Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.policy,news.answers
Approved: news-answers-request@mit.edu
Followup-To: news.admin.net-abuse.policy
Subject: [ADMIN] Welcome to news.admin.net-abuse.policy!
From: tskirvin@killfile.org (Tim Skirvin)
Message-ID: <nanap-faq.20090415070302$0650@news.killfile.org>
X-Version: 1.0 (Sun Jan 11 15:24:35 CST 2004) - Initial Version
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:03:02 -0700
Expires: Wed, 27 May 2009 07:03:02 GMT

Archive-name: usenet/news-admin-net-abuse-policy/welcome
Posting-Frequency: twice monthly
Last-modified: 2004/01/11
Version: 1.0
URL: http://wiki.killfile.org/projects/usenet/faqs/nanap/

news.admin.net-abuse.policy (NANAP) is a newsgroup for discussion of
policy regarding abuse of shared networks, or 'net-abuse'.  It is a 
robo-moderated forum, controlled by a moderation 'bot that automatically
approves anything that it thinks is an on-topic post.

HOW TO POST
===========

(This section assumes that you already know how to post to Usenet
newsgroups in general.)

As NANAP is a robomoderated forum, all messages must pass through the
moderation bot before they hit the network.  Things that must be true for
the message to be approved:

   o The message must have a subject tag, or some text inside a pair 
     of square brackets at the beginning of the subject line.  This can 
     be anything, but should be something that indicates what the post 
     is going to be about in general.  Sample valid subject lines:
   
     [ADMIN] Welcome to news.admin.net-abuse.policy!
     Re: [ADMIN] Is this group still on?
     [email] About that new spam bill...
     [AIM] AOL to start selling usernames to spammers!
     [usenet] Posting binaries to comp.binaries.*

     Sample Invalid:
    
     (ADMIN) Welcome to news.admin.net-abuse.policy!
     {ADMIN} Is this group still on?
     Where do I put this tag?  [Here?]
      
     For reference, the perl to look this is:
   
     my $tag = $subject =~ m%^\s*(?:Re:\s*)?\[(.*)\].*%;

   o The message must not be a binary, or formatted in HTML.  It should 
     be formatted in standard, ASCII-formatted text (or whatever Usenet 
     turns into over the years).

   o The message must have less than 70% quoted text.    

   o The message must not be clearly off-topic or abusive.  This is
     accomplished through basic pattern matching on the headers or body
     of the message, and is only implemented when there is a problem.

If all of these criteria are passed, then the message is approved and an
approval notice is sent back to the poster.  If the post is not approved,
then a rejection notice is sent back to the poster.  Note that these
notices will not arrive if the return address is faked; as such, use of
spamblocked addresses is discouraged.

WHAT TO POST
============

Anything regarding actual abuse of a shared public network such as the
Internet, Usenet, IRC, AIM, or other similar networks is on-topic in
NANAP.  This includes spam of all sorts, mailbombings, system security,
legal workings as regards to abuse, blocklisting, and anything that would
be on-topic anywhere in the news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy,  

What is not on-topic is discussion of abuse *on* the net, except in as
much as it relates to abuse *of* the net, such as flamewars and off-topic
posts.  Specifically, ongoing personal fights and flamewars from other
groups will not be allowed in NANAP.  

ORIGINAL CHARTER
================

The following charter was set down in 1996, when the group was created.
Remarkably, it is still essentially correct.

   News.admin.net-abuse.policy is a moderated forum for discussion of
   policy and site-management issues related to net abuse.  Possible 
   topics include Acceptable Use Policies, what actions should be taken 
   against abusers, discussion of third-party cancel messages, possible 
   actions against abusive sites such as rogue site declarations, 
   discussion of what is and is not net abuse, and so forth. 

   News.admin.net-abuse.policy is a moderated forum.  The robomoderator
   of the group will disallow any and all crossposted messages, message
   spews, binary messages, and any possible attacks on the group as 
   required.  Dave the Resurrector (or a similar program) will be run on 
   the group, forged approvals will be automatically cancelled, and other 
   programs may be used as circumstances require. 

   News.admin.net-abuse.policy is moderated by a robot moderator, run by
   a team of operators.  The robot will automatically approve and post
   messages that: 

     o Are not crossposted.
     o Contain only text formatted for <78 columns, excepting quoted 
       material.
     o Cannot be determined to directly violate the charter of the group 
       by the robot moderator alone (for which the criterion will be 
       published.)

   Messages not approved by the robot moderator will be sent back to the
   sender with a copy of the charter, though at most one copy of the
   information will be sent per week.  Changes to the robot moderator can
   only be enacted by a majority vote of the then-current operators;
   similarly, operators can be added or removed by a majority vote of the
   then-current operators. 

   The news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy is for discussion of abuse of
   Usenet and/or the Internet; it is not for discussion of abuse of groups 
   or individuals on such networks, such as flames, personal attacks, or 
   off-topic messages. 

   Binaries are specifically prohibited from all groups in the
   news.admin.* hierarchy, except as examples of other abuse.  All 
   messages removed by unauthorized cancels in the hierarchy will be 
   automatically reposted by Dave the Resurrector or a similar program, 
   at the discretion of the group moderator or, for the unmoderated 
   groups, the operator of the resurrector program.  Spams, gateway 
   spews, and other attacks on the system itself will be removed as 
   appropriate, following standard Usenet guidelines.

There have been some changes to the effective charter of the group through
the years.  
  
CURRENT MODERATION INFORMATION
==============================

NANAP is run by 'Elemental', a Verimod moderation bot written by Tim
Skirvin back in 1996-97 and operated on killfile.org.  While venerable,
the bot still works years later. 

All posts that go through the moderation 'bot are signed with pgpmoose.
If a post does not have a cryptographically sound X-Auth header, then the
post was not approved by Elemental, and will be shortly cancelled by
another bot.

Tim Skirvin is currently the moderator of NANAP.  

  Moderator: tskirvin@killfile.org (Tim Skirvin)
  Admin Contact Address: nanap-req@ravenna.com
  Article Submission Address: nanap-sub@ravenna.com

Archives are available through groups.google.com.  Tim has also written a
public web interface to the group, available at:

   http://news.killfile.org/