Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news2.wam.umd.edu!gun-control

Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news2.wam.umd.edu!gun-control
From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: charter for rec.guns
Date: 15 Sep 2001 10:04:33 -0400
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, College Park, MD 20742
Lines: 379
Approved: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: xring.cs.umd.edu
X-Trace: grapevine.wam.umd.edu 1000562683 9591 128.8.128.179 (15 Sep 2001 14:04:43 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: [email protected]
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:04:43 +0000 (UTC)
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu rec.guns:769826

CHARTER [Last updated 1-27-2001.]

The charter of rec.guns is:

1. To discuss shooting sports, reloading and other recreational
activities involving firearms.

2. To discuss training and safety information involving firearms.

3. To discuss home and personal defense involving firearms.

4. To announce firearms and accessories to buy/sell/trade.
(See later comments on repetitive posts.)

5. To discuss laws pertaining to firearms ownership and use.

6. To carry information and announcements concerning political and
legislative activities. The focus here is on information, not debate
or interpretation, which is the primary forus of other newsgroups.
Politically sensitive articles are best kept short and to the point
with a minimum of rhetoric. For example,

"Congress will vote on a bill to ban all firearm sales in the
United States, retroactive to last year. This could be very
inconvenient. It's bill #666, please call your congressdaemon."

7. To carry new-product announcements, product reviews, safety alerts
and other consumer services of interest to firearm owners.

BRIEF GUIDE TO POSTING

If the focus of an article is ... then we might suggest you post
more oriented to .... it over in ...

politics/legislation debate talk.politics.guns
militia matters misc.activism.militia
survivalist matters misc.survivalism
hunting rec.hunting
knives, blades, sharp things rec.knives
guns you can't tote yourself sci.military.moderated
bows and arrows rec.sport.archery
misc other weapons rec.martial-arts
paintball rec.sport.paintball
jokes rec.humor
picture files alt.binaries.pictures.guns
alt.binaries.pictures.weapons
sound files alt.binaries.sounds.misc
interesting programs comp.sources
home security misc.consumers.house
interpreting uninterpretable laws misc.legal
discussing police procedures alt.law-enforcement
discussing stuff "in the news" alt.current-events.*
militaria alt.military.collecting

Please have care about how much net bandwidth you use up. When responding
to a previous post, try not to include an entire copy of the old text unless
its really necessary. Every bit of editing you do will help the readers get
your point more efficiently, and conserve on the aggregate supply of network
bits at the same time. Similarly, we hope you'll not go overboard on large
signature files and images. I will generally feel free to prune excessive
signatures at the end of messages, though I hope posters will keep them small
to start with. Typically, we excise large PGP appendages as well, for the
same reason. Posts that appear to be conducting some survey (e.g. "what is
the best gun for XXX?") will be posted with followup set to "poster", so we
do not see the whole volume of responses show up here; we presume the poster
will summarize and post the tally later.

Please don't post in HTML or MIME formats ... not everyone has a reader that
knows how to make sense of them.

We generally prefer not to carry responses to "for sale" posts where the point
is to kvetch about the price. If you think someone is asking too much (or too
little) then please tell them so off line. The phrase "buyer beware" is in
force always, so let's try not to clog up the net with lots back-and-forth on
what constitutes fair, how much you think you can get the same item for back
home, and so forth. Prospective buyers should of course feel welcome to ask
for that kind of information from the group.

When posting a question about a particular firearm, you may wish to avoid
citing the entire serial number. It would be a shame if someone "lost" a
firearm of that number, reported it to the police as such, and then "found"
it by accident on the net. I'll generally mask out the low-order digits of
the number if I notice it on text going out.

Also concerning attempts to reach particular individuals through the whole
news group: please don't do this except as a last resort. We want to keep
our signal to noise ratio attractive to all readers. As a standard practice,
I will not post these without first trying to forward via mail using my own
mailers (such as I have time!); so if you *do* send a post intended for the
eyes of only one individual, then at least send along the addresses you tried
so I don't have to bounce it back to you right away. But remember, this is
an era of excellent archive services too, so if your partner has ever done
anything much on the net before, then you can often use such tools to track
down a current address through very few clues.

