BigDob Posting Policy

In general all postings must be civil, off-topic postings must be rare and preferrably humorous.

For those who need more detail:

Moderation Policy for existing members

This group is retro moderated. That means that the moderators reserve the right to decide that a posting was innappropriate after the fact.

What's an inappropriate posting?
In general, you can write about telescopes and observing until your fingertips calcify (although it's prefered that the scopes talked about be big dobsonians). You can disagree with other postings even to the extent of heated arguments -- as long as posts are talking about telescopes. However, as soon as the argument moves from impuning designs to impuning people, it is off topic.

If you want say that some person has misrepresented facts, is not honest, is a liar, has done the wrong thing, has questionable mental processes, ethics or ancestry: take it to private email. I'm told phone calls, poision-pen letters and body language in dark alleys may also be an effective means of of self expression (if legal in your country). But choose someplace other than BigDob to say it.

If you post off topic, moderators may set you to "moderated". That means we will read each of your posts before allowing them to appear on BigDob. We also reserve the right to send you annoying emails picking at your wording. To get moderation removed, simply make an on-topic post.

People who require too much moderation will be banned. However, there is a quicker way.

BigDob's handy-dandy instant banning service

To be conveniently and instantly banned from the group, do any one of these:
  1. Link a porno group. Sorry BigDob is not about that kind of heavenly body.
  2. Make a post whose only purpose is to link a non-astronomy advertising site.
  3. Threaten anyone. There's just no civil way to do that.
As a free bonus, we extend this service to emails sent directly to moderators. Also, Moderators reserve the right to not warn people before they are banned.

Moderation Policy for new members

To make sure you're not an advertising bot in disguise, we will moderate new members. To become de-moderated, simply make an on-topic post.

We may de-moderate some new members even before their first posting: those that are clearly not advertising bots. Some good ways to avoid looking like an advertsing bot are:

If we think you're a bot harvesting emails, we'll wait until your first post to judge you.