I. ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE

I. A. Definition of terms

COLA Moderation Policy


I. A. 1. "Member" or "Group Member" is anyone who:
I. A. 1. a. has a posting history of 4 weeks OR 50 posts over any length of
time, AND
I. A. 1. b. has posted at least twice in the last 30 days as of the current
date.

I. A. 2. "Spam" is substantively the same message posted to several
newsgroups.

I. A. 3. "Steward" is a person appointed by the Moderation Team to conduct,
verify and tally a vote held for whatever reason, or to oversee a selection
process.  The Steward shall:
I. A. 3. a. announce the beginning of the discussion period by post.
I. A. 3. b. announce the beginning of the voting period (which ends the
discussion) by post.
I. A. 3. c. verify that all votes cast are from individuals who meet the
definition of "member" stated above and shall tally all verified votes.
I. A. 3. d. post the results of the vote, after which time his/her term of
service shall expire.

I. A. 4. "Moderation Team" includes all Moderators and Alternate Moderators.

I. B. This moderation policy, the COLA Charter and the COLA FAQ can be
found at www.prozac-moments.com, are posted to the group periodically, and
are colaived in Deja News.

I. C. The following footer is appended to each post in COLA:
"comp.os.linux.announce is a moderated newsgroup.  Please
read the Posting Guidelines, which are a part of the Moderation Policy,
before making your first post.  The Policy and Guidelines are available at
www.prozac-moments.com.  Moderators may be contacted by email at
cola-board@stump.algebra.com."

I. D. Robomoderation: Most articles will be handled exclusively by
robomoderation software (hereafter referred to as "the bot") 
described at http://www.algebra.com/~ichudov/stump.  See Section II
 for the posting guidelines.

I. D. 1. The bot shall exclude spam.

I. D. 2. The bot will maintain a list of email addresses which are to be
automatically excluded.  Posts from all other email addresses will be
accepted, i.e., automatically included.

I. D. 3. No one must be pre-approved by the moderators, though some people
may be pre-excluded. 

I. D. 4. All known email addresses of a poster will be placed on the
auto-exclude list if a simple majority of the moderators agree that the
poster has violated the posting guidelines.  If at all possible, the poster
will be notified of the decision and the reason(s) behind it. Placement on
the auto-exclude list effectively ends a person's membership in asdrm.

I. D. 5. The bot will maintain a log of all excluded and cancelled articles
for a minimum of one month.  The file of excluded/cancelled articles will be
available upon request. 

I. E. Changes to the Moderation Policy

I. E. 1. Any change in the moderation policy requires discussion and a vote
by COLA newsgroup members. 

I. E. 1. a. Persons considering proposing a change should be aware that a
clearly written proposal is essential to effective discussion. Discussion
shall occur in public on COLA for at least one week before the beginning of
a voting period is announced.

I. E. 1. b. Discussion of potential changes shall be followed by a voting
period of one week.  A 2/3 majority OF THE VOTES CAST is required for a
change to take effect.

I. E. 2. Changes shall take effect 24 hours after an announcement of the
change has been posted in the newsgroup. 

I. E. 3. The Moderation Team shall appoint a Steward to conduct and tally the
vote.

I. F. Changes to the moderation team 

I. F. 1. A moderator may voluntarily resign at any time by posting to the
newsgroup and informing the moderation team at cola-board@stump.algebra.com

I. F. 2. A moderator may be dropped from the team if there has been an
unexplained pause in their group participation and moderation
responsibilities for greater than three weeks, and s/he has remained
unreachable by email or other means. 

I. F. 3. A moderator my be dropped from the team if s/he abuses the role of
moderator (see III.B.6).

I. F. 4. When a vacancy occurs on the Moderation Team between the regular
elections, the vacancy shall be filled by one of the alternates on the
Moderation Team.


II. POSTING GUIDELINES

II. A. An article may be submitted by posting to cola@stump.algebra.com.

II. A. 1. Submissions will be accepted from any type of server except nym
servers.

II. A. 2. If an article you have submitted has not been posted within 48
hours, please send a copy of the article to cola-board@stump.algebra.com
with the Subject: "Resubmission: " If your newsfeed is slow, please allow
more time for your article to show up at your site before resubmitting it.
Also, you can check Supernews (www.supernews.com) to see if it has in fact
been posted, but missed by your server.

II. B. The fundamental guidance for this newsgroup's moderation policy is
provided by its charter, which states that "Any submission not specifically
restricted by the Moderation Policy will be accepted for posting." The
following are violations of the Moderation Policy:

II. B. 1. Posts that ADVOCATE anything, whether pro or anti.

II. B. 2. Commercial posts

II. B. 3. Ad hominem attacks ("flames") or deliberate rudeness.

II. B. 4. Posts that contain binaries or that have binaries attached.

II. B. 5. People asking for help with school or work related assignments,
resecola projects or resecola for an article, book, screenplay or any other
written work.

