According to rules recently adopted, Judges-L FAQ ver. 2.1, one must register before being subscribed to the List. The Registration Form is at the end of the Judges-L FAQ below. Please read the Cancel Messages FAQ first, if you have not already done so. It has been posted to news.admin.policy. Judges-L Registrar, dss ============================================================ Welcome to Judges-L The following Frequently Asked Questions with answers are designed to assist you in interacting with other subscribers to the Judges' List and thereby assist users of the NetNews system in dealing with certain types of abusive messages. Please do not post to the List until you have been a subscriber for a couple of weeks, so you can avoid the most common mistakes made by new subscribers. Alternatively you can review the activities of the List by retrieving archives of recent discussions. You can retrieve the list of archives by sending "INDEX Judge-L" (not including quotation marks) to LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (or LISTSERV@UBVM.BITNET). You can then order these files with a "GET Judge-L LOGxxxx". For example, to get the first month's archive, send the command "GET JUDGES-L LOG9409" to retrieve the archive for September of 1994. You can unsubscribe by sending the command "UNSUB JUDGES-L" in the body of a message to LISTSERV@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (or LISTSERV@UBVM.BITNET). Please retain this message for future reference. ------------------------------------------------- Judges-L: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ver. 2.1 What is the Judges-L? The Judges' List (Judges-L@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu or JUDGES- L@UBVM.BITNET) is a LISTSERV mail distribution list. Messages for distribution must be sent to one of these addresses. Subscription and other LISTSERV commands must be sent to LISTSERV@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu or LISTSERV@UBVM.BITNET. How does the Judges' List work? The List distributes messages to a panel of Judges who cancel multiple posts to NetNews immediately. The List is used to help Judges organize themselves, finalize policy, and set procedures to enforce rules. It is primarily directed to those who issue cancels. Secondarily, to those who survey cancels issued, in order to ensure that the cancel facility is not being abused. It is not the intention of the Judges to regulate the content of articles posted. The protection of the NetNews system from overload by posts to multiple newsgroups is the focus of the activity. Widespread posting of off-topic material and overloads of individual newsgroups is a secondary focus of discussion. Mechanisms for the control of automatic posting software or automatic cancellation software is within the scope of discussion. Security mechanisms to facilitate the cancellation of abusive posts is also within the scope of the List. Certain activities, such as voting, are restricted to registered Judges. A Judge registers by supplying verifiable identity information to the Registrar. This information must be traceable to a primary identification document, such as a birth certificate. Supplied information is used only for the registration of a Judge. A digital signature, signed by a recognized certification authority can satisfy this requirement. The Registrar will acknowledge that registration has succeeded. Another option is transmission of a verifiable name, address, and telephone number (including best times to telephone). Any finger, X.500 directory, or Network Information Center entries, should also be supplied, in order to reduce the need for telephonic contact (use the form at the end of this post). Random checks may be undertaken from time to time to confirm the integrity of registration information. The List Registrar is currently David S. Stodolsky at address: david@arch.ping.dk. How are decisions made? There are two types of messages distributed via the List. The first type is an informational message. The second type is an action message, which notifies readers that an official response is requested or pending. A response to a previous message must begin with the characters "Re: " (note the trailing space). A message that starts a new discussion must not start with these characters. Action messages must be indicated by a message subject that starts with all capital letters. Current message subject precursors are: :"COMPLAINT: " - a complaint about a message that someone wants cancelled :"CANCEL: " - a complaint about an inappropriate cancel message :"DRAFT: " - a request for preliminary input on a proposed action :"OPINION: " - a proposed action not directly related to a complaint :"ACCEPTED: " - an accepted action Decisions are preferably reached by consensus. The consensus is indicated by at least one week passing after an action message, or the last comment on an action message, has been distributed. Thus, if an OPINION message is posted and no comments are made in response to it for a week, it is considered to have achieved a consensus. The message will then be redistributed in exactly the same form, but with the ACCEPTED message precursor. If no objections are registered within a week, then this opinion becomes valid. (Objections at this stage can only be procedural, such as failure to incorporate corrections or not allowing adequate time for comments.) If comments are received, they must be answered or incorporated into the accepted message. In the case of extensive revision, the message should be distributed again with an OPINION message precursor. Accepted