators toward the act of crossposting to it. All crossposts that pass in front of us will be judged on a case by case basis. NOTE: If one (or more) of the other groups to which the article is crossposted is also moderated (a.t.t.classic.moderated, for example), the article must also meet criteria for topicality in those groups. It will be passed on to their moderators for approval if it first meets the criteria for posting to rec.toys.transformers.moderated. (Or it may well be passed on to _us_ if it first meets _their_ criteria, depending on which moderation team gets around to looking at the article in question first. :) OVERQUOTING When posts pass by us, we naturally scrutinize them for overquoting. When following up to a message, it is usually only necessary to quote a few lines, to remind the reader to what the reply is being made. After all, most newsreaders have a "prior message in thread" function that they may use to return to the last message and read it in full if they wish. Overquoting wastes bandwidth, and in some cases may cause readers to skip your message entirely, especially if the quoted material is very long. We do realize that there are some instances where quoting more material than reply text is unavoidable. However, when all or almost all of the material of a long message is quoted material, when it includes material two and three layers of quoting deep with no comments addressed directly at the double/triple-quoted material, and/or when .signatures of quoted messages have been left in, we will assume that you accidentally sent the message before you were finished cutting down the quoted text, and will reject it back to you so you can finish before posting again. AUTOAPPROVAL After you've had five manually-approved articles posted to rec.toys.transformers.moderated, you will be added to the autoapproval list. That means that, if you meet all of the above criteria for message format, topic tags, and crossposting, your posts will be approved and posted to rec.toys.transformers.moderated automatically, without ever passing moderator eyes. As far as your posts are concerned, it will be almost as if rec.toys.transformers.moderated were unmoderated (save that your messages will actually propagate _faster_ than they would in an unmoderated group--the moderation-injection newsfeed is very rapid). We will trust you to post generally on topic (the occasional off-topic post is okay, though) and not to abuse your posting privileges. If you go seriously astray, you'll get a couple of official warnings, and if you continue to behave inappropriately, you may be removed from the auto-approval list for a while, meaning that your posts will again have to pass human inspection--and having removed you once, we'll be somewhat reluctant to put you on again (probably requiring at least a 30-day grace period before considering it, but that is left at the moderators' discretion). NOTE: APPROVAL-FORGERY During the pre-RFD and RFD discussion periods of other moderated groups, concern has been expressed that moderation might not be effective, due to spammers and flooders posting with forged approval (also known as the "dead chicken"). However, the rec.toys.transformers.moderated moderation team has taken this into account, and our moderation system will be compatible with PGPMoose. Under PGPMoose, the moderation software will append a PGP signature, generated using a private encryption key and the body of the message itself, to the header of each approved message. The PGPMoose cancelbot keeps an eye on PGPMoose-moderated groups, and automatically cancels any post that has been "approved" with an improper or no moderation PGP signature. Thus, posts with forged approvals will be cancelled rapidly, with no moderator intervention involved or needed. The _only_ way to get a post approved to rec.toys.transformers.moderated in any permanent fashion will be to go through the legitimate moderation system. Have We Made a Mistake? (Proper Etiquette for Complaining to the Moderators) As moderators, we have two strikes against us. 1) We're human and therefore imperfect; 2) most of us are a bit new at this moderation thing and still trying to work out how best to do our jobs. We _will_ make mistakes, and we'll probably even change our minds from time to time on our handling of certain issues, particularly if we get a lot of feedback email complaining or making suggestions. Anyway...if you think we've made a mistake involving one of your articles (or even involving policies in general, for that matter), please feel free to email us and complain. It is possible that you could convince us to change our minds, or else that we could explain ourselves more fully to you. If you do so, please follow these simple steps: 1) SAVE THE RESPONSE NOTICE. The response (rejection or modification) notice you receive should contain the full text of your original article (if a rejection