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Archive-Name: vietnam/info-and-guidelines
Last-modified: 2001/03/15 Posting-Frequency: monthly (1st) See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge This announcement supersedes any previous ones. General Information, Posting Guidelines and Charter Welcome. If you're reading this, it's fair to guess that you have some interest in the Vietnam / Indochina Wars and their aftermath. This document has been prepared to give you some idea of what soc.history.war.vietnam is all about, how to post to the newsgroup, and what resources are currently available. For more information and links to all the resources listed here, please visit one of our websites. Enjoy! The SHWV Moderating Team Table of Contents 1. What Is soc.history.war.vietnam and How It Came to Be. 2. SHWV Resources. 2a. Newsgroup FAQs. 2b. SHWV Newsgroup Archives 2c. Vietnam War Internet Project Website 2c1. Image Library 2c2. Article Resources 2c3. Memoirs and Personal Narratives 2c4. Document Resources 2c5. Resource / Topical Index 2c6. Oral History Project 3. Administrative Information 4. Posting Guidelines. 5. The Charter Section 1. What Is soc.history.war.vietnam and How It Came to Be In the middle of 1994, after lengthy discussion and debate within the newsgroup alt.war.vietnam, it was decided to form a new newsgroup dedicated to the discussion of the Vietnam War. Alt.war.vietnam, being an unmoderated newsgroup was subject to considerable chaos caused by innumerable flame wars, shouting and slinging matches and outright mayhem, with the result that those who were coming to the Usenet for some healing and understanding of the events as well as those who where interested in the study of wars in Indochina were getting disgusted, or worse, hurt by what was occurring. The first thought had been to moderate the existing newsgroup, alt.war.vietnam, but that was met almost universally with a negative response. The second idea was to create a new newsgroup, and in the process put it on the mainstream hierarchy. So began the process by which this newsgroup came into being in the first half of 1995. Soc.History.War.Vietnam (SHWV) was created to provide an open forum for the objective discussion of the Vietnam and Indochinese wars, their causes, aftermath, and effect on the people and societies which took part in them. The use of a moderator was intended to provide an environment that is conducive to this discussion, and open to all categories of potential readers/ contributors without regard to ideological or political positions. All this is laid out in the Charter of the newsgroup. Section 2. SHWV Resources 2a. Newsgroup FAQs Part of the charter has also been the call for the creation of Frequently Asked Questions FAQ papers to answer the more commonly asked questions which continually crop up within the newsgroup about aspects of the Vietnam War. These FAQs are posted to both soc.history.war.vietnam and news.answers monthly. Current FAQs cover topics such as: Vietnam Related Internet Resources; the SHWV Recommended Reading List; the Tonkin Gulf Incident; Use of Armoured Vehicles in the Vietnam War; USAF gunships; and aspects of the Australian involvement in Vietnam. The process of developing FAQs is ongoing. Others on people, places and events of the various Indochina Wars are being worked on, and will be posted as available. The moderators of the newsgroup, in accordance with the Charter, have the sole responsibility for the development and content of any newsgroup FAQs. Any person who believes that they have specialized in-depth knowledge of a topic that wishes to submit a FAQ for review is encouraged to do so by sending it to vietnam-request@home.net. FAQs will be posted for comment on the newsgroup for a period of at least one month. More time maybe allocated at the discretion of the moderators. During this period, the designation [RFD] will precede the subject in the header. FAQs will be submitted to news.answers and soc.answers upon completion of this process. All FAQs are available at the Vietnam War Internet Project website at: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/faqs-top.html In addition, FAQs are also available by anonymous ftp at: rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/soc.history.war.vietnam 2b. SHWV Newsgroup Archives All articles posted to soc.history.war.vietnam are regularly archived in log files. However, to save storage space, monthly FAQs postings will only be archived when a change occurs. These are available at the SHWV Website at: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/shwv/arch-top.html 2c. Vietnam War Internet Project Website The SHWV archives are part of, and affiliated with, the Vietnam War Internet Project (VWIP). Articles and bibliographies that have been posted to SHWV and other related material are maintained at the VWIP website at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidental Library located at the University of Texas in Austin at: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/vwiphome.html This website offers many features that are not available directly through the newsgroup. These include: 1. The Image Library The Vietnam War Internet Project website contains a substantial image library, including most of those previous housed at the Byrd Archives, and a large collection of armor photos. The Image Library may be accessed from the homepage, or directly at: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/imagetop.html Individuals with images that they would like to see appropriately posted on the web are urged to post such images to the newsgroup (in uuencoded form) if they are small, or to send them directly to the newsgroup's information address (vietnam-request@home.net) for placement on the website. Please include as full a description of the image, including date and location, as is possible. 