Also in the interests of making good use of our bandwidth: postings sent to
more than one target news group at once are likely candidates for pruning.
I generally assume the topic is getting adequate coverage elsewhere on the
net, and just allow the post to drop, unless it is particularly relevent to
our group (generally they aren't.) But in almost all cases, I will make a
choice between posting it in rec.guns or in the other groups ... not both.
(If you want the post sent to other groups too, then send it there separately
from rec.guns yourself so I don't have to manually edit it to send it there,
which is currently the case.) The same is true for reposts of messages
from other widely-accessible mailing lists; repetitive "me too" messages or
one-liners that might not add much to a thread (e.g. "doh!"); question
responses that would end up being duplicated needlessly (the record: someone
asked "what does ACP stand for after .45?" got me thousands of answers over
the following two months.... I don't post these anymore.); duplicative posts
advertising FS or WTB (please hold repeats down to no more frequent than 10
to 14 days, also please post one message with all your material rather than
a sequence of separate posts); and messages for threads I have already
redirected either to another group or to "poster." In all of these cases the
message is just dropped.

Random "test test, is this on?" messages are just dropped. It's just too
common a situation now, where people pick a random group, try tests, then
get confused when this moderator returns their post. Rather than respond
with extensive background on who a moderator is and how the net works, we
just drop random pings and tests except as arranged ahead of time for the
purpose of debugging. (In that latter case, I'll suggest you send a test
message with subject line marked "MODERATOR READ"; this string will get
flagged separately here, and I will do a reply with a copy of your post
with full headers included so you can see how things show up here. It will
NOT be processed to the group.)

Also in the spirit of keeping duplicate material on the net low: Please
avoid the temptation to post messages here telling how you are posting FS
messages elsewhere. If people want to follow some auction web site, then
they will read about it there, but we don't need to chew up our bandwidth
to duplicate the other site's advertising. (Please note: Traffic promoting
ebay in particular will not be carried here. If they want to make a big
social statement by not carrying firearms, we will make a quiet statement
of our own and simply not have anything to do with them.)

Posts telling us only a URL of some site on the WWW will simply be dropped.
One-line web site announcements are becoming excessive, and it is now the
case that the majority of them don't have much to do with rec.guns. Sorting
through which are which takes time for me, so if you want to announce a new
site, then tell us something about why it has to do with rec.guns, thanks.

Please don't send material that is subject to some copyright restriction.
I assume everything sent here is done so under the terms of this group,
which means it is free to be posted and archived openly, compiled into my
digest for redistribution and so on. Your including an explicit copyright
statement suggests otherwise. We don't have the resources to go and check
for permission to use such text, and so won't use anything that you have
identified as being protected in some way. Likewise, sometimes I notice the
inclusion of material from a source I suspect may be protected (for example
some news services); I make a good-faith effort to return those when I
notice them, though have no way to compile a database of such restrictions
in general. Bottom line, please only send us material we can really use.

In the interests of decorum, please don't fire off a post complaining about
other individuals within the readership. (For that matter please don't send
threats, invective, abuse or other trash.) If the purpose of your post is to
talk about others, then the place for it is elsewhere. Those who demonstrate
that there's no reasoning with them in this matters -- i.e. those who won't
listen to our requests to keep things on-charter -- will be simply dropped
from group discussion in the future. Sometimes in net dealings you can have
a legit beef with someone, and as a consumer forum we might really need to
know about it here. But when posters start naming names, then things usually
melt down quickly into a food fight. The readership has no independent way
to judge in such personal matters, nor should it try to. So ... if you feel
there is something that consumers should be informed of, then please post a
message outlining the situation abstractly, and invite people to contact you
off line for details. Off line you can name names or proceed however you like.

All posts sent here are archived. The assumption is that if you send
it to us, you agree to this. Please do not send requests that we post
material that would *not* be archived, since we have no way to ensure
this is not done elsewhere, and we don't have the resources to do a lot
of special casing of posts here.

Finally, we do not knowingly process anonymous posts. We certainly can't
tell in all cases, but we must assume that each poster accepts some minimal
responsibility for his or her contribution. As a practical matter, this
includes cases where people booger up headers in a (vain) attempt to avoid
"spam" from the net. Regardless, in these cases, I just let the post drop.

FORMATTING

Please, let's all do our part to keep the overall volume of net traffic as
low as we reasonably can. In particular, we hope you do not include text of
previous posts ... at least any more than necessary. Many news programs now
make it easy for you to insert old text for "context" ... but they also make
it easy for you to edit. Please only put in those lines you really need in
order to make your point.

