rec.arts.comics.reviews (RACR) is a newsgroup for posting reviews of
comic books and comic-related materials, including conventions and
software.  It can also be used for "comic journalism" and other such
topics that would be of interest in the same way as reviews of individual
books.  RACR is a robo-moderated forum, controlled by a moderation 'bot
that automatically approves messages from a set whitelist of posters.

HOW TO POST
===========

(This section assumes that you already know how to post to Usenet
newsgroups in general.)

As RACR is a robomoderated forum, all messages must pass through the
moderation bot before they hit the network.  Users are generally
"whitelisted" for the group - ie, individual users are given the right to
post by the moderator.  

If you would like to post regular reviews or columns to RACR, please
contact Tim Skirvin (tskir...@killfile.org).

The robot moderator's posting criteria are simple: followups must be set
to an appropriate newsgroup, and a subject tag must be set accordingly.  
Methods of determination:

   o The message can be crossposted to *at most* five groups, and all
     groups must be on the following list:

        rec.arts.comics.*
        rec.toys.transformers.moderated

     If you would like to crosspost to another group, please contact the
     moderator.

   o Followups (with the 'Followup-To' header) must be set to *at most*
     one newsgroup.  If followups are not set, then the 'bot will default
     to rec.arts.comics.misc.

   o The poster must be pre-approved by the moderator.

ORIGINAL CHARTER
================

The following charter was set down in 1997, when the group was created.
It is not any longer fully accurate, but is presented here for historical
reasons.

  The purpose of this newsgroup is to review items, materials, and events
  normally addressed and discussed within the rec.arts.comics.* hierarchy.
  Examples include, but are not limited to:

   - Comic books, strips, political cartoons, and their compilations
   - Movie/TV/prose adaptations of comic-book characters and stories
   - Biographies or histories of characters, pros, and the industry
   - rec.arts.comics.creative "issues" or "titles"
   - Industry-related publications and magazines
   - Subscription companies and services
   - Archival/collecting materials
   - Cataloguing software
   - Comics conventions

  The following policies will apply:

  - Advertisements, large binaries, SPAM, general announcements,
    and discussion/followup posts are not permitted in this group.
    They will be rejected.  If a post begins with "Re: " then it is
    treated as a followup and will be returned.

  - Posts to the group should begin with a Subject keyword such
    as REVIEW:, PREVIEW:, or COLUMN:, which will be chosen by the
    moderator.  The moderator may add additional keywords as they
    become necessary.  The moderator may add an appropriate keyword
    to the subject line if none is provided.

  - Posts to the group may be crossposted to other discussion groups
    or to other appropriate *.reviews groups.  Followups should be set
    to three or fewer appropriate discussion groups.

  - Hierarchy-wide pre-approved FAQ posts, such as the rec.arts.comics
    general FAQ, will be posted if approved by the .info group.  Other
    FAQ posts (such as the charter of the group, or a guide to review
    style) will be approved at moderator's discretion.

The full history of the group is available at:

ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.arts.com...

CURRENT MODERATION INFORMATION
==============================

RACR is run by 'The Phantom ModBot', a Verimod moderation bot written by
Tim Skirvin back in 2005 and operated on killfile.org.

All posts that go through the moderation 'bot are signed with pgpmoose.
If a post does not have a cryptographically sound X-Auth header, then the
post was not approved by The Phantom ModBot, and will be shortly cancelled by
another bot.

Tim Skirvin took over moderation duties for RACR from Peter Juul in
November 2005.  Current contact information:

  Moderator:                    tskir...@killfile.org (Tim Skirvin)
  Contact Address:              racr+cont...@killfile.org
  Article Submission Address:   racr+sub...@killfile.org

Archives are available through groups.google.com.  Tim has also written a
public web interface to the group, available at: