Path: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!uunet!bounce-back
From: Jani Patokallio <jpatokal@alpha.hut.fi>
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.admin.censorship,news.admin.hierarchies,news.admin.net-abuse.announce,news.admin.net-abuse.misc
Subject: CFV: news.admin.net-abuse reorganization
Followup-To: poster
Date: 17 Oct 1996 18:50:21 -0000
Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers
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Message-ID: <845578216.19184@uunet.uu.net>
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Archive-Name: news.admin.net-abuse-reorg
Xref: vixen.cso.uiuc.edu news.announce.newgroups:8965 news.groups:223062 news.admin.censorship:20996 news.admin.hierarchies:1211 news.admin.net-abuse.announce:9039 news.admin.net-abuse.misc:144669
FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
moderated group news.admin.announce (renames news.admin.net-abuse.announce)
unmoderated group news.admin.net-abuse.email
moderated group news.admin.net-abuse.policy
moderated group news.admin.net-abuse.bulletins
moderated group news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
unmoderated group news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
Newsgroups lines:
news.admin.announce Announcements for news adminstrators. (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.bulletins Bulletins of action about net abuse. (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.email Discussion of abuse of email systems.
news.admin.net-abuse.policy Discussion of net abuse policy. (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.sightings Sightings of net abuse. (Moderated)
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet Discussion of abuse of the Usenet system.
Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 7 Nov 1996.
This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions
about the proposed group should be directed to the proponent.
Proponent: Tim Skirvin <tskirvin@uiuc.edu>
Votetaker: Jani Patokallio <jpatokal@alpha.hut.fi>
RATIONALE: all groups
The topic of net-abuse is a pressing issue on Usenet today. Currently,
there are two major groups for discussion of the topic: news.admin.
net-abuse.announce, a moderated forum for announcements about net abuse,
and news.admin.net-abuse.misc, a group for everything else.
Unfortunately, each of these groups suffer from their problems. news.
admin.net-abuse.announce brings in fairly high traffic for a moderated
group (oftentimes upwards of 20-30 per day), mostly consisting of
reports of action taken against net abuse. However, this group is also
used for important announcements, of general interest to all news
administrators. Because of its high traffic levels, however, most
administrators are unable to follow the group.
News.admin.net-abuse.misc, on the other hand, is an unmoderated forum.
As a result of this, it is very high traffic - usually upwards of
several hundred messages per day, with a goodly portion of them
crossposted among many unrelated or only vaguely-related groups. The
traffic has gotten high enough to make it difficult to follow the group
for those that wish to learn about and discuss net abuse.
This proposal would help solve all of the major problems of the news.
admin.net-abuse hierarchy. First of all, news.admin.net-abuse.announce
would be split into two groups: news.admin.net-abuse.bulletins, a moderated
group for the reports of action that make up the bulk of the current
group, and news.admin.announce, a moderated, low-traffic replacement for
news.admin.net-abuse.announce that would be of interest to all news
administrators.
Secondly, the problems of news.admin.net-abuse.misc would be alleviated
by the creation of four supplemental groups in the news.admin.net-abuse
hierarchy: news.admin.net-abuse.email, for discussion of email abuse,
news.admin.net-abuse.sightings, a robomoderated forum for users to
announce sightings of net abuse, news.admin.net-abuse.usenet, for
discussion of Usenet abuse, and news.admin.net-abuse.policy, a robo-
moderated forum for discussion of policies regarding net abuse that
disallows crossposts. The additional groups will allow users to read
messages only on those topics that they are interested in.
Several automated tools will be used to help manage the groups. Most
moderation will take place through auto-moderation bots; all groups will
be watched over by "Dave the Resurrector", a program that automatically
reposts cancelled messages. Other tools may also be used as circumstances
require and technology allows.
CHARTER: all groups
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
indiviuals 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 automaticly 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.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: news.admin.announce
News.admin.announce is a forum for important announcements for news
administrators. It is a moderated forum, watched over by a team
of moderators for added speed. Possible topics for messages include
announcements regarding news transport or browsing software, Frequently
Asked Questions lists, announcements of new EMP cancellers, announcements
of new cancellation criteria, reports that directly relate to the future
of Usenet, reports on legal issues that directly affect news
administrators such as the Communications Decency Act, and so forth.
News.admin.announce is moderated by a team of moderators. The moderators
will approve any message that they feel fits the following criteria:
1. The message is an announcement that the moderators feel is important
for most or all news administrators.