II. B. 6. Crossposted posts, to any number of groups, to any hiercolay.

II. B. 7. Sigs in excess of 20 lines.

II. B. 8. Make Money Fast or pyramid schemes

II. B. 9. Spam

II. B. 10. A repeated excessive volume of posts without relevant or original
content.

II. C. Violation of the Moderation Policy can result in the poster being
placed on the auto-exclude list, but the Moderation Team does have latitude
and is expected to use it's judgement as to what would be best for the group.

II. D. Any post that in the majority opinion of the moderators violates the
Moderation Policy, may be cancelled by the moderators.

III. Moderators

III. A. Before the end of the current Moderation Team's term, the group shall
select another Moderation Team to replace them at the of their term.  The
Moderation Team shall appoint a Steward to conduct and validate the selection
process.

III. A. 1. Group members shall serve as moderators on a strictly voluntary
basis.  For whatever reason, any group member shall feel free to decline a
nomination as moderator and shall not feel obliged to give a reason.
Declination of a nomination does not disqualify a member from future service
as a moderator.

III. A. 2. A group member may nominate himself/herself, or any member may
nominate any other member for the position of moderator.

III. A. 3. Each nomination must be seconded by five other group member, none
of whom can be the member who placed the name in nomination.

III. A. 4. Objections to any nomination may be made by any member.  If no
more than 10 objections are posted to the group to any nomination, the
nominee shall become a moderator.  If there are more than 10 objections, the
nominee shall be disqualified.

III. A. 5. Each moderator shall serve for three months.  

III. A. 6. Moderators may serve more than once, and even successive terms, if
they go through the nomination and seconding process outlined above.

III. A. 7. If there are more qualified nominees than there are open seats on
the Moderation Team, an electronic version of "I'm Thinking of a Number"
shall take place.

III. A. 7. 1. The Steward shall think of a time on a 24-hour clock in the
format HH:MM:SS, and shall email mail that to the current Moderation Team.

III. A. 7. 2. The Steward shall announce by post that s/he has thought of a
number.  The nominees will have 72 hours to respond to the Steward's post.

III. A. 7. 3. The Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in each post's headers will be
compared to the time the Steward mailed to the Moderators, and those who are
closest shall be moderators.

III. A. 7. 3. a. The initial comparison shall be for times that come closest
to the Steward's without going past it.

III. A. 7. 3. b. If the initial comparison does not fill all the seats on the
Moderation Team, the remainder of the seats shall be filled by the closest
times that are past the Steward's time.

III. A. 8. The moderation team should always consist of an odd number so ties
may be broken.  Initially the Moderation Team shall consist of 3 members with
two additional members serving as alternates.  Either or both of the
alternates shall serve as active moderators when the workload justifies it or
in the event that one of the other moderators becomes unable/unwilling to act
as a moderator.  Further increases to the number of moderators shall require
an official change to this Moderation Policy.

III. A. 9. Each moderator shall review the posts on cola for posting
violations at least once a day.  Checking the posts more frequently is
encouraged and preferred.  The members of the Moderation Team shall be in
daily contact with one another.

III. B. Restrictions on Moderators

III. B. 1. The moderators may not, as a rule, remove an entire thread from
the group (i.e., cancel every post in a thread).  However if a person starts
a thread, that same person violates the moderation policy in that thread
(though not necessarily in that initial post), and the reaction to the thread
is volatile, a simple majority of the moderators may remove it.

III. B. 2. The moderators will not make any changes to any parts of a
submitted post. The bot will automatically reformat submissions with line
lengths greater than 80 characters. 

III. B. 3. Moderators may post to the group in an official capacity, or as
contributors. For purposes of clarity, moderators shall use the ADMIN spoiler
when posting to the group in an official capacity.

III. B. 4. Moderators will moderate based on these guidelines, as opposed to
any other criteria.

III. B. 5. In cases where a moderator is unsure of the correct action, it is
her/his responsibility to contact the other moderators for advice or
assistance.

III. B. 6. Abuse of the moderator role shall consist of a refusal to exclude
posts which violate the Moderation Policy, or an exclusion of posts which do
NOT violate the Moderation Policy.  

III. B. 6. 1. A simple majority of the remainder of the Moderation Team may
ask for the resignation of a moderator they think has abused the role.  

III. B. 6. 2. The official conduct of a moderator may be brought for
discussion and vote before the entire COLA group when a simple majority of
the remainder of the Moderation Team requests it. A simple majority OF THE
VOTES CAST shall be required to remove a moderator. A Steward shall be
appointed to conduct and verify the vote. 

III. B. 6. 3. A person removed for abuse of the role of moderator may not run
for moderator again for one year from the date of their removal.

___________________________________________________________________
no-colaive in headers                   anon-15673@anon.twwells.com 

               asdr/cola pages: www.prozac-moments.com