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The purpose of this document is to assist new and existing moderators in understanding what is involved in moderating a newsgroup. This document contains information about how the moderation process works, how to get started, where to get existing moderation posting software, what NetNews related problems moderators may encounter, and where to get additional help if needed.
In the past, most moderators learned on-the-job, and there was not much documentation available about what was expected of a moderator. This document attempts to aid new moderators in understanding what it is that they have gotten themselves into. This document will also be useful to those wishing to volunteer to be a moderator.
Within this document, Usenet refers to the traditional core hierarchies of comp, misc, news, rec, sci, soc and talk. The term 'Network News' (or 'NetNews') refers to all hierarchies that use the same transport and reader mechanisms that the traditional core hierarchies do.
Moderation of newsgroups is transcending the traditional core Usenet news hierarchies as many organizations are using NetNews software for internal use. Also, many non-core hierarchies, such as alt, biz, bionet, etc., contain moderated newsgroups.
It is the intent of the author that this document also be of use to those who are not Usenet moderators but are moderating NetNews newsgroups nevertheless.
It is expected that readers of this document are already familiar with NetNews, at least from a user's perspective, and have been exposed to network tools such as FTP. A complete explanation of NetNews jargon and culture is beyond the scope of this document.
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<small> <em>NetNews Moderator's Handbook</em> © <a href=copyright.html>Copyright <strong>The Landfield Group</strong>, 1996-2001</a> <br>All rights reserved </small>
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