Subject: Charter and FAQ for the ut.* hierarchy

 The ut.* hierarchy is for the University of Toronto community
(students, professors, staff, squirrels, etc) and, for sub-hierarchies
such as ut.cdf.*, subsets of this community. The newsgroups are
propagated beyond the University of Toronto as a courtesy.

 Portions of the hierarchy are for very specific purposes, for example a
specific class; other parts are for focused groups such as Engineering,
undergraduate computer science students, or the Erindale campus.

Q: What is appropriate to post where?

 There are only general guidelines. You should make sure that your
posting is relevant to all the groups that it is posted to; it's a rare
message that's relevant to a lot of groups -- if in doubt, post to a
subhierarchy's general group (or not at all) instead of crossposting to
many of its other groups.

 Commercial advertising and advertising from outside the community is
almost never appropriate. The ut.* groups are not intended to allow you
to send ads to the University of Toronto community on our dime.

Q: What will happen if I post inappropriately?

 Possibly nothing; possibly you may receive angry email; possibly your
message may be canceled. Inappropriate messages in a subhierarchy may
be canceled at the discretion of the organization in charge of that
subhierarchy.

 In the general ut.* groups, messages that are excessively crossposted
between non-ut groups and ut.* groups may be automatically canceled. The
current standard for 'excessively crossposted' is six or more non ut.*
groups, although this is subject to change.

Q: Why?

 Crossposting between non-ut groups and ut.general have all but drowned
that group under the volume. Attempts to persuade various sources of the
crossposting to cease and desist have been futile; rather than abandon
the group, an effort to reclaim it (and others) is being made.

 In general, the University of Toronto community reserves the right to
take steps to make its newsgroups useful to their intended audiences.

Q: How can I influence the policies of ut.* groups?

 If you're a member of the University of Toronto community, you can
either talk to your department/organization about what you'd like or
send me electronic mail.

Q: But I'm not a member of the University of Toronto community?

 The ut.* groups are for the University of Toronto community. No offense
meant, but if you're not a member of that community, it's none of your
business how we run our internal newsgroups.

Credits:

 The impetus was/is user complaints about the situation in ut.general.
The writing is mostly by Chris Siebenmann; the acquiescence, feedback,
and agreement is from the University of Toronto's system administrators
(and through them, their users). Janitor tweaks for C News by Paul Kern
based on ideas mentioned in news.admin.net-abuse.