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robomoderator


FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
moderated group soc.culture.russian.moderated


http://www.algebra.com/~ichudov/usenet/scrm/creation/Charter.txt

Newsgroups line:
soc.culture.russian.moderated Moderated discussion of Russian culture.. (Moderated)

Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 22 Mar 1996.

This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. Questions about
the proposed group should be directed to the proponent.

Proponent: Peter Vorobieff
Proponent: Igor Chudov
Mentor: Chris Stone
Votetaker: Bill Aten

RATIONALE: soc.culture.russian.moderated

At the moment, the daily traffic in soc.culture.russian is about 200
posts. Of this number, less than 50% bear any relevance to topics of
Russian culture outlined in the charter. The rest are mostly widely
crossposted flames, trolls and attempts at character assassination.

This mess not only distracts the readers from the on-topic threads, but
has scared away many of the contributors to the newsgroup. In the
environment where the names of the malicious trolls and flame threads
constantly mutate, killfiles have limited usability; and for users whose
news software does not support killfiles the group is effectively rendered
unreadable.

To help those who have no taste for non-stop flamage, we have proposed
soc.culture.russian.moderated. In no way should our proposal be
considered an attempt to moderate or replace soc.culture.russian, whose
status will not change with the creation of soc.culture.russian.moderated.

CHARTER: soc.culture.russian.moderated

Soc.culture.russian.moderated is a moderated newsgroup for the free
exchange of information and opinions on Russian culture, language,
history, economics, science, and other topics related to Russia.

Posts of the following types shall be off-topic in
soc.culture.russian.moderated:

1. Discussion of the alleged massacre of Turks by Armenians in the
beginning of the twentieth century; the massacre of Armenians in
1915; contemporary Turkish politics, except insofar as it relates
to Russia.
2. Claims that Nazi crimes in 1933-1945 never happened.
3. All national, religious, political and racial hatemongering
(represented by the typical cliche "All [...] are
[cowards|idiots|traitors|...]).
4. Unwanted and unsolicited commercial advertisements.
5. Crossposts hitting more than five newsgroups.
6. Harassing posts (of the typical form "[...] is a
[Nazi|pedophile|forger|...]. Complain about [his|her|its]
evil ways to [ISP|employer|Unesco|Cthulhu|Usenet Cabal|...]."
7. Binary files (programs, images, etc.), regardless of the form of
encoding

The proponent recognizes the distinction between patriotism and
jingoistic hatemongering. Further, the distinction between
good-natured jokes and harassment is necessarily subjective. The
moderators will use their best judgement to extend unbiased and
thorough consideration to submissions.

Topics pertaining to non-Russian republics of the former Soviet
Union should be discussed in other newsgroups such as
soc.culture.baltic, soc.culture.rep-of-georgia, and so forth.
Discussions pertaining to entities within the Russian Federation
such as Tatarstan, Saha, Komi, and so forth will be considered
on-topic.

Discussion of the relations *between* Russia and the former
republics are welcome on soc.culture.russian.moderated insofar as
it remains relevant to Russia.

Cultural meta-discussions are welcome on soc.culture.russian.moderated
as long as they bear relevance to Russia, Russians and Russian language
or are of general cultural interest, while not being directly related
to any particular national culture.

The primary languages in the newsgroup are English and Russian
(in Latin transliteration and in KOI-8 [RFC-1489] Cyrillic).

MODERATION POLICY

Soc.culture.russian.moderated shall employ a combination of human and
robomoderation.

1. The robomoderator first will screen every article submitted to
soc.culture.russian.moderated. It will unequivocally reject any
article that falls into one or more of the following categories:

A. Articles crossposted to four or more newsgroups other than
soc.culture.russian.moderated;
B. Articles consisting of more than 20 quoted lines and
containing less than 1/4 of original text;
C. Articles longer than 400 lines;
D. Encoded binary files.

Certain other articles may be rejected automatically -- or
forwarded to the human moderators for review -- as explained in
sections 2-5 below.

2. From time to time, threads that originally pertained to Russia
may wander off-topic.

When the panel of human moderators sees such off-topic threads
developing on soc.culture.russian.moderated, it shall configure
the robomoderator to forward any submissions containing the
"subject" line in question to the human moderation panel for
review. The moderation panel shall take this action by simple
majority vote.

