[P1] This group

This group, soc.religion.mormon, will provide a forum for courteous discussion of issues pertaining to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).

[P2] Acceptable topics

Acceptable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • church practices and policies,
  • sharing "how-to" ideas for implementation of church programs,
  • philosophical discussions involving Mormon doctrine,
  • church history (including other restoration religions),
  • Latter-day Saint scriptures,
  • lifestyle issues,
  • Mormon culture.

[P3] Moderation Policy

The newsgroup will employ a combination of automated and human moderation to enforce the charter. All articles will pass through automoderation, including those submitted by moderators.

An automoderator host will screen every submitted article and, based upon the moderation script, take one of three actions:

  • accept the article and post it to the newsgroup.
  • queue the article for review by the moderators.
  • queue the article for rejection by the moderators.

Article Review:

Articles will be reviewed if they are extremely long, consist mostly of quotations from other posts, or contain words that indicate incivility. Certain threads or individual posters may also be marked for review. All articles reviewed by the moderators will be posted to the newsgroup except those that are judged to be inflammatory speech, unwarranted repetition, or violations of the charter. Judgment will be exercised to reduce the number of articles containing flames, trolls, offensive content, and me-too trailers. Two moderators must agree to reject these articles.

Article Rejection:

An article will be queued for rejection by the moderators if the automoderator determines that the article meets any of the criteria listed below. Articles which meet any of these criteria will be considered to be in violation of the charter.

  • Obscene and/or vulgar language
  • Encoded binary files
  • Crossposting to multiple newsgroups
  • Quoted statements that are either attributed to, or unmistakably part of, the LDS temple ceremony.

These violations will be confirmed by one of the human moderators before rejection. These restrictions apply only to articles posted in this newsgroup, soc.religion.mormon.

(Two separate documents, one describing in greater detail the moderation policies and procedures, and the other providing information about LDS worship in temples, will be posted periodically to the newsgroup, and will also be available via FTP and WWW.)

[P4] Selection of Moderators

The moderation panel will consist of four or five moderators. The acting moderators will select, by unanimous consent, replacements or additions to their ranks. In order to foster a spirit of acceptance and cooperation within the newsgroup's participants, at least one moderator will be a member in good standing of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, and at least one moderator will not be a member of the LDS church. If this should prove impossible, a panel of four members will continue to function until a moderator of the needed category can be found. The religious affiliation of the moderators will be public information.

A moderator's term ends upon voluntary resignation or unanimous agreement of the remaining moderators. The reason for a moderator's removal, or the fact of his or her voluntary resignation, will be posted to the newsgroup.

[P5] Two system administrators
Two system administrators, a principal administrator and a backup, will be appointed by the moderation panel by a majority vote of the panel. A moderator cannot act as a system administrator, and vice versa. The role of the system administrator will be to ensure that the moderation host and Automoderator are operating according to the policy set forth by the moderation panel.

END CHARTER.