2. The message is formatted for 78 or less characters per line, and
is easily human readable.
3. The message is not a binary, nor will it break standard Usenet
readers.
4. Followups for the message are set appropriately.
Unapproved posts will be cancelled. At any time, moderators can be added
or removed by a majority vote of the then-current moderators.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.announce
Moderator: Dave Barr <barr@math.psu.edu>
Moderator: Abby Franquemont-Guillory <abbyfg@tezcat.net>
Administrative contact address: news-admin-announce@math.psu.edu
Article submission address: news-admin-announce-request@math.psu.edu
END MODERATOR INFO.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.email
News.admin.net-abuse.email is a forum for discussion of possible abuses
of e-mail. Possible topics include mailbombing, denial-of-service attacks,
"listserv bombs", unsolicited and/or unwanted mail, email address lists,
mailing list abuse, large-scale mailings in general, chain letters, "email
viruses" such as Good Times, filtering software such as procmail, and so
forth. Flames and other personal attacks received through email are not
on-topic, unless they are related to another form of abuse.
News.admin.net-abuse.email is unmoderated.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.misc
News.admin.net-abuse.misc is a forum for discussion of possible net
abuse not covered by the rest of the news.admin.net-abuse.* hiearchy.
Possible topics include ping-storming, site aliasing, denial of service
attacks, and anything else that does not fit into the other forums in the
news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy.
News.admin.net-abuse.misc is unmoderated.
END CHARTER.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.policy
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:
1. Are not crossposted.
2. Contain only text formatted for <78 columns, excepting quoted material.
3. 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.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.net-abuse.policy
Moderator: Scott Forbes <forbes@ravenna.com>
Moderator: Tim Skirvin <tskirvin@uiuc.edu>
Administrative contact address: nanap-req@ravenna.com
Article submission address: nanap-sub@ravenna.com
END MODERATOR INFO.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.bulletins
News.admin.net-abuse.bulletins is a moderated forum for bulletins of action
taken against net abuse. Appropriate subjects include cancellation
notices (EMP/ECP, spew, binary, and others), status reports from individual
systems concerning action taken against abusers, results of tracking
campaigns, "rogue site" declarations, and the like.
News.admin.net-abuse.bulletins is moderated by a team of moderators.
Followups will be set to the appropriate news.admin.net-abuse.* groups.
Dave the Resurrector (or a similar program) will be run on the group,
forged approvals will be automatically cancelled, and other programs
may be run at the discretion of the moderators.
The moderators will approve messages based on the following criteria:
1. The message is a report of actions taken relating to and against
net abuse.
2. The message is formatted for 78 or less characters per line, and
is easily human readable.
3. The message is not determined to directly violate the charter of the
group.
The moderators may auto-approve posts from certain individuals, at their
own discretion.
At any time, moderators can be added or removed by a majority vote of
the then-current moderators. Messages with forged Approval: lines not
approved by the moderators will be cancelled.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.net-abuse.bulletins
Moderator: Dave Barr <barr@math.psu.edu>
Moderator: Paul Phillips <paulp@cerf.net>
Moderator: Joel Furr <jfurr@acpub.duke.edu>
Administrative contact address: news-admin-bulletins@math.psu.edu
Article submission address: news-admin-bulletins-request@math.psu.edu
END MODERATOR INFO.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
News.admin.net-abuse.sightings is a forum for reports of sightings of
net abuse. It is a robomoderated forum, allowing only properly
formatted posts. Followups are required to be set strictly out of the
group and into the appropriate group in the news.admin.net-abuse.*
hierachy.
News.admin.net-abuse.sightings is moderated by a robot moderator, run
by a team of operators. The robot will automatically approve and post
messages according to the following criteria:
1. The message is formatted for 78 or less characters per line, and
is easily human readable.
2. The message follows a publicized template specified by the operator
of the robot moderator. For example, the following format -may- be
the standard for a Usenet abuse sighting:
--
(headers)
Subject: [usenet] (Standard Subject)
Followup-to: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
From: (valid address) -or- Reply-to: (valid address)
(other standard headers)
(body)
Abuse-spotted-in: (first group spotted)
Abuse-Subject: (subject from abuse)
Type-of-abuse: (EMP, ECP, binary, forgery, etc. No set rules here)
Description: (description and/or comments)
-
(Full headers of the abuse)
(Full body of the abuse)
--
Messages may be automatically reformatted by the robot moderator for
archival and standardization purposes, using procedures established by
the operator of the robot moderator. For example, the following changes
may be made, if deemed appropriate:
1. Only the first fifteen lines of the body of the abuse may be
posted; the rest would be archived, but not posted.
