This article is based on material authored by members of the news.newusers.questions Moderation Board and nnq-workers mailing list, particularly by Jon Bell. The original article was last updated in 2005.

news.newusers.questions Administrative Statement

Introduction

news.newusers.questions is moderated, which means that all messages to the group pass through a review process before being posted. Currently, moderation is performed primarily by software, though some messages are forwarded to human moderators for review or rejection.

The charter, which defines what is on-topic for this group and the Moderation Board's powers, is posted to this group once per week. A copy can be found at the news.newusers.questions Administrative Site, http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/.

Moderation Status

The moderation software is currently appending a seven-line footer to all posted messages.

The moderation software is currently returning the following kinds of messages to their senders, without posting them:

• Messages which have a Newsgroups: header line that does not contain news.newusers.questions. [Postings without any Newsgroups: header line are assumed to be intended for n.n.q but were e-mailed directly to the moderation site, for example in order to bypass an incorrectly-configured news server.]
• Messages with an empty or missing Subject field.
• Messages over twenty lines in which the quoted text constitutes More than 90% of the total number of lines. (Quoted text refers to lines which start with one of these characters: > or : or |).
• Messages which have been crossposted to more than two other groups unless they have a Followup-to: header redirecting followups to no more than three newsgroups including n.n.q, or to poster. [Crossposted articles that are acceptable according to the criterion above are forwarded to a human moderator if they are crossposted to another moderated group, so that the moderators can coordinate approvals.]
• Messages which contain more than 200 lines or 10,000 characters, except for FAQs that have been approved by the moderator of news.answers and cross-posted there.
• Messages which mostly consist of binary or encoded binary data, such as picture, sound, or word-processor files.

The moderation software is currently forwarding the following types of messages to human moderators for review. There may be a delay of up to 24 hours before they are either posted or returned to their senders.

• Messages which appear to be simple tests of posting.
• Messages which appear to be simple greetings ("hello" messages) or requests for email.
• Messages which contain certain words or phrases that are commonly found in "Make Money Fast"-type chain letters.
• Messages which contain certain words or phrases that are commonly found in some kinds of advertisements.
• Messages from certain people who have repeatedly posted inappropriate messages in the past. See the section on the "Watch List" below.
• Messages which appear to contain cancel or other control messages.
• Messages which contain certain words or phrases that are commonly found in hoax virus warnings - "Good Times", and similar.
• Messages which contain Javascript or other scripting code. (Bad scripts can cause browsers to crash or have other undesirable side effects.)

The moderation software (or a human moderator) is currently discarding the following type of messages, without attempting to return them to their sender. Returns would simply "bounce" because of faked sender addresses; or worse, they would be delivered to innocent people whose addresses happen to match a faked sender address.

• Advertisements which are posted frequently (several times a day or more) with faked sender addresses, and which fit a pattern that establishes them as coming from the same source.

The "Watch List"

The Watch List is a list of e-mail addresses, postings from which are automatically forwarded to a member of the Moderation Board for inspection.

An address which is the source of several inappropriate messages may be placed on the Watch List by any member of the Moderation Board, who must also notify the rest of the moderation board, and normally attempt to notify the person at that address.

Postings from a particular address on the Watch List must be reviewed by a different moderator from the one who placed the address on the Watch List.

At the discretion of the moderator who wishes to place the address on the Watch List, one of the following options may be used for attempting to notify the person at the Watch-Listed address:

• The person may be given a warning that further inappropriate postings will place his/her address on the Watch List. This should be the normal response for simple cases of repeated off-topic posting.
• The address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person notified of this action. This should be used only in more serious cases, for example, to stop an ongoing flow of inappropriate postings immediately. In this case, the person will normally be notified immediately, but notification may be delayed pending a decision by the Moderation Board if the moderator making the charge thinks that the situation below may apply.
• In rare cases, the address may be placed on the Watch List immediately, and the person not notified at all. Complete withholding of notification requires a majority vote by the Moderation Board. This should be done only in extreme cases of abuse of the newsgroup, in which (for example) it is deemed important that the offender not gain any clues as to the tactics being used to block him/her.

A person will normally be removed from the Watch List by a majority vote of the Moderation Board, either when that person has posted appropriately to the newsgroup for some period of time, or when he/she has not posted at all for an extended period.

Rejection and Appeals

The moderation software tries to return any rejected message to the sender via email. The email includes the reason for the rejection and the address, where the rejection can be appealed. The current appeals address is nnq-adm at presby.edu.

Some rejection notices "bounce" because of invalid e-mail addresses. One of the moderators examines these bounces and tries to fix bad addresses and re-send those rejection notices.

If you think your message might have been rejected, but you didn't get a rejection notice, please check to make sure your email address and reply-to address are correct. You can do so by sending an email message to yourself and trying to reply to it.

The first 200 lines of all articles rejected in the last two weeks are archived for public inspection. You can find this archive at the news.newusers.questions Administrative Site, http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/.

Moderator Contacts

Send mail (other than appeals) related to the moderation of the group to nnq-adm at presby.edu.

The board which controls the moderation of this group is made up of:

• Head Moderator:
  • Jon Bell (jbell at presby.edu) (Since June 1997)
• Backup Moderators:
  • Michael Buchenrieder (mibu at scrum.muc.de) (Since May 2000)
  • Dennis Calhoun (dcalhoun at BLomand.Net) (Since June 1997)
  • Kathy Cole (kathy at scconsult.com) (Since October 1997)
  • Thor Kottelin (thor at anta.net) (Since May 2000)
  • Denis McKeon (dmckeon at swcp.com) (Since June 1997)
  • Barbara Pattist (pattist at earthlink.net) (Since June 1997)
  • Kivi Shapiro (kivi at pobox.com) (Since June 1997)
  • Heinrich Schramm (heinrich at schramm.com) (Since May 2000)

• Emeritus Moderators:
  • Kate Weizel (June 1997 to September 1997)
  • Stella Nemeth (June 1997 to December 1997)
  • Ethan Bradford (June 1997 to March 1998)
  • Don Sillaway (June 1997 to November 1999)
  • Dave Howard (June 1997 to May 2000)
  • Kathy Morgan (October 1997 to May 2000)
  • Julius Kusuma (March 1998 to May 2001)