After the moderation panel has rejected ten articles in a given
thread (the articles from entities under temporary ban, as
described in the next section, do not count), the robomoderator
may automatically reject further contributions to that thread.

3. From time to time, certain individuals may habitually violate
the group charter.

The robomoderator shall forward submissions from such individuals
to the human moderation panel for review. The moderation panel
shall so configure the robomoderator by majority vote.

If the human moderation panel rejects five consecutive submissions
or five submissions within a week from a given author, that author
may be temporarily banned from the group. The robomoderator shall
reject postings from banned authors for a period not to exceed one
month. No individual shall be banned without the consent of
three-quarters (3/4) of the moderation panel.

4. The robomoderator shall scan each submission for certain
keywords, forwarding any submissions containing these keywords to
the panel of human moderators for review.

Some keywords present in the text of messages may indicate
off-topic posts. "MAKE MONEY FAST" or "My name is Dave Rhodes"
are likely to appear in a spam. Likewise, the phrase "criminal
Armenian" raises suspicion that the submission is Serdar Argic
propaganda. Other racial epithets, slurs and profane terms shall
also be included on the list of keywords.

Automatic rejection of submissions containing keywords has been
considered and rejected, since some people have composed witty
spoofs of Serdar Argic's writing and other parodies.

Keywords shall be determined by a simple majority of the moderators.

5. The robomoderator shall maintain a database of known
soc.culture.russian.moderated readers. When an individual first
attempts to post to the group, the robomoderator will screen that
individual's submission, rejecting it only if it fails to meet
the criteria in section 1 above.

The robomoderator will then forward the new poster's submission
to the panel of human moderators, who will review it for
compliance with the group charter. New posters will be added to
the newsgroup database after the moderation panel approves their
first post.

The robomoderator will also send first-time posters a copy of the
group charter.

6. Individuals in the database of known readers may post freely to
the group, subject to the conditions in sections 1-4 above. If need
arises, the robomoderator may perform PGP verification of the
identity of the known reader and, if the reader requests so,
automatically reject all the submissions from the reader without
a valid PGP signature.

7. The robomoderator or the human moderator, when rejecting a
submission, shall send the submission's author a copy of the
moderation policy statement and the explanation why the
submission was not posted.

8. The panel of human moderators shall maintain a log of its
activities. This log shall be posted once every two months, thus
making the moderators accountable to the readership. The
robomoderation algorithm shall be publicly posted at the same time.

9. The moderation panel may cancel articles that have been posted
to soc.culture.russian.moderated due to forgery, errors in the
moderation script, and so forth.

The number of active moderators in the moderation panel shall
initially be seven. Additional moderators may be recruited from
the readership as demand warrants. If a moderator wants to retire
from the moderation panel, he or she must make a public statement
at least one month prior to retirement so that a replacement
moderator may be found.

Anyone may volunteer to join the moderation panel with the consent
of a five-sevenths (5/7) supermajority of the current moderators.
Moderators also may be removed by a 5/7 supermajority of the
moderation panel. Of course, moderators may resign of their own
volition at any time.

Archived logs of moderation decisions, the list of active subscribers,
the Charter, the moderation procedure description and other documents
relevant to soc.culture.moderated are to be openly displayed on a
specifically designated World-Wide Web page
- soc.culture.russian.moderated home page.

Subscribers to soc.culture.russian.moderated can appeal the
rejection of the articles they submit by sending e-mail to the
address specifically designated for this purpose at the computer(s)
running the moderating software. The appeal must clearly explain why
the author deems the moderation panel decision to reject his or her
article to be in disagreement with the Charter. The same e-mail
address is to be used for questions and complaints regarding the
moderation policy. All appeals must be answered by members of the
moderation board within a 10-day period.

Articles rejected after the appeal (not exceeding the limit of
twenty kilobytes per week per user) are to be displayed for a
week on soc.culture.russian.moderated home page.

AMENDING THIS CHARTER

For the readers of soc.culture.russian.moderated to change or
amend this Charter, moderation policy, or membership of the
moderation panel, a formal RFD followed by a CFV must be posted
to soc.culture.russian and news.groups. The procedure must follow
the standard guidelines for the newsgroup status change as
described in news.groups FAQ.

END CHARTER.

