CHARTER: rec.bicycles.off-road Rec.bicycles.off-road is a forum for discussion for issues of direct relevance only to off-road cyclists. The use of a bicycle anywhere that is not man-made and hard should be considered off-road use. Discussion might include: Environmental issues relevant only to off-road bicycling Technical/practical issues involved in off-road bicycling Trail access specific to off-road cyclists Backcountry/Bush travel involving bicycles Trail maintenance for off-road cycling Tips on how to handle off-road specific riding conditions Where, when, and how to ride off road Any topic that directly relates to off road use of bicycles could be a subject for discussion. However, there exist other newsgroups for which more general topics that also involve off-road cycling are more appropriate, in particular in the rec.bicycle.* hierarchy, and more general groups for environmental and trail issues like talk.environment, sci.environment, sci.bio.ecology, rec.backcountry, rec.animals.wildlife, and talk.politics.animals. The reader is encouraged to post these more general issues elsewhere and not in rec.bicycles.off-road. Do not post to any group without reading their charter or FAQ to determine appropriate content. These can be found at http://www.faqs.org/. In particular, environmental and trail issues are on-topic only if they are of direct relevance to off-road cyclists and only to off-road cyclists. Examples of more general issues to be avoided in this charter are biodiversity, wildlife response to humans, and extinction. Examples of suitable environmental and trail issues are actions taken by off-road cycling groups in anticipation of or in response to trail closures, trail construction that is specific to off-road bicycle use, or appropriateness of riding in different conditions such as rain. Posts that assign derogatory attributes to off-road cyclists that are unrelated to the act of off-road cycling (ie: Why can't mountain bikers reply without lying ?) and posts that argue that off-road cycling should not exist anywhere at any time are specifically excluded from discussion. The newsgroup is created as a resource for the off-road cyclist, and as a place for others to share concerns about off-road cyclists. Derogatory posts towards all off-road cyclists as a class of people do not serve that role, nor do posts that argue that the activity should not exist. Items for sale/wanted should be posted to rec.bicycles.marketplace. Advertisements for sales are off-topic. Rec.bicycles.off-road will: 1. Provide the off road bicyclist with a newsgroup to discuss off road bicycling issues. 2. Allow hikers and other users of off road areas to share concerns about bicyclists in the backcountry/bush. Moderation was initiated to keep posts within the bounds of the charter. It is not intended to keep anyone from posting to the newsgroup so long as the message content is within the bounds of this charter, or within the bounds of any FAQ that is passed by the newsgroup by 2/3 vote (and a voting total greater than 100 votes) in the future. FAQ discussion can be initiated by anyone in the newsgroup, and FAQ votes will be called by the moderators after a period of sufficient interest and discussion of no less than 14 days. Votes on FAQs will be counted by the moderators and will not be posted to the group, except for a summary. The software for the robomoderator is available at http://www.galstar.com/~ichudov/usenet/scrm/robomod/robomod.html Moderation Policy: Rec.bicycles.off-road shall employ a combination of human and robomoderation. 1) The robomoderator first will screen every article submitted to rec.bicycles.off-road. It will unequivocally reject any article that falls into one or more or the following categories: A) Articles crossposted to more than two newsgroups other than rec.bicycles.off-road; B) Articles that are from black-listed sources The robomoderator will notify the source of its reason for rejection using the return email address of the author. If a valid email address is not used the author may not be notified of the rejection of his submission. Certain other articles may be forwarded to the human moderators for review, as explained below. 2) The moderator panel, by majority vote, will choose keywords, subjects, and authors. Posts containing any of these will be automatically forwarded to one of the human panel for moderation. The moderators may reject the articles because they are not of appropriate topic. The moderators will attempt to send the author email explaining the rejections. Posts not rejected are accepted. 3) Anything not falling under 1) or 2) will be posted to the group. Anything that is human moderated and accepted will be posted to the group. 4) The moderators may choose to make a source 'black-listed' by a 3/4 supermajority vote. Black-listing will consist of a ban of up to three months, chosen by the moderator panel. Criteria for black-listing will be that A) a human is malicious in attempts to use moderator time or B) software is malfunctioning. It should never be used to keep anyone from attempting to comply with the charter. 5) The moderation panel may cancel articles that have been posted to rec.bicycles.off-road due to forgery or catastrophic failure of the robomoderator. An example of catastrophic failure would be the robomoderator posting 100 copies of the same article. 6) A separate email address shall be set up that will go to all of the moderators. Through this address posters may ask questions about moderation procedure and appeal blacklistings. The number of active moderators in the moderation panel shall initially be 5. Moderators will be added to the panel as necessary by a vote in the newsgroup initiated by and conducted by the moderator panel. Moderators may retire at any time, or may be removed by a vote of the other moderators passing with a super-majority of 3/4 or greater. In summary, rec.bicycles.off-road encourages discussion on aspects of off-road cycling, and discussion on environmental concerns particularly relevant to off-road cycling. END CHARTER.