messages are transferred to the file area for permanent storage. Accepted opinions are also posted to USENET with "Judges" as their sender. In the case that a consensus is not reached within three weeks after the final posting of an action message, the author of the message can call for a vote. After the call, the List Registrar will post the email addresses of registered voters. A voter is registered if s/he supplied registration information to the Registrar prior to the first presentation of the action item. Votes are directed to the author, or other designated vote counter, and may include a statement. After a week, all votes and comments are posted. If a complaint achieves majority support, it can be reposted as ACCEPTED. Contributed statements must be included. Opinions require two-thirds support to achieve acceptance. If you reply to a message, but change the subject or address a side issue, change the subject line of the post using the "was" construction [i. e., New subject (was: Old subject)]. This is particularly important with action items, which can be delayed otherwise. Do I have to wait a week before acting on a complaint? No. Any Judge can act on a complaint at any time. The List and the person who submitted the complaint must be notified immediately. If a complaint receives no response, it is assumed to be invalid. A week after the final comment on a complaint, it may be reposted, including all comments, with an "ACCEPTED: " subject precursor. This is normally done by the Judge who initially responded to the complaint. Unless there are objections, it is transferred to the file area one week later. A Judge must not be the first respondent to a complaint submitted on her/his behalf. A Judge should only respond to a complaint if confident that the response is appropriate. New Judges can develop their reputations by closely monitoring the List. This permits routine abuse to handled promptly by new Judges. More experienced Judges can then concentrate on handling complicated complaints or on incorrect responses made by novices. What is the correct style for a message? Messages to the List must follow USENET guidelines. See "Guidelines for posting on Usenet" and "Hints on writing style for Usenet" in the newsgroup "news.announce.newusers". Specifically, spell check your message and review it for accuracy. If you are irritated or upset, put it aside for a day, and then read both the message you are replying to and your response again. All messages to the List are archived and permanently available to subscribers. What should I do about inappropriate messages? Faulty or inappropriate messages should be ignored. You may notify the sender directly by email that there is a problem with such a message. Since action items cannot be ignored, inappropriate messages of this type may result in censure of the sender. When in doubt as to the type of a message you are sending, do not use an action precursor. If it definitely is an action message, post it using the "DRAFT: " message precursor first, and allow at least a week for feedback. Draft messages should be used in all cases except where time is of the essence. Posting of a draft message immediately fixes the registered voters on the item, but reduces the risk of repeated updates while in the "OPINION: " phase. Since opinion messages require responses within a week, it is more likely that the feedback to them will be negative and will be less complete than feedback to a draft. Can a message that has appeared on the Judges-L be reposted? Only your own words can be reposted and only by you. Authors retain a non-exclusive non-transferable copyright on their own writing sent to the List. "Fair use" is limited to single words. The non-exclusive transfer of copyright to the List Registrar ensures that the author can continue to use the words they have sent to the List, while at the same time those words can be used in a well controlled manner, for example, in an opinion issued by Judges-L. This is essential to the function of the List, since a participant in a dispute might try to block publication of an opinion by asserting copyright over crucial writing, if not pleased with the decision. The non-transferability of the copyright retained by the author makes it impossible for List policy to be circumvented by a (legal) person who collects copyrights from various authors. It also ensures that only persons bound by the List policy can use material sent to the List in other contexts. This could also be crucial in stopping misuse of writing sent to the List. "Fair use" is limited to single words. Copying of more than a single word violates fair use, since repeatedly copying pairs of words would permit the transfer of collective works from the List. That is, if pairs of words from a message were transferred repeatedly under "fair use", the original message could easily be assembled from the machine readable fragments: "Copying shall not be used to create or to replace or substitute for anthologies, compilations, or collective works..." {From the guidelines developed by the Ad Hoc Committee on Copyright Revision, the Author-Publisher Group, and the Association of American Publishers. COPYRIGHT LAW AND MULTIMEDIA DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION [DRAFT VERSION] in a document assembled by the Academic Computing Technologies Group, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS 66210 (in Mich Kabay <75300.3232@compuserve.com>. [27 December 1994]. RISKS of guessing at Fair Use. RISKS DIGEST 16.68. [URL: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/16.68.html]} Any subscriber