notice), as well as the reason why it was rejected (or modified), and which moderator handled it. Not only can this be helpful in determining if a mistake was made (by software _or_ by human moderators), it will also enable you to salvage the text of a rejected article if the moderators should change their mind and allow you to post it after all. 2) Optional: CHECK DEJANEWS (OR REFERENCE.COM). If there is some doubt as to the fate of your article, you might want to check DejaNews just in case to see if it might have gotten approved and yet never reached your server for some reason. These things do happen, as unreliable as netnews sometimes is. If something like that happens to you, it can save both you and the moderators some time and trouble if you check there first and find that it was actually posted after all. 3) EMAIL US. Our address for feedback is rtt-request@uiuc.edu. If you send your email there, it will be seen by _all_ the moderators. This will allow all of us to have a chance at figuring out what might have gone wrong, and to discuss the feedback among ourselves should it necessitate a change being made. Sometimes some of us reject posts that others would have approved, or vice versa. 4) BE POLITE. We're all busy people--overworked, perhaps underappreciated by some, trying to deal with the rest of our lives in addition to moderating rec.toys.transformers.moderated as a volunteer chore. We will get back to you sooner or later, but you can provide us with added incentive to do it sooner by being calm and polite rather than flaming us. Remember the old proverb about how to catch more flies. 5) IF THAT DOESN'T WORK. It is possible that, even after you try to convince us otherwise, we may still feel your post does not belong on rec.toys.transformers.moderated. We strongly encourage you to post such messages to one of the other, unmoderated Transformers groups, such as alt.toys.transformers, if you still believe that other people would like to read them. REC.TOYS.TRANSFORMERS.MODERATED CHARTER rec.toys.transformers.moderated is primarily dedicated to discussion of all Transformers toy lines, the comic books, animated series, and all related material, be it books, magazines, television, movies, webpages, archives, chat areas, etc. To a lesser extent, insofar as they relate to Transformers, Transformers-related toy lines (Battle Beasts, etc.), other Hasbroverse toy line tie-ins, and other robot toy lines that do not have newsgroups specifically devoted to their fandom (GoBots, certain Japanese robot toy lines, etc.) are also considered on-topic here _as long as they maintain relevance to some facet of the Transformers under discussion_. In short, almost all types of post that were accepted on alt.toys.transformers will also be accepted here. rec.toys.transformers.moderated does not exist to supplant or replace any other current or future Transformers discussion newsgroups, but rather to supplement them. This is intended to be a place where people can read and post without fear of getting spoiled by accident, a place where subjects can easily be killed or selected by use of subject-line tags, and, hopefully, a place where Beast Wars and "Classic" Transformers fans alike will be able to get along and have civil discussions. It is not our intent to force moderation upon anyone; there will always be unmoderated Transfandom groups for people to use if they don't care for moderation. We just want to provide the freedom of choice that comes with more and different alternatives. Each posting to rec.toys.transformers.moderated should include a keyword tag on the subject line either designating which which toy line or related material to which the posting refers ([G1], [G2], [BW], etc.) or marking the general subject of the post ([ADMIN], etc.). If a submitted post does not have a tag, the moderator may add appropriate tags, but posters are encouraged to add tags themselves to save moderation work. A list of suggested keywords will be posted in a separate FAQ. Contributions are welcome from all who wish to engage in discussion of Transformers and related toy lines, related subjects, and outside sites pertaining thereunto--this includes but is not limited to toy lines, mass media (books, comics, magazines, movies, TV, etc.), webpages, IRC channels, WebChat rooms, MUDs/MUSEs/MUSHes/etc, RPGs, and computer games. Discussion on rec.toys.transformers.moderated may consist of such things as: * Discussions pertaining to toys, comic books, TV shows, and other Transformers-related material. * Properly-protected TV show/comic book/etc. spoilers. * Replies to requests for information. * Announcements of conventions, fandom resources, new mailing lists, webpages, or other newsgroups pertaining to the Transformers or related material. rec.toys.transformers.moderated is NOT to be used for the following: * Posting of unprotected spoilers. * Advertising or sales of