F.E.B Policy Version 1.1 March 12,1995 1 Overview This document establishes the policy for sysops who are members of the F.E.B. Orginization. 1.0 Language The official language of the F.E.B. is English. 1.1 Introduction The F.E.B. is an organization consisting of Bulletin Board Systems that pass a collection of messages to one another. F.E.B. Uses Fidonet numbers 1.1a Echo Conferences Any and all conferences that are formed by the sysop's of F.E.B become the property of F.E.B. and will contain the prefix FEB and a dash example "FEB_APPLE" All other conferences without the prefix are passed at the request of the conference Moderator/owner and remain thier property. 1.1b Acceptance of Conferences An echomail conference will not be accepted if the conference is not moderated or contains any profanity or is not of a general interest to the sysop's of F.E.B. or ownership is not transfered to F.E.B. 1.1c Fidonet Associations The F.E.B. is not associated with Fidonet and each member is to maintain safeguards necessary to insure that any messages posted on an F.E.B. System have no chance of entering the mainstream of Fidonet. Failure to properly maintain their systems to prevent the above is cause for removal from membership. 1.2 Organization F.E.B. The table of Organization or chain of command F.E.B. Administrator F.E.B. Coordinators F.E.B. Hubs Moderators Sysops All the above can pass messages to those that are not local to a pickup hub however only those that are designated in this policy can hear appeals of moderator decisions. 2 F.E.B. Administrator Procedures The F.E.B. Administrator is charged with the task of ensuring the smooth operation of the F.E.B. He also is to maintain a Current list of available echo's and assure each Coordinator has a copy of that list. 2.1 F.E.B. Coordinators The F.E.B. Coordinator are to review Moderators decisions and assist in carrying out those decisions. They are to have a copy of this policy available for download. 2.2 F.E.B. Hub These are The Pickup points for recieving the messages of F.E.B. and is any link in the chain that has 2 or more nodes picking up mail from him or her not including the node that he or she picks up the mail from. If a F.E.B. Hub recieves an appeal to a Moderator's decision he must forward that appeal to the nearest Coordinator. All HUbs are required to have a list of echo's available for Sysop's to download. 2.3 Moderators WHAT IS A MODERATOR? The identification of an F.E.B. EchoMail conference is the identification of its Moderator. A Moderator is the person who defines a Conference, and keeps it on track; making sure message content is within reasonable bounds of the topic for which the conference exists. A Moderator should also set the base rules of the conference and cut off abuses of the media when they occur. Moderator recognition & authority The F.E.B. recognizes that a moderator has complete authority over his/her echo in regards to the echo's policy, standards of conduct and participation. A Moderator need not be a Sysop but must be readily accessible via netmail through a FidoNet node number or F.E.B. Assigned number. A Moderator is recognized as follows: a. Upon formation of a conference the person who forms the conference is the Moderator. b. Upon resignation or replacement of an existing Moderator c. Should a conference be without a moderator for over thirty days, the Administrator may cause a tempory Moderator to be appointed for a period of up to 12 months. If during that time the original Moderator does not return, the appointment shall become permanent. Where a person takes over official moderation of an echo without the previous moderator's approval, or in its absence without the Administrator's approval, and cause for removal from that echo. The Moderator must agree to the provisions of this policy and to accept the following responsibilities: a. seeing that messages in the echo correspond to the echo's theme as expressed in the F.E.B. Echolist. b. ensuring that the echo does not distribute or promote illegal activities or information. c. updating the echo listing in the F.E.B. Echolist at least every six months via posting in an echo designated for that purpose in the case an echo is not available then it must be sent to the Administator via Netmail. d. Monthly posting of the rules of his conference. e. designating a proxy if unable to perform duties for a period ofmore than 10 days. Moderators are encouraged to appoint Co-Moderators to assist them in their responsibilities and to stand in for them in their absence. f. authorizing that the feed to a Node be severed if the Moderator believes that the Node is violating an echo rule. Such a request will conform to the feed-cut policy below. 