posting messages to the Judges-L is bound by this copyright policy. Material posted by others falls under a Judge-L compilation copyright. Writing by persons not posting to the List themselves is covered by a compilation copyright held by the sender and the List, and subject to the same restrictions, where ever applicable, as original writing. The terms "writing" and "words" are construed to include all forms of expression subject copyright, such as drawings, recorded sounds, and so on. External archives of Judges-L messages and opinions can only be maintained if explicit written permission is given. Subscribers may, however, maintain archives of messages they have received while subscribed to the List, but only for their own private use and only as long as they remain subscribers. Can I disclose information received from the List to third parties (persons not on the List)? No. Privacy of messages sent to the List is crucial for the List to be able to perform its conflict resolution functions. Privacy makes uninhibited expression more likely, thus aiding in fact finding and resolution of disputes. It also protects authors from having their words used out of context. Finally, it inhibits persons not satisfied with a List decision from taking their complaints to another forum. The ability to achieve a final resolution of conflict is one of the major advantages of a judicial ruling. What if I do not follow these guidelines? Any person who provides false registration information will be prohibited from any use of the List for a period of five years and their postmaster, employer, or service provider will be notified thereof. At the end of that period a new registration form may be submitted. The document must be signed under penalty of perjury and notarized. Any person misusing information from the List is subject to immediate unsubscription for a period of one year. A censure opinion must be submitted to the List immediately thereafter and copied to the person affected. All messages concerning the case must be copied to the concerned person, who may reply directly to the List. If the List has been set to automatically reject messages from the person as a result of abuse of the List, the person may select a representative to forward their replies. If the censure fails, the person will immediately be resubscribed. In any case of involuntary unsubscription or of censure that casts doubt upon the honesty of a Judge, resubmission of registration information signed under penalty of perjury and notarized is required. If you abuse the List by sending messages, you may be asked to stop sending for a period of six months, by issuance of an opinion. If you fail to honor this request, then your messages will be automatically rejected for a period of one year. An abuser may reapply after that time by sending a request to Dimitri Vulis (dlv@dm.com). In extreme cases, abusers will be unsubscribed from the List for a one-year period. Further problems will result in an abuser's postmaster being notified, or if the abuser is a postmaster, the notification will go to an employer or service provider. The Judges reserve the right to counter any continuing abuse of the List without further notice. Severe abuse can result in immediate action by a List Owner or Site Administrator. The Judges' List must be notified when any such action is taken. How do I request censure of a Judge? A Judge can submit an OPINION message to the List requesting that an abusive Judge cease, for example, sending to the List. Alternatively, the message can be directed to the Registrar, who will post it to the List, confirming that the message was submitted by a Judge, who wishes to remain anonymous. Other comments on the case may be directed to the Registrar, if authors wish to remain anonymous. In the case that a vote becomes necessary, the Registrar will randomly select nine Judges, if that many are available. They will be privately requested to deliver their votes to a designated Vote Counter. If three-fourths of the votes support the request, it will be posted as an ACCEPTED opinion by the Vote Counter. Dimitri Vulis (dlv@dm.com) receives such votes. How is conflict of interest avoided in censure cases? Any selected Judge directly involved in the dispute must notify the Registrar that they are not available to vote. In the case this withdrawal could affect the vote outcome, a new Judge will be randomly selected. The accused may advise the Registrar that certain Judges are directly involved and should not be selected. No more than one-third of Judges may be designated as unsuitable. Neither the Registrar nor the Vote Counter may serve as voters in censure cases. Why should I use this List instead of a newsgroup? Discussions of abusive practices also occur in the newsgroups, for example, news.admin.policy. That newsgroup has over 50,000 readers and over 50% of articles are crossposted. Each post, therefore, uses a minimum of 20 man- hours of readers' time, even if each reader spends only a second reading the subject line of an article. Examination of the post itself can lead to ten times that amount of time being used, or even more. It is suggested, therefore, that posts to newsgroups be limited to novel incidents, with the potential for generating a new policy consensus. Routine abuse can be handled in a much more economical manner, if it is referred to this List. Another advantage of using the List for cancel notifications is the almost immediate delivery of email. Newsgroup propagation is significantly slower, meaning that duplicate cancels may be issued. This can create problems and