usefor-article-09 February 2003

8.7.  Duties of a Moderator

   A Moderator receives news articles by email, decides whether to
   accept them and, if so, either injects them into the news stream or
   forwards them to further moderators.

   Articles will be received by the moderator either encapsulated as an
   object of Content-Type application/news-transmission (or possibly
   encapsulated but without an explicit Content-Type-header), or else
   directly as an email already containing all the headers appropriate
   for a Netnews article (see 8.2.2).  Moderators SHOULD be prepared to
   accept articles in either format.

   A moderator processes an article, as submitted to any newsgroup that
   he moderates, as follows:

   1. He decides, on the basis of whatever moderation policy applies to
      his group, whether to accept or reject the article. He MAY do this
      manually, or else partially or wholly with the aid of appropriate
      software for whose operation he is then responsible.  If the
      article is a cancel nessage (7.3) issued by the poster of an
      earlier article, then he Ought to cancel it (in which case there
      is no more to be done).  He MAY modify the article if that is in
      accordance with the applicable moderation policy (and in
      particular he MAY remove redundant headers and add Comments and
      other informational headers).  He also needs to be aware if any
      change he makes to the article will invalidate some authentication
      check provided by the poster or by an earlier moderator.

      He MAY inform the poster if the article is accepted, and he Ought
      to inform the poster if it is rejected.  If it is rejected, then
      it normally fails for all the newsgroups for which it was
      intended. If it is accepted, the moderator proceeds with the
      following steps.

   2. If the Newsgroups-header contains further moderated newsgroups for
      which approval has not already been given, he adds an indication
      (identifying both himself and the name of the group) that he
      approves the article, and then forwards it to the moderator of the
      leftmost unapproved group (which, if this standard has been
      followed correctly, will generally be the next moderated group to
      the right of his own). There are two ways to do this:

      (a)  He emails it to the submission address of the next moderator
 (see section 8.2.2 for the proper method of doing this), or

      (b)  he rotates the newsgroup-names in the Newsgroups-header to
 the left so that the targeted group is the leftmost moderated
 group in that header, and injects it as below (thus causing
 the injecting agent to email it to the correct moderator).
 However, he MUST first ensure that the article contains no
 Approved-header.
        NOTE: This standard does not prescribe how a moderator's
        approval is to be indicated (though a future standard may do
        so).  Possible methods include adding an Approved header (or a
        similar but differently named header if method (b) is being
        used) listing all the approvals made so far, or adding a
        separate header for each individual approval (the header X-Auth
        is sometimes used for this purpose).  The approval may also be
        confirmed with some form of digital signature (7.1).

   3. If the Newsgroups-header contains no further unapproved moderated
      groups, he adds an Approved-header (6.14) identifying himself and,
      insofar as is possible, all the other moderators who have approved
      the article. He thus assumes responsibility for having ensured
      that the article was acceptable to the moderators of all the
      moderated groups involved.

   4. A moderator Ought Not (absent any established and widely
      promulgated policy to the contrary) to remove any newsgroup-name
      from the Newsgroups-header, nor split an article into two versions
      with disjoint Newsgroups-headers. These are matters more usually
      within the prerogative of the poster; moreover splitting can lead
      to fragmentation of threads.

   5. The Date-header SHOULD be retained, except that if it is stale
      (5.1) for reasons understood by the moderator (e.g. delays in the
      moderation process) he MAY substitute the current date (but must
      then take responsibility for any loops that ensue). The Message-
      ID-header SHOULD also be retained unless it is obviously non-
      compliant with this standard.

        NOTE: A message identifier created by a conforming posting or
        injecting agent, or even by a mail user agent conforming to [RFC
        2822], may reasonably be supposed to be conformant (and will, in
        any case, be caught by the injecting agent if it is not).

