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                     REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
                   moderated group aus.student.news

Newsgroups line:
aus.student.news        Online student newspaper. (Moderated)

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for the creation of
a world-wide moderated Usenet newsgroup aus.student.news.
This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time.
Procedural details are below.  If you support the proposal, please
send an email saying so to the proponent at: union@powerup.com.au.
The proponent of aus.student.news is the Australian Union of
Students, a voluntary student association that supports family
values and the free enterprise system, and that seeks to encourage
students to become more employable.  Further information about the
proponent is given at:

            http://www.powerup.com.au/~union

Please note that a Request for Discussion is an exception to
the general rule that you can only post an article to one or
two newsgroups.  A Request for Discussion may be posted to large
numbers of newsgroups without amounting to a spam - see the
Procedure section below.


RATIONALE: aus.student.news

Our proposed newsgroup "aus.student.news" is needed because at
present there is no newsgroup for Australian university students
and TAFE students.  The group aus.students is officially for
school students, although many university students post
off-the-topic articles.  Some students would see the heading
"Going to school in Australia", think "Boring!", and not
subscribe to aus. students.

The proposed newsgroup will be moderated by the Australian Union
of Students.  People wanting to contribute articles, letters to
editor, etc, will email these to the Union, where the editors
will post the articles to the newsgroup.  There will be an article
in the newsgroup with the subject "How to Contribute Articles to
this Newsgroup", which will give the email addresses to send
articles to.  There may be several email addresses, for example,
one for sports articles, one for news reports, one for feature
articles, etc.  There may be more than one editor.  We would be
interested to hear from people wanting to become editors.

The newsgroup needs to be moderated so that as many students as
possible can subscribe to it.  Many parents have censorship
software installed on their pcs, to stop the students in their
family accessing deviant material.  This means these students
would not be able to access aus.students.  Since aus.student.news
will be moderated, and will not allow deviant material, the
companies making censorship software will programme their software
to allow access to aus.student.news.

To ensure the viability of aus.student.news, the Australian Union
of Students will import articles from other newsgroups.
Our editors will scour thousands of newsgroups for interesting
articles, saving you from having to do this yourself.  The best
articles will invariably appear in aus.student.news, making it
the most popular Australian newsgroup right from the word go.



CHARTER: aus.student.news


Introduction
------------

The name of this newsgroup is "aus.student.news".  This is a
newsgroup for articles of interest to Australian university and
TAFE students, Australian apprentices and trainees, Australian
school students in Year 10, Year 11 and Year 12, and students
from other countries studying in Australia.  Anyone at all may
contribute articles to this newsgroup.  Contributions should
not be posted to the newsgroup, but should be sent to the email
addresses mentioned in an article appearing in this newsgroup
with the subject "How to Contribute Articles to this Newsgroup".



What is "on the topic"
----------------------

The following types of articles will be acceptable as long as
they are not "off the topic":

* Articles that you would expect to see
  in a student newspaper

* Articles that you would expect to see
  in a school magazine

* Articles that you would expect to see
  in a weekly news magazine

* Reports that you would expect to hear
  on radio and television news

* Advertising from students, companies
  and non-profit organisations

* Views we don't agree with, from people
  we don't approve of - even from the
  National Union of Students Inc.



What is "off the topic"
-----------------------

The following types of articles will not be published in this
newsgroup for obvious reasons:

* Articles in languages other than English
  and Australian Aboriginal languages.

* Articles that are uninteresting to
  Australian students compared to other
  articles that have been sent in.
  This can vary from week to week,
  and what one week is comparitively
  uninteresting could the next week be
  interesting enough.

* Articles containing false information.

* Articles containing "mind-viruses".
  A "mind-virus" is like a computer virus
  - see the definition below.



Mind-Viruses
------------

A "mind-virus" is similar to a computer virus.  Just as a
computer virus is information that, if fed into your computer,
will cause it to malfunction, so a "mind-virus" is information
that, if fed into your brain, will cause your brain to function
less well than you would like.  Just as Aids is worse than the
common cold, so some "mind-viruses" are worse than others.
The following are "mind-viruses", and so are "off the topic",
and will not be published:

* Marxist propaganda

* "Politically Correct" propaganda
  (see definition below)

* Gay propaganda

* Bad language

The following are not "mind-viruses", but we might not publish
them if they are too uninteresting:

* Capitalist propaganda

* Christian propaganda



Politically Correct Propaganda
------------------------------

"Political Correctness" is the official ideology of the
Establishment in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain.
"Political Correctness" is often mistakenly confused with
Christianity.  More people have died as a result of "Political
Correctness" than have died as a result of Nazism, so "Political
Correctness" is somewhere in between Nazism and Marxism as a
threat to humanity.

An article is "politically correct" if it attacks people who
support traditional values, for example, calling for them to be
sacked, or to be banned from expressing their views.
If an article opposes traditional values, without attacking
people who support traditional values, it will be regarded as
acceptable, and we will consider allowing it in this newsgroup,
even if we disagree with it.

The Australian Union of Students is preparing a Political
Correctness Home Page on the World Wide Web.  This will be
accessable via the Australian Union of Students Home Page and
our Main Menu.  The page will explain how "Political Correctness"
was invented by accident by the British Government, and why it
is garbage.  If you are in doubt as to whether your article is
"politically correct", check out this page.