2. Articles Resource Pages A number of articles have been posted to SHWV. To ensure easy accessibility of these pieces, they are archived not only within the logfiles but separately on the websites. Articles of all types and from all aspects of the debate on the Indochina Wars are welcome. If you have an article that you wish to add, please submit it for posting on the newsgroup. SHWV articles, as well as others not posted to the newsgroup, are available at the VWIP through the homepage or directly at: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/art-top.html 3. Memoirs and Personal Narrative Pages Over time, the archives of the newsgroup have become a valuable reference resource in terms of the discussion about the contested nature of the issues surrounding the war and in the oral history included in the articles labeled "PER NAR". They are included in the logfile archives of the newsgroup. They are also available as part of the Memoirs and Personal Narrative section of the VWIP website. so that they may be more readily accessible as a resource. This section may be accessed from the VWIP homepage, or directly at: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/articles/pnar-top.html 4. Document Resources A long term project by the Vietnam War Internet Project, documents relating to the Indochina Wars are being placed on the web. New documents will be added frequently. This section may be accessed from the VWIP homepage, or directly at: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/doc-top.html 5. Resource / Topical Index The Vietnam War Internet Project offers topical indexes both by subject and by author. As part of an ongoing project, topics will have a short descriptive entry, validated and recommended web sites, bibliographical information and lists of related topics. As part of this project, SHWV moderator Ted Gittinger is working on a full topical index of the soc.history.war.vietnam newsgroup which will be a stand-alone entity as well as being integrated into the VWIP index. The VWIP Resource index may be accessed directly at: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/topictop.html 6. Oral History Project The Vietnam War Internet Project is also engaged in an ongoing project to bring to the web existing oral history collections, such as the one at the LBJ Library, and will be collecting its own series of interviews with "street level" folks - regular soldiers, sailors, anti-war activists, etc. Section 3. Administrative Information The moderated newsgroup soc.history.war.vietnam is dedicated to the discussion of the Vietnam / Indochina wars, their antecedents and their aftermath. All points of view and disciplines are welcome. It is our hope to create a "flame-free" environment in which discourse is possible, and perhaps even some healing and understanding. The current moderators for soc.history.war.vietnam are: Joe Carwithen: Appeals Referee Alan Dawson: Media Advisor Ted Gittinger: Newsgroup Indexer Edwin E. Moise: History/Faq Advisor Brian Ross: Moderator Emeritus John Tegtmeier: Webmaster, FAQ Coordinator Frank Vaughan: Active Moderator Requests for information concerning the newsgroup should be addressed at to the contact address, not to the individual moderators, at vietnam-request@home.net Please feel free to contact us with any question or suggestion. We hope that you all will enjoy and profit from the newsgroup. Section 4. Posting Guidelines. The criteria for postings are contained in the Charter. To assist those who wish to post articles to the newsgroup, the posting guidelines below were developed. The expressed goal of the newsgroup - to develop a flame-free environment for discussion of all aspects of the Indochina War - is the overarching principle in all posting guidelines. The submission of an article to this newsgroup implicitly gives permission for that article to be archived for distribution, and for quotation of that article within this newsgroup for the purpose of discussion. All other rights are assumed to remain with the contributor under the Berne convention. Postings are to be done in plain ASCII test. Postings using other character sets that result in non-standard characters appearing may, at the discretion of the moderator, be returned to the poster with instructions to resubmit using ASCII text. The moderator may manually change the nonstandard characters into Ascii, at his or her discretion. Please remember that this is a moderated newsgroup. We are not on-line all day long (this is all volunteer work) so there may be some delay from the time you post to the time your article appears on the newsgroup. We will try to get articles up as soon as is possible, normally within a 24 hour time frame. We will attempt to make an administrative posting whenever an outage of more than 48 hours is anticipated. 