   6. Any variant headers (4.2.5.3) MUST be removed, except that a
      Path-header MAY be truncated to only its pre-injection region
      (5.6.3).  Any Injector-Info-header (6.19) or Complaints-To-header
      (6.20) MUST be removed.

   7. He then causes the article to be injected, having first decoded
      any encoded newsgroup-name (5.5.2), unless his injecting agent
      offers that service (8.2.2), and having observed all the duties of
      a posting agent.

        NOTE: This standard does not prescribe how the moderator or
        moderation policy for each newsgroup is established; rather it
        assumes that whatever agencies are responsible for the relevant
        network or hierarchy (1.1) will have made appropriate
        arrangements in that regard.

--- ../usefor-article-08/Duties_of_a_Moderator.out          August 2002
+++ ../usefor-article-09/Duties_of_a_Moderator.out          February 2003
@@ -4,66 +4,100 @@
    accept them and, if so, either injects them into the news stream or
    forwards them to further moderators.
 
+   Articles will be received by the moderator either encapsulated as an
+   object of Content-Type application/news-transmission (or possibly
+   encapsulated but without an explicit Content-Type-header), or else
+   directly as an email already containing all the headers appropriate
+   for a Netnews article (see 8.2.2).  Moderators SHOULD be prepared to
+   accept articles in either format.
+
    A moderator processes an article, as submitted to any newsgroup that
    he moderates, as follows:
 
    1. He decides, on the basis of whatever moderation policy applies to
       his group, whether to accept or reject the article. He MAY do this
       manually, or else partially or wholly with the aid of appropriate
-      software for whose operation he is then responsible. He MAY modify
-      the article if that is in accordance with the applicable
-      moderation policy (and in particular he MAY remove redundant
-      headers and add Comments and other informational headers). He MAY
-      inform the poster as to whether the article has been accepted or
-      rejected.
-
-      If the article is rejected, then it fails for all the newsgroups
-      for which it was intended (in particular the moderator SHOULD NOT
-      resubmit the article, with a reduced Newsgroups-header, to any
-      remaining groups, especially if this will break any authentication
-      checks present in the article). If the article is accepted, the
-      moderator proceeds with the following steps.
+      software for whose operation he is then responsible.  If the
+      article is a cancel nessage (7.3) issued by the poster of an
+      earlier article, then he Ought to cancel it (in which case there
+      is no more to be done).  He MAY modify the article if that is in
+      accordance with the applicable moderation policy (and in
+      particular he MAY remove redundant headers and add Comments and
+      other informational headers).  He also needs to be aware if any
+      change he makes to the article will invalidate some authentication
+      check provided by the poster or by an earlier moderator.
+
+      He MAY inform the poster if the article is accepted, and he Ought
+      to inform the poster if it is rejected.  If it is rejected, then
+      it normally fails for all the newsgroups for which it was
+      intended. If it is accepted, the moderator proceeds with the
+      following steps.
+
+   2. If the Newsgroups-header contains further moderated newsgroups for
+      which approval has not already been given, he adds an indication
+      (identifying both himself and the name of the group) that he
+      approves the article, and then forwards it to the moderator of the
+      leftmost unapproved group (which, if this standard has been
+      followed correctly, will generally be the next moderated group to
+      the right of his own). There are two ways to do this:
+
+      (a)  He emails it to the submission address of the next moderator
+ (see section 8.2.2 for the proper method of doing this), or
+
+      (b)  he rotates the newsgroup-names in the Newsgroups-header to
+ the left so that the targeted group is the leftmost moderated
+ group in that header, and injects it as below (thus causing
+ the injecting agent to email it to the correct moderator).
+ However, he MUST first ensure that the article contains no
+ Approved-header.
+        NOTE: This standard does not prescribe how a moderator's
+        approval is to be indicated (though a future standard may do
+        so).  Possible methods include adding an Approved header (or a
+        similar but differently named header if method (b) is being
+        used) listing all the approvals made so far, or adding a
+        separate header for each individual approval (the header X-Auth
+        is sometimes used for this purpose).  The approval may also be
+        confirmed with some form of digital signature (7.1).
+
+   3. If the Newsgroups-header contains no further unapproved moderated
+      groups, he adds an Approved-header (6.14) identifying himself and,
+      insofar as is possible, all the other moderators who have approved
+      the article. He thus assumes responsibility for having ensured
+      that the article was acceptable to the moderators of all the
+      moderated groups involved.
+
+   4. A moderator Ought Not (absent any established and widely
+      promulgated policy to the contrary) to remove any newsgroup-name
+      from the Newsgroups-header, nor split an article into two versions
+      with disjoint Newsgroups-headers. These are matters more usually
+      within the prerogative of the poster; moreover splitting can lead
+      to fragmentation of threads.
 