2.4 Node The System that pick's up F.E.B. messages 2.5 Node - Sysop This is the Operator of the system that recieves F.E.B. Messages his job is to oversee his own system and take any action against any User that fails to comply with the rules of a moderator. The sysop is responsible for the actions of any user on his or her system when they affect the rest of F.E.B. 3 Routeing link As it stand now the routing link is a follows 1:107/749 to 1:107/416 to 1:107/430 to 1:107/696 to 1:107/951 107/749 Walter Kuzma : F.E.B. Administrator 107/951 Bruce Barton : F.E.B. Northern Coordinator 107/696 David Wrobel : F.E.B. Southern Coordinator 107/416 Steve Tepper : F.E.B. HUB 107/726 Ken Ferrante : F.E.B. HUB 4. DISPUTES 4.0 Use of judgement The application of F.E.B. policy in the resolution of disputes requires the use of good judgement by the F.E.B. Coordinators involved. Decisions should be made in a consistent manner with a genuine attempt made to obtain both sides of any issue. Where this policy does not appear to forsee a particular situation the F.E.B. Coordinator is expected to use a combination of this policy, FidoNet Policy, precedent and his own good judgement to resolve a dispute. 4.1 Complaint settling Complaints referred to in this section are those dealing with technical issues where a decision may be made under the terms of this F.E.B. Policy. Where a node is unable to obtain satisfactory handling of a F.E.B. complaint from his F.E.B. Coordinator he may address the complaint to the F.E.B. Administrator. 4.2 Willful disregard A person who engages in disruptive behaviour such as posting multiple copies of identical messages or flooding an echo with messages to render communication difficult or to increase costs will be considered grounds for removal of access to that conference or conferences. A person who alters quoted extracts in an echomail message so as to misrepresent the original author's text will be considered annoying and subject to being cut from that echo. 4.3 Sanctions The only sanction which may be applied to a node by an F.E.B. Coordinator for contravention of this policy is removal of its access to the F.E.B. confernce in question Upon The request of the moderator. The only sanctions which may be applied to users by a F.E.B. echo moderator for contravention of the echo's rules are requests for apology, restrictions of echo privileges, or feed cuts. 4.4 Feed cuts To ensure fairness to both the Moderator and the users of an echo, where a Moderator wishes to terminate a user's participation for violation of the conference's published rules, the Moderator will send netmail to the user's Sysop with a copy to the Sysop's Coordinator directing that the user's access to the echo be severed. This netmail will include: a. instructions to cut the access for a specific user. b. copy of the echo rules section which was violated. c. copy of the user's message(s) which constituted the initial violation. d. copy of the Moderator's subsequent warning to the user not to repeat the violation. e. copy of the user's repeat violation. Where the violation is of sufficient seriousness to warrant no warning, provisions d. and e. above may be disregarded. This should be an unusual occurrence. Provided that all of this evidence is attached the Sysop will immediately and without question terminate the user's access as directed. If he/she fails to do so the F.E.B. Hub will terminate the Sysop's feed of the conference. If the F.E.B Hub fails to terminate the sysop's feed the Coordinator will terminate the F.E.B. Hub's feed. If the Coordinator fails to terminate the F.E.B.Hub's feed the Administrator will terminate the Coordinator's feed. Knowingly feeding an echo to a Node whose feed has been cut for violations of this policy or at the request of the Moderator, is considered Grounds for a feed cut. Appeals of feed-cut instructions which contain the above evidence may be made only after the feed-cut has been honoured. 5 Appeal Process A decision made by a Moderator may be appealed to the next level above Hub, Appeals must be made within two weeks of the decision which is being appealed. All appeals must follow the chain of command; if levels are skipped the appeal will be dismissed. Appeals that are recieved by F.E.B. Hubs, must be fowarded to the F.E.B Coordinator and Administrator and a decision must be made by the F.E.B. Coordinator within 24 hours of acknoledgement of the appeal, Failure to do so will cause the appeal to be Considered successful. The appeal structure is as follows: F.E.B Hub : He cannot rule on an appeal and must forward all recieved appeals to his F.E.B. Coordinator F.E.B. Coordinator : He will rule on the appeal and forward a copy of his ruling to all involved including the Administrator Administrator : He has the finial say in the appeals process however will not interfere with a Coordinators decision unless an appeal is made directly to his level and only after the prevous steps have been met. 6 Joining F.E.B. To join F.E.B. A netmail message containing the following is to be sent to the nearest F.E.B. HUB or Coordinator or directly to The Administrator, That message is to be forwarded up the chain of command until it reaches the Administrator and it must Contain the Following Name Of BBS Name of Sysop BBS Software BBS Phone Number Voice Phone Number Street Address State, Zip FidoNet number Baud Rate Mailer Tosser Hours of Operation *** Use Makereq.exe for ease of applying ***