1. Topics. The charter requires that postings deal with the Indochina Wars, their antecedents and their aftermath. This is to include political philosophy and social factors. This also means the mind set of all the participants at the time, and in the present to the extent that this reflects on the aftermath of the wars. It was made clear from the outset that this was a multi-discipline newsgroup, not just history. It is set up as such in the charter. Posters should restrict their comments to the above. Posts containing ANY material not included within the scope of the newsgroup, or legitimate rebuttal to material already posted, will be returned or the off-topic material will be redacted. A word about current event postings - these articles need to conform to the topic guideline. That is, the submission must directly link to the Indochina Wars and their aftermath. Such topics might include: POW/MIAs, refugee issues, drug trade, prostitution, environment issues arising from herbicides, old ordinance, etc. This does not include the current policies of the Hanoi government, economic trade (except as it is tied to a war related issue) or similiar topics. Such article are more properly included in bit.listserv.seasia-l or one of the soc.culture.x groups. The decision as to an article being admissible resides with the moderators, who were named as part of the voting process for the newsgroup, and their successors, as provided in the charter. Further comments on the propriety of material shall be deemed as flames, and rejected. Discussion of, or complaints with, the moderating process should be directed to the newsgroup news.groups, and is not appropriate within the newsgroup 2. Personal Attacks. Articles must be free of personal attacks on individuals in the readership on the newsgroup. Since the exact readership of soc.history.war.vietnam is unknown at any given time, this requirement may be extended, at the discretion of the moderators, to include any personal attack. The determination for this will be context sensitive. The public acts of public figures are, of course, open to critique, but only these public acts. The same is true of organizations which similarly are also open to a higher level of critique. Posters should restrict their comments to the material and the discourse surrounding the material. ANY COMMENTS OF A PERSONAL NATURE REGARDING ANOTHER POSTERS INTENTIONS, MOTIVES, BELIEFS, ETC. SHALL BE DEEMED A PERSONAL ATTACK, AND REJECTED. The moderating team reserves the right to examine the body of a poster's submission in order to determine if an implicit pattern of harassment exists, and to use this determination as part of the criteria in evaluating submissions. Characterizations of another individual's beliefs or views as "ridiculous", "stupid", "lies" or any similar label may be deemed, depending upon the context, not as a critique of the material but as personal attack, and therefore rejected. Posters will restrict themselves to a rebuttal of the material and issues raised in an article without including derogatory or condescending insults. The moderators may, at their discretion, remove a line or sentence of text containing a personal attack if, in the judgement of the moderator, that line would result in the posting being returned to the author, and that there is sufficient value and timeliness in the posting that such a delay might render the posting moot. Any poster may request that this not be done, in which case any posting outside of the guidelines will be returned for editing and resubmission. 3. The Goal of the Newsgroup The goal of this newsgroup, as outlined at the time of the voting for its creation, was to promote a flame-free environment for discourse and to provide a forum in which various sides of the debate, coming from differing backgrounds, could exchange ideas. Posters are asked to bear this in mind. Posts seeking to restrict this open availability to all sides of the debate shall be considered flames, and will be rejected. 4. Commercial No articles of a commercial nature will be posted. This includes announcements of Indochina conflict-related materials that are being put up for bid on auction sites. An exception to the above can be made at the discretion of the moderators for not-for-profit groups which making announcements which offer important benefits. Announcements of forthcoming or recent publications in the field will also be allowed on a informational basis. Any articles containing advertising of any services for fee must conform to the above to be eligible for posting. 