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
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