REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) moderated group comp.arch.hobbyist This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup comp.arch.hobbyist. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. CHANGES from previous RFD: Changed name from comp.arch.home-designed to comp.arch.hobbyist. Removed statement about moderators cancellation of posts. Modified charter and moderation policy with respect to binary posting. Newsgroup line: comp.arch.hobbyist Homebrew digital electronics design. (Moderated) RATIONALE: comp.arch.hobbyist The topic of designing computers and peripheral devices at home is discussed on the newsgroup alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt. While there is a great deal of interest in this topic, many people avoid the above newsgroup due to the fact that it is not moderated, and due to similar terminology, the newsgroup gets flooded with off topic IBM PC clone assembly questions. Measures taken to alleviate this problem have failed to eliminate the off topic noise. It is therefore proposed that a moderated forum be created, which will allow the topic to be discussed in a noise free environment. CHARTER: comp.arch.hobbyist A moderated forum to exchange ideas, techniques, problems, solutions, and other information concerning the hobby of electronics design and construction, specifically related to digital machines and their peripherals. Commercial advertisements (except when non-repetitive and directly relevant to the topic of the group) are expressly forbidden; it is up to the moderation group to make individual exceptions. Binary postings in this group are unwelcome. No postings containing 10K or more of binary content will be accepted. Postings containing less than 10K of binary content should only be used where no other reasonable method is available to convey the information they contain. All postings containing binary content of more than 10 lines or 300 bytes, whichever is the smaller, shall be forwarded to the daily moderators for inspection in the same manner as articles from unknown authors. Posters wishing to post binaries that do not fit the above criteria should upload this data to an FTP or WWW site and instead post a pointer to that site. The binary regulations do not apply to the posting of ASCII schematics. END CHARTER. MODERATOR INFO: comp.arch.hobbyist Moderation group alias: Bot-master: Jan-Derk Bakker Daily moderators: Moderator: Jan-Derk Bakker Moderator: Ales Hvezda Moderator: Ian Stirling Moderation group: Moderator: Jan-Derk Bakker Moderator: Randy Gardner Moderator: Darren Guiden Moderator: Leon Heller Moderator: Ales Hvezda Moderator: Theo Markettos Moderator: Mark Sokos Moderator: Ian Stirling A 'bot moderator will be used, which will reject articles by authors who have not read the posting guidelines. Articles rejected by the 'bot will be forwarded to a group of three daily moderators for review. These daily moderators will be appointed by a moderation group of at least eight and at most twelve members who will decide on moderation policy in general and the workings of the 'bot in particular. Moderation will follow the scheme outlined below: The 'bot: - auto-approves articles that match all of these: - known author OR keyword/phrase in article OR reply to approved article to the same set of newsgroups - article with less than 300 bytes or 10 lines of binary content, whichever is the smaller - plain text, without markup encoding - mails notification of non-approval to original authors, without an attempt to circumvent spamblocks - notification message explains moderation system, and points poster to relevant posting guidelines - sends non-approved articles to the daily moderators - uploads non-approved articles to a WWW site, and regularly posts a pointer to them - scans for forged approvals and cancels The daily moderators: - individually check articles the 'bot rejected; - if at least one of the daily moderators think the article is on-topic, it gets posted - if it is reposted, the original author is notified The moderation group: - appoints the daily moderators - deals with group abuse that's not caught by the 'bot - it has the power to bar persistent abusers by unanimous decision for a period of up to 30 days at a time - deals with long-term moderation policy - is obliged to post details of all moderation group decisions to the newsgroup - if a moderation group member does not express an opinion on a matter, then their silence shall not be taken as supporting either side of a decision Moderators of news.announce.newgroups and successor groups are allowed blanket crossposting at their discretion. END MODERATOR INFO. PROCEDURE: This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt, alt.engineering.electrical, comp.arch.embedded, comp.home.automation, sci.electronics.design, sci.electronics.misc and the following mailing lists: piclist@mitvma.mit.edu (pic microcontroller discussion list) subscribe via: listserv@mitvma.mit.edu hotwired@gu.uwa.edu.au (homebuilt processor discussion) subscribe via: hotwired-request@gu.uwa.edu.au After the RFD has been officially posted to news.announce.newgroups it will be reposted to: alt.comp.hardware.homedesigned Proponent: Mark Sokos Proponent: Theo Markettos Mentor: Simon Lyall