5. Copyright Please be aware of the copyright laws as they pertain to your submissions. They are a lot stricter than you may think. Under the Berne convention, just about everything is presumed to be protected, even if not expressly stated. The rule of thumb is simply that unless the person has expressly put the material in the public domain, it should be treated as protected. As stated above, articles posted to soc.history.war.vietnam may be quoted for the purpose of discussion on this newsgroup. If you need more complete information, please look at the copyright myth FAQ on the news.answers newsgroup. Quotations from published sources for the purposes of discussion or illumination are acceptable, as long as those quotations fall within the fair use provisions of the copyright laws. In practical terms, this means that newspaper articles, wire service stories and excerpts from books cannot be posted, unless they are less than 100 words in length and germaine to an ongoing discussion. Posting the first 100 words of a newspaper article, and a link to the article is not acceptable for posting. 6. Net etiquette Posters are asked to voluntarily adhere to common practice in regard to net etiquette and the posting of articles. Quotes from prior posts should not be more than 50% of a posting, and those sections quoted should have a direct bearing on the commentary in the new article. Signature files should be restricted to 4 lines. The expansion of the number of Usenet newsgroups, as well as the number of sites getting news feeds, have increased dramatically, taxing the net's ability to carry the load. Quoting a forty line article to say "I agree" is selfish. Please use the editing features of your newsreaders and stick to the essentials. The moderators reserve the right to edit excessive quotation from submitted articles. 7. Personal Narratives It has been our policy for quite some time to treat personal narratives - articles marked "PER NAR" in the subject header - as oral history. Respondents may ask appropriate questions, but the content of the articles is considered privileged, and may not be attacked. This holds true not only for vets, but for those who were active in the anti-war movement. The rationale behind this is simple - it is more beneficial to the newsgroup to have oral history posted than it is for potential posters to refrain for fear of confrontation and critique of their actions years ago. This will include public figures. 8. Cross-posting Articles. Request to cross-post articles will not be honored. Posters who are replying to articles posted on other newsgroups must include the entire original article within their to soc.history.war.vietnam posting. This is to insure that articles are not taken out of context, and that the author of the original article has an opportunity to respond. 9. Relay posting In the event a relay posting (one author, a different poster) the moderators may, at their discretion, add a suitable advisory at the beginning of the posting, clarifying that the SHWV moderating team cannot vouch for the accuracy or authenticity of the material in question. The moderators may use, but are not required to use, the following advisory: [Moderator disclaimer: the posting below is authored by one party and posted by another. As a matter of policy, the SHWV moderating team does not make any judgement on the authenticity of the material, nor on its original authorship.] 10. Quoted material It is the policy of the newsgroup that quoted material must be presented verbatim, although it should be trimmed to a manageable length. If quoted material is changed in a manner that, in the judgement of the moderators, changes the original author's meaning or intent then the moderators may either restore the original quoted material, and post a notice that they have done so, or return the posting to the author with instructions to restore the quote and resubmit. The moderators may also trim excessive quotation of old material, or, at their discretion, return it to the poster in accordance with netiquette and accepted practice on the usenet. In the event moderators trim excessively quoted material, they may, but are not required to, add an advisory to the message similar to: [Excessively quoted material trimmed by the moderator.] The moderator's will honor any poster's request to have articles returned rather than trimmed. 11. Typographical Errors 1. Spelling: The moderators may, at their discretion, correct obvious spelling errors in postings. 2. Capitalization: The moderators may, at their discretion, correct obvious capitalization errors. The moderators may, at their discretion, return postings for correction by their original author that do not use reasonably standard capitalization. The moderators are the sole judge of "reasonably standard capitalization." 12. Format For Posting This newsgroup, and its moderating process, are conducted in English. Articles in other languages related to the newsgroup, such as Vietnamese, Lao, French, etc., will be accepted for posting only if accompanied by a full English translation. All articles should be submitted in plain US ASCII text. Postings in HTML will be returned to the author. No binary files will be posted. Binaries may be submitted, but they will be placed on the Vietnam War Internet Project website. The article posting to the newsgroup will only refer to the url of the binary file (image, audio, etc). In no case are executable files acceptable. 