Transformers-related material of any kind (use rec.toys.transformers.marketplace instead). * Posting of fanfiction. * Posting of binaries (with the exception of PGP signatures and clear-signatures, which are allowed), HTML-formatted messages, or MIME attachments. However, notices of archives, webpages, or FTP sites dedicated to Transformers-related binaries are welcome, and should be used as alternatives to posting binary material. * Blatant trolls or other abusive material. * Posting of off-topic or excessively-crossposted material. * Posting of "test" messages. "Off-topic" refers to anything not pertaining to Transformers or other topical material (as defined in the first paragraph of this Charter). However, "on-topic" will be interpreted very broadly; almost anything that is not directly objectionable (by the criteria for disallowed posts given above) will be let through. Postings considered by the Usenet community to be 'spam' or similar forms of net-abuse are not permitted. This also includes blatant trolls (posts with primarily emotive content along the lines of " SUCKS!!!" with no attempt at justification, or "YOUR ALL FAGS GIT A LIFE" for example). The discussion in rec.toys.transformers.moderated is moderated. The moderation is not to censor or suppress discussion or controversy on any topic relevant to the group, but rather to filter out abuse, spam, unprotected spoilers, and posts sent to RTT.moderated by mistake. Save where MIME-encoding, HTML marked-up posts, >80 character line width, spoiler protection, and other issues of formatting are concerned, content or style will NEVER be altered by the moderators, whose sole purpose is to forward all appropriate postings to the group. All inappropriate postings will be returned in their entirety to the posters. Spoilers: In Transformers fandom, the term "spoilers" commonly refers to plot-related information that could "spoil" a story for someone who has not had a chance to read or view that story (be it an episode of a TV series, a comic book, a movie, fanfiction, or some other type of story) yet. In the past, a common problem on alt.toys.transformers has been the posting of unprotected spoilers to the newsgroup, particularly in subject lines such as "[character name] is dead!" or "[character name] is back!" This is bad because it removes the choice of whether or not to be spoiled from the reader, who many times would prefer to be completely surprised by what happens in the story. Posts to rec.toys.transformers.moderated may include spoilers, but the spoilers should have appropriate protection and warning, including the tag [Spoilers] in the subject line, and a pagebreak symbol (control-L) and/or 15-30 lines of space before the spoilers begin, and should _never_ be in the subject line. This will give readers their choice of going ahead and being spoiled, or of passing the article by until they have seen the episode in question. (This will be enforced most strictly on the most recent season of whatever Transformers show/comic book/etc. is in current release, and less strictly on spoilers for older works such as G1 episodes, G1 & G2 comic books, and 1st-season BW episodes; these have been around for long enough that they are assumed to have been seen or read already by the majority of the portion of the readership who would be concerned about them.) Fanfiction: Due to the increased exposure of rec groups, fanfiction will not be allowed on rec.toys.transformers.moderated (or any of the other rec.toys.transformers.* groups, for that matter). Our concern is that it might cause Hasbro, who has shown some hostility toward Transformers fanfiction in the past, to take additional notice of this aspect of Transformers fandom and possibly institute legal action. We would rather not risk harming fandom, and particularly fanfic writers, by increasing the likelihood of Hasbro lawsuits. Thus, fanfiction should not be posted anywhere within the rec.toys.transformers.* hierarchy. Moderation Policy: The moderators will try to ensure that the postings are free from gratuitous verbal abuse and personal attacks. Authorship is NOT a criterion for judgment; article content is the sole criterion. That said, it is not the business of the moderators to search out or remove illegal material, and the moderators cannot be held responsible for any postings to the group written by other persons. Articles for rec.toys.transformers.moderated must be relevant to the newsgroup charter. Articles should have a maximum line width of 80 characters, though a line width of 64-72 characters is suggested for new articles, as this allows the material to be easily quoted in follow-ups without reformatting line breaks. Articles should not be formatted in HTML code (as certain versions of Netscape and Microsoft Internet News are known to post), nor should they be use MIME attachments. HTML-style emoticons, such as , are all right, however, as is the