ITS Policy on NetNews for Yale
1. Intended Use
Yale-originated newsgroups (yale.*) are provided for academic and administrative departments, classes, student groups, Yale-related organizations, and members of the Yale community. The messages posted to any group are not official statements of Yale Information Technology Services or Yale University nor are they in any way reviewed or approved by ITS or Yale University.
A newsgroup is initiated by a requester who posts a summary statement of the newsgroup's purpose when it is created. This summary is periodically posted on yale.news.admin as well as on WWW (http://www.yale.edu/policy).
All newsgroups must be registered with the NewsMaster and otherwise conform to these policies. Newsgroups that do not comply with these policies will be deleted without notice.
2. User behavior and responsibilities
Users have the right to free inquiry and expression consonant with the purposes of the University as described in the University's Policy on Freedom of Expression.
Use of network news is governed by University regulations, the Information Technology Appropriate Use, and local, state, and federal laws. The "Information Technology Appropriate Use Policy" is available in print form at all public clusters and at ITS User Accounts, and online at http://www.yale.edu/policy/itaup.html.
Restrictions apply to protect expression. For example, policy prohibits one user canceling or modifying a posting by another user. Anonymous postings are permissible as long as they conform to the published policies.
3. Readership information
Records of users' subscriptions to groups or access to groups are not kept except briefly as may be required for system maintenance purposes. These records are not publicly available.
Personal lists of users' subscribed newsgroups (e.g. the .newsrc file) are managed by end-users and are governed as any personal files on Yale machines.
4. Requests for new newsgroups
Requests should be sent to newsmaster@yale.edu.
A request for a new newsgroup which through its name or stated purpose will represent a Yale department, class, student group or Yale-related organization must be approved by a responsible official within that department, class, student group or Yale-related organization, e.g., the department chair or director for a department, the class instructor, student group's or organization's president or chair and so on. Such request must be made in writing or equivalent form.
5. The Yale hierarchy and naming
The list of registered newsgroups is posted to yale.news.admin on a periodic basis.
Yale newsgroups will follow the following hierarchy:
| yale.forum.* | general discussion forum |
| yale.misc.* | miscellaneous newsgroups |
| yale.news.* | groups related to NetNews policy |
| yale.org.* | organizations |
| yale.rec.* | newsgroups related to recreational activities |
| yale.soc.* | newsgroups related to social issues |
| yale.test | newsgroup to which to post test messages |
| yale.users.* | for users of a particular products, OS, etc. |
| yale.[department].* | academic and administrative departments, classes, student groups, Yale-related organizations, etc. |
The NewsMaster reserves the right to review the requested newsgroup name and determine the appropriate placement in the hierarchy.
6. Requests for new hierarchies and newsgroups carried by Yale's Internet provider
If a top-level hierarchy (soc, misc, gnu, etc.) exists at another location and is carried by Yale's Internet provider, but is not currently carried at Yale, it will be added if a request is forwarded to the NewsMaster and if:
- the hierarchy pertains to Yale's academic mission or the New Haven area AND
- the hierarchy is available at "no additional cost" to Yale as determined by ITS
If a newsgroup exists at another location and is carried by Yale's Internet provider, but is not currently carried at Yale it will be added if the request if sent to the NewsMaster and the newsgroup appears in the NetNews group list at uu.net.
Exceptions will be made at the NewsMaster's discretion based on academic relevance.
7. Requests for new hierarchies and newsgroups not carried by Yale's Internet provider
If a top-level hierarchy (soc, misc, gnu, etc.) exists at another location but is not offered by our Internet provider and is not currently carried at Yale, an attempt will be made to obtain an alternate feed for the hierarchy if a request is forwarded to the NewsMaster and if:
- the hierarchy pertains to Yale's academic mission or the New Haven area AND
- the hierarchy is available at "no additional cost" to Yale as determined by IT
If a newsgroup exists at another location but is not offered by our Internet provider and is not currently carried at Yale it will be added if the request is sent to the NewsMaster and if:
- the newsgroup falls into a hierarchy the Yale news server currently carries, AND
- the newsgroup appears in the uu.net list of newsgroups, AND
- the newsgroup belongs to a hierarchy other than alt.*
Exceptions will be made at the NewsMaster's discretion based on academic relevance.
8. Missing Articles
If articles that should be in a group are missing, ITS will verify that the NetNews feed from our Internet provider is stable and correct it if it is not. Neither ITS nor our Internet provider can control propagation or feed of news beyond our provider's physical network. ITS will, however, coordinate with Yale's Internet provider to eliminate any problems we can.
9. Newsgroup expiration policy
If there is no traffic on a newsgroup for 60 days during the academic year it will be deleted. A newsgroup can be reestablished at a later date if there is interest.
Exception: for newsgroups intended for academic use (e.g. classes) the expiration date is based on the instructor's request.
10. Article expiration policy
Currently, news.yale.edu expires articles as follows:
| default | 3 days |
| comp.* | 7 days |
| sci.* | 7 days |
| bionet.* | 7 days |
| yale.* | 30 days |
| alt.* | 2 days |
Select newsgroups within these hierarchies have different expiration periods based on academic need.
The NewsMaster will periodically evaluate the resources available to the news server and allocate additional disk capacity as may be possible. If a longer/shorter expiration period is required, an arrangement must be made with the NewsMaster.
11. Exhaustive newsgroup list
The news.yale.edu server will carry all newsgroups registered to be available at Yale. Other University news servers may choose to carry only a subset of the list on the grounds of disk space, communications traffic costs, etc.
12. Conflict resolution
In the event of a dispute concerning NetNews administration, the NewsMaster's decision may be appealed to the Director of Academic Computing Services whose decision is final.
13. Current Policy
This policy is subject to change at any time. Policy changes and a copy of current policy will be posted in yale.news.admin.
14. DISCLAIMER
ITS and Yale University are not responsible for contents of any messages posted to a yale.* or any other newsgroup.
Comments on the above policy may be addressed to newsmaster@yale.edu.
Cerifying authority: newsmaster@yale.edu
URL: http://www.yale.edu/policy/newspolicy.html