13. Appeal Process There is an appeal process if you believe that your article was unfairly rejection. Please refer to the Charter for full information. Essentially, all that is required to appeal is to send an e-mail reply of the rejection notice to all moderators by replying to the newsgroup's contact address, Carwithenj@aol.com, with the word APPEAL in the Subject: line. Posters appealing moderating decisions should outline the reasons why they believe the submission should be posted. All appeals will be run by the Appeals Referee, who was not part of the initial decision to reject the article. Section 5. The Charter CHARTER 1. Aim & Purpose of Soc.History.War.Vietnam This newsgroup will provide an open forum for the objective discussion of the Vietnam and Indochinese wars, their causes, aftermath, and effect on the people and societies which took part in them. The use of a moderator is intended to provide an environment that is conducive to this discussion, and open to all categories of potential readers/ contributors - academics, veterans, members of the anti-war movement, students, and anyone else with an interest - without regard to ideological or political positions. The wars in Vietnam and Indochina in the middle of the twentieth century not only bred armed conflict between combatants, but also divisiveness and social conflict within the societies of some of the participicants in the conflicts. In the United States, some believe that the war has transcended its historical moment to become a culture icon for the turbulence of the sixties. At any rate, there still exists a great desparity in the understandings of the social, political and historic circumstances of the war, and its continued influence on various societies. Soc.history.war.vietnam will seek to promote a discourse which will allow these positions to be explored. Perhaps, in this way, the newsgroup may be instrumental in achieving a better understanding of the events, and may even assist in the process of healing. 2. The Function of the Moderators This newsgroup shall have an active moderator, and at least two co-moderators. It shall be the responsibility of the active moderator to screen postings to the newsgroup, and elimante those which are: a. flames, insults and attacks directed at a person rather than a position; b. flames that use derogatory labels to depict whole categories of people, such as veterans or members of the anti-war movement, etc.; c. articles that have no connection to the Vietnam or Indochina wars, their causes, effects or aftermath; and d. any message of a commercial nature. The active moderator may not screen postings for merit of argument, nor for their political or ideological content. All articles that are rejected will be sent back to the contributor with a short message explaning the reason for rejection. Such rejections may be appealed as outlined below. The co-moderators serve in a back-up capacity, so as to insure continuity during either a temporary or permanent change in the status of the active moderator. In addition, the co-moderators will have the responsibility, along with the active moderator, for voting on appeals of rejected posts, the appointment of new moderators, and the possible removal of a current moderator as outlined below. 3. Appeal of Rejection of Posts If a contributor whose post has been rejected wishes to appeal this action, the current active moderator will forward this request and the post in question to all co-moderators for a vote. If the majority of all moderators votes to overrule the rejection, the article will be sent to the newsgroup. If the post is rejected, the person appealling the rejection will be sent a summary of the votes by the moderators. 4. Appointment of New Moderators New co-moderators will be appointed as necessary through the nomination of an individual by the other moderators. The appointment will require a unanimous vote of the current moderators to pass. The new co-moderator's name will then be submitted to the newsgroup for a five day discussion period. During these five days, any of the current moderators may change their vote in response to this discussion. At the end of the five days, if all the moderators are still in agreement, the nominee becomes a co-moderator. 5. Removal of a Moderator A moderator may be removed for the following causes: a. failure to perform the outlined duties of the position, b. a pattern of biased or discriminatory rejections of postings. Such removals will be made by the formal vote of all current moderators. A 2/3rds vote in favor of such action will be required for removal. The reasons for, and results of, all such votes will be posted to the newsgroup. 6. FAQ The moderators, as a group, will be responsible for the development and posting of a frequently asked question (FAQ) file for this newsgroup. 7. Posting of Charter and Moderators List This charter will be reposted, along with the list of current moderators to the newsgroup every month. ~~~~~ [Moderator Note: All SHWV messages, FAQs And related files are archived at http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/vwiphome.html. The posting of an article by the moderators of SHWV only indicates the article is within the Charter and does not imply agreement with, nor the correctness of, the article.] User Contributions:
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soc.history.war.vietnam FAQ: Admin Info and Posting Guidelines
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soc.history.war.vietnam FAQ: Admin Info and Posting Guidelines
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