As mentioned elsewhere in this charter, I will touch up a post when included
text is excessive, but of course this slows down the overall processing of
regular posts by the moderator. It used to be that our load was such that I
could read and snip thoughtfully ... but our load is tremendous now. So you
should assume that if I have to edit, it would probably be incorrectly. (In
fact currently I use a program that simply excises all included text.) It is
going to be more understandable to all if you do the edits yourself, thanks.

A special note for "FOR SALE" posts: please, please, please put in some sense
of locality when you write your message, especially for sale of firearms. The
most common response people want to post as followup is "where do you live?"
So if for no other reason than protecting our net bandwidth, it is good to post
where you are. It really does make a difference to many readers on how they
respond too.

In cases of a running thread inspiring you to write many posts, then please
take the time to look through all the posts on that topic, forumlate a response
that includes all of them, and post one response. To a group concerned about
keeping the volume low, then multiple posts from the same user (all having the
same subject line) are a clear invitation to pruning. It would be a shame to
loose useful information in later messages if we incorrectly think the multiple
posts are just a hiccup in your news software (which is common these days.)

A WORD TO THE WISE

Rec.guns is a public forum. Don't post anything that you wouldn't want
printed in the newspaper (an international one, at that.) Remember that
this group is monitored by both law-making and law-enforcing bodies alike,
so please help us uphold high standards of quality, for information as well
as the way it is presented. Rational argument and citation of fact will do
more to promote the positive aspects of shooting and shooters than the
vitriole from both sides commonly found in other gun-related groups.

FAQ

The FAQ for rec.guns contains info donated from volunteers on net who address
many issues concerning firearms (both technical and non-technical), such as
defensive use, safety information, manufacturer information, and reloading
data. The list is long. If you have a question about firearms, check the
FAQ first. If your question isn't answered to your satisfaction by the FAQ,
the people in rec.guns will welcome your questions and be as helpful as
possible. Note that the FAQ is immense and thus only a FAQ pointer is
posted regularly. Check in the news.answers, rec.answers, and rec.guns
newsgroups for the rec.guns FAQ pointer, or use one of the following:
Via WWW: connect to the URL http://www.recguns.com
The rec.guns FAQ maintainer is David Putzolu and may be contacted at
[email protected]

Need a phone number, or address of a company, person, or organization of
interest to the rec.guns readers? Before you post asking for this info,
check out the Rec.Guns phone book. It's accessable from the home page
of the FAQ: http://www.recguns.com/XII.html
Please read the Phonebook header if you would like to submit additions or
corrections. Send those submissions to [email protected]

MODERATION

My goal is to moderate in moderation, that is, unintrusively. I hope to
post anything that falls within the charter of the group. On occasion, I
will touch up the headers, formatting and "included" text of articles, but
prefer to avoid extensive hacking of the text. On rarer occasions, I will
ask the poster to shorten an article that would be inconveniently long for
the forum; in such a case, I would suggest the poster send a short note to
announce where on the net a reader could find the main text body. One of
the benefits of being moderator is of course that I get first crack at wise
cracks, so on what I hope are innocent occasions I may insert some piece of
direction, guidance, witicism or wisdom; in such a case, I always label my
contribution as MODERATOR.

The software I have written to assist in processing messages will excise
almost all but the essential NNTP fields; this is to keep things uniform for
the world and sane for me. Apologies if you miss seeing your own favorite
frivolous field in the headers.

In some cases, valid header lines are sent in, but with bogus values. This
usually causes the news system to hiccup, and requires that I manually edit
the header to correct the format problem. (Classic example: sysops who set
up their Message-Id: field to be something cute.) In this case, I'll fix it
if I have time, otherwise the post will go out as-is (which is to say, it is
effectively dropped.)

Except as outlined earlier (e.g. dropping of test posts or messed up headers)
I try not to reject an article without returning it to the author with a brief
explanation of why it was rejected. In such a case, I almost always give a
suggestion of alternate groups where it could be submitted. Often I find
messages from `regulars' that need redirection; in these cases, where I have
an understanding worked out ahead of time, I will redirect the message to
another forum without checking with the poster first. Finally, we often get
requests for very simple pieces of information, such as ``How do I apply for
membership in the NRA?'' I often answer these directly without using up the
net bandwidth of a full posting. Other times I'll just send back a message
about how to access the FAQ.