MODERATOR INFO: soc.culture.russian.moderated

Moderator: Igor Chudov
Moderator: Eduard Ponarin
Moderator: Sergei Senin
Moderator: Vladimir Smirnov
Moderator: Larisa Streeter
Moderator: Eugene Zherebilov
Moderator: Constatin Zhikharev

Administrative contact address: scrm-board@algebra.com
Article submission address: scrm@algebra.com

The following individuals shall serve as moderators:

Igor Chudov :
Igor Chudov is a programmer. He graduated from Moscow University.
As a voluntary service to the Russian-speaking Internet community,
Igor maintains the SOC.CULTURE.SOVIET/RUSSIAN White Pages - an
interactive list of links related to Russian and Soviet culture,
art and humor. Igor also will write the robomoderation program for
soc.culture.russian.moderated.

Eduard Ponarin :
Eduard is a graduate student of sociology at the University of Michigan,
soon to receive his doctorate. He received his first degree (in psychology)
from Leningrad University, served as an officer in the Soviet Army and
worked as a lecturer for Leningrad Institute of Culture. Readers of many
Usenet newsgroups enjoy his articles on the history of Russia and Eastern
Europe.

Sergei Senin :
Sergei is doing research in microwave telecommunications and signal
processing at the University of Portsmouth. He maintains an extensive
Web page of Russian and Russia-related resources. Sergei is an alumnus
of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, and is also the representative
of MPEI in Great Britain.

Vladimir Smirnov :
Currently a graduate student in the University of Toronto's physics
department, Vladimir is known as the author of several short stories
in Russian, the maintainer of the Russian Backpacker Homepage and the
biggest on-line collection of the poetry of Mikhail Scherbakov.

Larisa Streeter :
Larisa is an environmental scientist with a major oilfield services
company. She received a Master's degree in geological sciences from
Brown University, worked as a geologist for a major petroleum company,
then received another Master's degree from the University of Texas School
of Public Health in Environmental Sciences. Larisa has a strong interest
in the history and cultures of Eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine and
Russia.

Eugene Zherebilov :
After graduating from Kiev University with a degree in mathematics,
Eugene has worked as a programmer in Kiev and in Boston. On several
occasions he has been found guilty of writing poetry -- check
http://ice.geology.wisc.edu/~delitsin/LITERATURE/fraer for evidence.

Constatin Zhikharev :
Constatin Zhikharev was born in Mariupol (Zhdanov), got his Master's
degree from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and is currently
working on his doctorate in mechanical engineering at Lehigh University.
He also writes prose and poetry. Some of his Usenet contributions are at
http://ice.geology.wisc.edu/~delitsin/LITERATURE/#zhikharev.

END MODERATOR INFO.

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 as this mail is archived.

Mark the ballot and then MAIL it to:
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

*** PLEASE ***
DO NOT alter, modify, or delete any other information in this ballot!
If you do, the voting software will probably reject your vote.


===== BEGINNING OF BALLOT: Delete everything BEFORE this line =====
-------------------------------------------------------------------
soc.culture.russian.moderated Ballot
(Do not remove this marker!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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) on the next line beside "Voter name:".
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
--------- ---------
[ ] soc.culture.russian.moderated (moderated)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
===== END OF BALLOT: Delete everything AFTER this line ============


IMPORTANT VOTING PROCEDURE NOTES:

Standard Guidelines for voting apply. Only one vote per person, no
more than one vote per account. 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. Names, addresses, and votes of all voters
will be published in the final voting results post.

DO NOT redistribute this CFV in any manner whatsoever. 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. Only the votetaker, the news.announce.newgroups
moderator, and the proponent (if specifically authorized by the votetaker)
are permitted to distribute copies of this CFV.

Distribution of pre-marked or otherwise modified copies of this CFV is
generally considered voting fraud and should be reported immediately to
the votetaker or the UVV . In cases where voting fraud
is determined to have occurred, it is standard operating procedure to
delete ALL votes submitted by the violator. When in doubt, ask the
votetaker.

DISTRIBUTION:

The only official sources for copies of this CFV are the locations listed
below and the votetaker's e-mail CFV server which can be reached at
.

This CFV has been cross-posted to:
news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, k12.lang.russian,
soc.culture.russian, soc.culture.soviet, talk.politics.soviet