2. The abuse may be reformatted to fit into 78 columns.
3. If the text of the abuse would cause technical problems with some
newsreaders, the problem text may be replaced with X's; if the abuse
would cause problems with most newsreaders, the article may not be
posted at all.
4. Several headers may be added at the discretion of the operator of the
robot moderator, such as the following:
a. X-Apparently-Complain-To: <postmaster@apparent.site.of.abuse>
b. X-Archive-Number: (a unique number)
c. X-Archives: (URL of site containing group archives)
Messages that do not meet these criteria will be sent back to the sender
with a copy of this charter and a listing of the published templates,
though at most one copy of this information will be sent out per week.
Forged approvals will be automatically cancelled. 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.
END CHARTER.
MODERATOR INFO: news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
Moderator: "J.D. Falk" <jdfalk@cybernothing.org>
Moderator: Tim Skirvin <tskirvin@uiuc.edu>
Administrative contact address: nanas-req@cybernothing.org
Article submission address: nanas-sub@cybernothing.org
END MODERATOR INFO.
CHARTER: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
News.admin.net-abuse.usenet is a forum for discussion of possible abuses
of Usenet (as defined in news.announce.newusers). Possible topics include
spamming or Excessive Multi-Posting (EMP), Excessive Cross-Posting (ECP),
Usenet chain letters such as MAKE.MONEY.FAST, forged or third-party
cancellations, broken Usenet gateways, forgery of another user, forged
approvals in moderated groups, massively crossposted "flametrolls", abuse
of the newsgroup creation system, general purpose netiquette, and so forth.
News.admin.net-abuse.usenet is unmoderated.
END CHARTER.
HOW TO VOTE:
* Extract the ballot from the CFV by deleting everything before and after
the "BEGINNING OF BALLOT" and "END OF BALLOT" lines. Don't worry about
the spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your
reply inserts. Please, DO NOT send the entire CFV back to me!
* Mark the ballot and then MAIL it to: < voting@hut.fi >
Just "replying" to this message should work, but check the "To:" line.
* In order to properly record your vote, please provide your REAL NAME and
indicate your desired vote in the appropriate locations inside the ballot.
* Examples of how to properly indicate your vote:
[ YES ] example.yes.vote
[ NO ] example.no.vote
[ ABSTAIN ] example.abstention
[ CANCEL ] example.cancellation
* DO NOT modify, alter or delete any information in this ballot!
If you do, the voting software will probably reject your ballot.
======== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything before this line =======
.-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1ST CALL FOR VOTES: news.admin.net-abuse reorganization
| Official Usenet Voting Ballot <NAN-0001> (Do not remove this line!)
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Please provide your real name, or your vote may be rejected. Place
| ONLY your name (ie. do NOT include your e-mail address or any other
| information; ONLY your name) after the colon on the following line:
Voter name:
| Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each
| newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name):
Your Vote Newsgroup
--------- -----------------------------------------------------------
[ ] news.admin.announce
[ ] news.admin.net-abuse.email
[ ] news.admin.net-abuse.policy
[ ] news.admin.net-abuse.bulletins
[ ] news.admin.net-abuse.sightings
[ ] news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
======== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything after this line ==============
IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES:
Standard Guidelines for voting apply. One person, one vote. Votes
must be mailed directly from the voter to the votetaker. Anonymous,
forwarded or proxy votes are not valid. Votes mailed by WWW/HTML/CGI
forms are considered to be anonymous votes.
Vote counting is automated. Failure to follow these directions may
mean that your vote does not get counted. If you do not receive an
acknowledgment of your vote within three days contact the votetaker
about the problem. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote
is registered correctly. Duplicate votes are resolved in favor of
the most recent valid vote. Addresses and votes of all voters will
be published in the final voting results post.
The purpose of a Usenet vote is to determine the genuine interest of
persons who would read a proposed newsgroup. Soliciting votes from
disinterested parties defeats this purpose. Please do not distribute
this CFV. If you must, direct people to the official CFV as posted
to news.announce.newgroups. Distributing pre-marked or otherwise
edited copies of this CFV is generally considered to be vote fraud.
When in doubt, ask the votetaker.
--
Jani Patokallio <jpatokal@alpha.hut.fi>
Voting address: <voting@hut.fi>