Editing of Articles
-------------------

The Australian Union of Students may make changes to articles
contributed for publication in this newsgroup, as long as the
changes do not, in the Union's opinion, misrepresent the views
of the author.  These changes may include changes to spelling,
changes to style, the removal of bad language, the removal of
defamatory material, and the removal of uninteresting passages,
amongst other things.  An article so edited may be posted to the
newsgroup in the author's name, without any indication that it
has been edited..  The editors are not English teachers, and have
better things to do than correcting articles, so please make sure
your articles are in a form where they can be posted to the
newsgroup without changes.

The Union may also change the subject heading of articles, and
may merge articles together.  For example, the Union may merge
all classified advertisements into one page and post this as an
article called "Classified Ads".  Similarly, we may merge
together a number of articles, together with the editors' replies,
and post this as an article called "Letters to the Editor".
The Union may place advertisements within articles.  For example,
halfway down your short story there might appear an advertisement
for an environmental group.  If advertisements can appear in
magazines on the same pages as articles without distracting the
reader, then it should work in Usenet News.



Advertisements
--------------

Classified advertisements from students will be published free of
charge.  The Union reserves the right, at some time in the distant
future, to publish only advertisements sent in by members of the
Australian Union of Students - another good reason to join the
Union.  Advertising from non-profit organisations that the Union
approves of will be published free of charge.

Advertising from companies will be published if an advertiser
makes a donation to an acceptable charity.  The initial charity
that will be approved for this purpose will be Care Australia.
Advertisers should check with the Union to find out which charity
is approved at any given time.  The amount of the donation will be
the amount we would be charging if we were selling the advertising
space on a commercial basis.  We suggest that advertisements
appear in the middle of articles, or at the end of articles, but
we are open to suggestions from advertisers as to how their goods
and services may best be promoted.



Copyright
---------

When the author of an article submits an article to the
Australian Union of Students for publication in this newsgroup,
or causes an article to be submitted, the author licences the
Union, in consideration of the Union allowing the article to
appear in this newsgroup to, from time to time, reproduce the
article in any medium, including in newspapers and magazines,
either in the form submitted by the author, or in the form as
amended by the Union, and to, from time to time, use the article
as a basis for any other material, such as plays, films, or radio
or television programmes, on condition only that the Union gives
the author credit for originating the article.



Disclaimer
----------

While the Australian Union of Students takes every care to ensure
that articles in this newsgroup do not contain untrue material,
illegal material, or bad advice, the Union cannot accept
responsibility for any such material inadvertently appearing.
The responsibility for articles rests with authors, and the
Union's role is only to cull out the worst excesses.
Should such material inadvertently appear, please bring this
immediately to the Union's attention, and the Union will publish
a correction, and exercise more care in allowing material from
the author concerned in future.


END CHARTER.


MODERATOR INFO: aus.student.news

Moderator: Australian Union of Students <union@powerup.com.au>

For information about the moderator, see the Australian Union
of Students Home Page at:

            http://www.powerup.com.au/~union

END MODERATOR INFO.


PROCEDURE:

This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes.
In this phase of the process, any potential problems with the
proposed newsgroup should be raised and resolved.  The discussion
period will continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when
this RFD was posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a
Call for Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the
discussion warrants it.  Please do not attempt to vote until this
happens.  People who support the proposed newsgroup should as soon
as possible send an email message expressing support to the
proponent at: union@powerup.com.au.

All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.

This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup
creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet
Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal".
Please refer to these documents (posted from time to time in
news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the
process.  Please note in particular the following passage:

       "A request for discussion on creation of
        a new newsgroup should be posted to
        news.announce.newgroups, news.groups,
        and any other groups or mailing lists
        AT ALL RELATED to the proposed topic."


DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD has been posted to the following newsgroups:

  news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, aus.ads, aus.ads.commercial,
  aus.ads.forsale, aus.ads.forsale.computers, aus.ads.jobs,
  aus.ads.wanted, aus.aviation, aus.aviation.airspace, aus.bicycle,
  aus.books, aus.bushwalking, aus.cars, aus.cars.racing,
  aus.cars.racing.touring-car, aus.computers, aus.computers.ibm-pc,
  aus.computers.mac, aus.conserve, aus.consumers, aus.culture,
  aus.culture.china, aus.culture.gothic, aus.culture.ultimo,
  aus.education, aus.electronics, aus.environment,
  aus.environment.conservation, aus.environment.misc, aus.films,
  aus.flame, aus.flame.usa, aus.games, aus.games.bridge,
  aus.games.roleplay, aus.gardens, aus.general, aus.hi-fi,
  aus.invest, aus.jobs, aus.legal, aus.motorcycles, aus.music,
  aus.net.news, aus.org, aus.org.efa, aus.pets, aus.photo,
  aus.politics, aus.politics.guns, aus.radio, aus.rail,
  aus.rail.models, aus.religion, aus.religion.christian, aus.sf,
  aus.sf.babylon5, aus.sf.star-trek, aus.sport,
  aus.sport.aussie-rules, aus.sport.motor, aus.sport.rugby-league,
  aus.sport.scuba, aus.students, aus.students.overseas, aus.talk,
  aus.theatre, aus.tv, aus.tv.community, aus.tv.x-files,
  bne.general, canb.general, melb.general, syd.general
  

-
Proponent: Australian Union of Students <union@powerup.com.au>

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Australian Union of Students
P.O. Box 123                        Email address:
Roma Street                              union@powerup.com.au
BRISBANE  Qld.  4003
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