certainly means unnecessary work for administrators. Consensus rarely occurs in newsgroups, if there is even the slightest disagreement on an issue. In order to create an alternative to arbitrary cancellation, cancellation wars between posters and administrators, and so on, it is important to reach a consensus through a process that is open and fair. A list makes it more likely that every person sees the same material, which cannot be assured with people browsing newsgroups. Also, lists are less "public", so there is less incentive for people to defend positions, merely because they have taken them. This is a well know problem in international negotiations. These factors, when combined with the procedures suggested here, make reaching a consensus on the List much more likely than in a newsgroup. Another advantage of List operation is the privacy of the List archives. This makes it less likely that disputants seize upon details of statements made by Judges as indicating support for their position. The transfer of completed decisions to the publicly assessable file area, on the other hand, make them more likely to be used as guidance in dispute resolution. These completed decisions can also be used as a database of known offenders, in order to facilitate dealing with repeated abuse. This effect is even stronger in the case of accepted opinions, which are posted to USENET. Finally, there are some people who cannot understand that it is not OK to do anything that is not explicitly against some "law." These people need some "legal" decisions to abide by, because they will not stop abusive activities otherwise. They may also view cancellation of their articles as abridging their "free speech" or "restraining their trade" and take their complaint to a court. The Judges-L can be the court of first instance, thereby reducing the risk of interference by governmental authorities with activities on the Net. ----------------------------------------------------------- Judges-L Registration Form This form serves as a copyright agreement, non-disclosure agreement, and oath: I have read and understood the Cancel Messages Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list and the Judges-L FAQ. I understand why archive privacy is required and the role confidentiality plays in dispute resolution. I agree to: a) respect the Judge-L copyright and report any violations thereof. b) avoid disclosing information received from the List to third parties (persons not on the List) and report any violations of this policy. c) store messages received from the List in a manner that prevents disclosure to third parties (at minimum, password protection on a publicly accessible system, or residential level physical security for unprotected files or messages that have been printed ). d) destroy all copies of messages from the List within 14 days of unsubscribing (this does not apply to setting an address to "no mail", which stops transmission of messages). e) follow the procedures accepted by the Judges (subscribers to Judges-L). f) tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in messages sent to the List or directly to persons subscribed to the List. That is, I agree that deception is to be avoided, either through incorrect statements or omission of relevant facts. If statements made in good faith are later found to be incorrect, the correct information will be supplied without delay. Not withstanding the above, if another subscriber is mislead by my statement and makes an incorrect statement on the List as a result, I will correct that person in a message to the List. g) base any decision I make as a Judge only on messages to the List. If I receive communications concerning a matter under deliberation on Judges-L by other means (i. e., private mail, news, etc.), I will send a notice to the List. If I do not disclose the information, I will state why. Further, I will state whether I feel receipt of the information disqualifies me from further participation in the deliberation and why. h) attempt to influence a Judges-L decisions only through messages posted to the List under my registered name. I understand that if I violate this agreement I may be subject to censure and that an accepted censure opinion may be posted to the Judges-L public file area and published in appropriate USENET newsgroups. I agree to accept any such ruling as final. Replace underlines "____" completely (in relevant items) with your information and return to: david@arch.ping.dk Last name __________________________ Other names, initials, titles, etc. ________________________ Address __________________________ City, State, Country, ZIP, etc. __________________________ Telephone number (include country code) ____________________ Best times to Phone From _____ to _____ and _____ to _____ Work or other address __________________________ City, State, Country, ZIP, etc. __________________________ Telephone number (include country code) ____________________ Best times to Phone From _____ to _____ and _____ to _____ Finger entry _________________________ X.500 directory listing _________________________ Network information center entries _________________________ _________________________ Other directory entries _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ ----------------------------------------------------------- =========================================================== David S. Stodolsky, PhD * Social * Internet: david@arch.ping.dk Tornskadestien 2, st. th. * Research * Tel.: + 45 38 33 03 30 DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark * Methods * Fax: + 45 38 33 88 80