-   2. The Date-header SHOULD be retained, except that if it is stale
+   5. The Date-header SHOULD be retained, except that if it is stale
       (5.1) for reasons understood by the moderator (e.g. delays in the
       moderation process) he MAY substitute the current date (but must
-      then take responsibility for any loops that ensue). Any variant
-      headers (4.2.5.3) MUST be removed, except that a Path-header MAY
-      be truncated to only its pre-injection region (5.6.3).  Any
-      Injector-Info-header (6.19) or Complaints-To-header (6.20) MUST be
-      removed.
-
-   3. He adds an Approved-header (6.14) containing a mailbox identifying
-      himself (or, if the article already contains an Approved-header
-      from another moderator, he adds that identifying information to
-      it). He MAY also include that Approved-header within some digital
-      signature scheme (see 7.1).
-   4. If the Newsgroups-header contains further moderated newsgroups for
-      which approval has not already been given, he forwards the article
-      to the moderator of the leftmost such group (which, if this
-      standard has been followed correctly, will always be the group
-      immediately to the right of the group(s) for which he is
-      responsible). However, he MUST NOT alter the order in which the
-      newsgroups are listed in the Newsgroups-header.
-
-   5. Otherwise, he causes the article to be injected, having first
-      decoded any encoded newsgroup-name (5.5.2), unless his injecting
-      agent offers that service (8.2.2), and having observed all the
-      duties of a posting agent (8.5).
+      then take responsibility for any loops that ensue). The Message-
+      ID-header SHOULD also be retained unless it is obviously non-
+      compliant with this standard.
+
+        NOTE: A message identifier created by a conforming posting or
+        injecting agent, or even by a mail user agent conforming to [RFC
+        2822], may reasonably be supposed to be conformant (and will, in
+        any case, be caught by the injecting agent if it is not).
+
+   6. Any variant headers (4.2.5.3) MUST be removed, except that a
+      Path-header MAY be truncated to only its pre-injection region
+      (5.6.3).  Any Injector-Info-header (6.19) or Complaints-To-header
+      (6.20) MUST be removed.
+
+   7. He then causes the article to be injected, having first decoded
+      any encoded newsgroup-name (5.5.2), unless his injecting agent
+      offers that service (8.2.2), and having observed all the duties of
+      a posting agent.
 
         NOTE: This standard does not prescribe how the moderator or
         moderation policy for each newsgroup is established; rather it
         assumes that whatever agencies are responsible for the relevant
         network or hierarchy (1.1) will have made appropriate
         arrangements in that regard.
-
-   Articles will be received by the moderator either encapsulated as an
-   object of Content-Type application/news-transmission (8.2.2) (or
-   possibly encapsulated but without an explicit Content-Type-header),
-   or else directly as an email already containing all the headers
-   appropriate for a Netnews article (see 8.2.2) in which case he needs
-   to be aware of the Duties of an Incoming Gateway (8.8.2) (and, in
-   particular, he SHOULD adopt the Message-ID- and Date-headers of the
-   email message, though he SHOULD NOT add any Sender-header).
-   Moderators SHOULD be prepared to accept articles in either format.