posting of URLs. The moderators are authorized to reject articles that do not meet the topical or formatting criteria given above, or to reformat misformatted messages so that they meet posting standards. Moderators may also reject posts, particularly long ones, that consist overwhelmingly of quoted material. "This is a test" posts, posts that add nothing substantial, and add new content only to the effect of 'me too', 'no', and the like, may also be rejected if they fail to serve the purpose of furthering discussion. Anyone whose article is rejected or modified will usually be mailed a brief note, consisting of a personally written note and/or a boilerplate response containing an explanation to inform him why his posting was rejected and what kind of adjustments he should consider making if he wishes to resubmit the article. (Though in the case of spam, the moderator should feel free to ignore it entirely.) If desired by the poster, further assistance or advice will be given by the moderators. Conversation, chat, and the mutual fun of the participants are all important. Off-topic threads that began as on-topic threads will not be rejected as long as they retain some periodic relevance. Moderators may insert subject line keywords or alter subject lines to reflect topic drift, but will reject chat-type posts only when they become completely irrelevant. Though messages may be reformatted by the moderators, they will _not_ be edited for content; they will be either accepted or rejected--it is up to the poster to decide to make any changes himself before resubmitting. Subject lines may be altered by the moderator only if he deems it necessary (ie, if the subject line includes a spoiler, the subject of the message thread has drifted away from the original subject line, etc.). Keyword [tags] may be added if necessary. Some approved messages may have a clearly delineated moderator's note appended to the end or beginning. Such moderator's notes will be used for administrative purposes only, never for interjection of personal comments. Crossposting between rec.toys.transformers.moderated and other newsgroups (including both moderated & unmoderated Transformers-related groups and non-Transformers-related groups) is permitted and even encouraged, so long as it is not excessively crossposted (ie, spammed) and does not violate the charter of the other newsgroups. (The moderators of rec.toys.transformers are not expected to ensure personally that every message is on-topic for every group, though they should at least try use their common sense in such matters.) However, whether to crosspost is entirely up to the person who submits the article. The moderators should try to ensure that a crossposted message is on-topic for each of the crossposted groups, and should consult with the moderation staff of any other moderated groups in the crosspost list if necessary. The moderators will _never_ alter articles' Newsgroups lines; if an article is excessively or off-topically crossposted, they will simply reject it. The complete text of all rejected articles (save perhaps for massive binaries) will be returned to the poster so that he may make any necessary adjustments himself before resubmitting it or posting it elsewhere. If new moderators are required, they are selected from among those responding to a request for volunteers posted in the newsgroup. Removal of an existing moderator is by the decision of the other active moderators. Commercial postings are prohibited, given the existance of a rec.toys.transformers.marketplace group for that very purpose. The moderators are authorized to reject postings which are commercial in nature and do not fit the criteria mentioned here and earlier in this document. NO specific individuals or groups are excluded from rec.toys.transformers.moderated (except on a post-by-post basis, the same as everyone else) nor will any specific individuals or groups be shown favoritism. To provide for the necessity of future changes, this charter may be amended or altered by a 2/3 vote of the currently active moderators. EMAIL ADDRESSES Here are the email addresses for all of the current moderators, plus the moderation administrative addresses. Moderator: "Christopher E. Meadows" Moderator: Tim Skirvin Moderator: Scott Evans Moderator: EmarZero Moderator: Vulcana Moderator: "J. Edward Corum" Moderator: Prowlhound Moderator: "James D. Thompson" Moderator: Darrell Cobb Moderator: Grrrlgoyle Moderator: Enforcer Moderator: John Bartos Moderator: TC DOC1 Moderator: Diana Calder Moderator: Walky Moderator: "...m..." Moderator: Doug Kern Moderator: Dalmatian Administrative contact address: rtt-request@uiuc.edu Article submission address: rtt-mod@uiuc.edu -- Chris Meadows aka | Co-moderator, rec.toys.transformers.moderated Robotech_Master | ----------------------------------------------- robotech@eyrie.org | Homepage: robotech@jurai.net | ICQ UIN: 5477383