If you submit an article but neither see it in the newsgroup nor receive an
acknowledgement, then either your article or my reply was lost in the Great
Network Void. Therefore, it's a good idea to keep a backup copy of any long
article you submit. Currently I am able to process most messages within hours
of their arrival here, so wait a day or two (to give the net a chance to catch
up) before sending a follow up query. Occasionally I will be tied up with my
day job (or matches!) so please have a little patience before firing off some
kvetch about censorship or debugging.

Please try to avoid submitting posts here that are simultaneously submitted
to other "local only" groups. (For example, one of the most common multi-
group posts we see here are "for sale" messages sent to both rec.guns and
to tx.guns.) Your post won't go to any other group listed on the Newsgroups
line; if one group listed is moderated (as is rec.guns) then nothing goes
out until one moderator processes it. The problem with local groups is this:
most of them aren't visible to my system here, therefore I can't process your
message to go into those groups. I need to manually edit out the other news
groups listed, process your message into rec.guns, and then send the message
back to you to repost to those local-only groups yourself. That is a lot of
work for me and delay for you -- so why not avoid the situation at the start?

Some emerging net providers aren't providing news posts in what we would
call a `timely fashion.' Readers at the end of long news feeds should be
sure to check whether posts they are replying to are old (as in up to weeks
out of date); if so, then you might check well ahead for other replies
before you post your own. Often we find that a thread has run it's natural
course and been history for quite some time, but then our bandwidth gets
used up as the poorer providers send out an old batch of posts for their
readers to rediscover and respond to anew. Usually we'll let such threads
die if there doesn't appear to be much new in them.

A brief note on huge files.... please don't post them. Our forum is gated
to many other subnets and mailers, and sysops graciously allow us the use
so long as they have a good idea of what kind of usage to expect from us
(which is to say "little".) Huge files, such as come from uuencoded sound
or image files, or from useful programs, really louse up our arrangements.
Try posting it elsewhere on the net, or set up an ftp server, then post a
brief pointer to it here in our forum. These seems to work the best.

Please do not harvest email addresses from posts in this group for use in
spam advertising. We surely can't stop you from doing it, but if we find it
so then we will never again carry traffic on your products or company. If
not for negative ads, then you'll get none at all here.

Comments and suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

LEGAL MATTERS AND CAUTIONS

We are not lawyers here, and even if so then we could not know the laws of
all 50 states, let alone numerous countries. Some items offered for sale
in this group may not be legal in certain jurisdictions. Similarly, some
activities discussed here may be illegal in some jurisdictions (e.g.,
concealed carry of firearms). It is the reader's responsibility to learn
the relevant laws before acting. No one in this group, and certainly not
the moderator, can be responsible if you act illegally. If in doubt,
contact a good attorney. Regardless, all local, regional, state, federal,
international and galactic laws must be complied with, especially in regards
to transactions involving firearms and ammunition.

A similar disclaimer applies to firearms safety. Be sure you understand
what you're doing before following any advice posted to this group. THIS IS
ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT WHEN HANDLOADING AMMUNITION. Though many knowledgeable
and experienced people post to this group, typographical errors do occur,
and your situation may not be identical to that described in the posting.
YOU have primary responsibility for your actions. If in doubt, check with a
competent gunsmith.

ADDRESSES

Most news software should be set up to submit postings via email to
[email protected]

`Out of band' communication and requests not for general distribution should
be sent to
[email protected]

A digestified version of rec.guns is sent out to those who may not have
regular access to the netnews version. Send an out-of-band request to me if
you find yourself in such a situation and I will add you to this list. But
please, please, please --- only use it if you cannot get rec.guns at your
own site! My mailer is loaded enough as it is.

If you miss seeing your posts, then the first thing to do is check with your
sysops or news feeds to ensure that your news database is configured to send
to the above addresses. In the mean time, you can just email to the first
address, just like news will do. We'll figure it out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can learn about rec.guns at http://doubletap.cs.umd.edu/rec.guns

Shoot the best, forget the rest. Win a Fulton Armory AR-15 Tactical
Carbine while rec.guns shows our strength supporting the RKBA.
Click on www.direct-action.org