The hamster.*-hierarchy was created to provide a forum for users of
Hamster, a proxy server for news and mail.

As this is the main thing all users of hamster.* have in common, there
are only a few general rules in this hierarchy:

hamster.* will be divided into second level hierarchies according to
languages spoken.
For discussions in a certain language an own second level hierarchy
has to be created (if it does not already exist). As long as there is no
separate language subhierarchy for a specific language, hamster.general
should be used with the aid of a language-tag"

Every time, such a second level hierarchy is created a special set of
rules SHOULD be made, respecting the individual common use of the
audience there, including

 * a group to discuss the founding of new and the removal of old
   groups in that subhierarchy (like hamster.admin for hamster.*)

 * rules for the creation and removal process

 * a person or group of persons in charge of the subhierarchy that
   will report the result of those discussions to the hierarchy
   maintainer who will then sent out the control-messages


Everything affecting whole second level hierarchies MUST be discussed
in hamster.admin.

Rules of all language-hierarchies have to accept these common rules:

1.) Postings to hamster.ALL by anon-remailers are not allowed.

2.) The poster himself has to use his own existing e-Mail address(es)
    (i.e. in from, and, if used, in reply-to header)

3.) X-posts are tolerated only if Followup-To is set to one single group.
    X-posts to more than 5 groups are disallowed.

    X-Posts between hamster.test and discussion groups are only
    allowed, if Follow-up to exactly one discussion group is set.

4.) X-posts between hamster hierarchies without Follow-UP and|or to more
    than 5 groups are allowed for hamster relevant announces ([announce]
    as subject-tag, language: english) and only between hamster hierarchies.

    Discussions to this announcement should be done

    in hamster.admin (if this is important for hamster.ALL
                        Followup-To must be set.)

    in special language groups (the first answer has to manage this.
    The requested language of the language hierarchy must be used in
    the reply)

        <example>
        --------
        subject: [announce] ver. 1.5.x of ...

        body:
          note: X-post to different language hierarchies.
                english readers are asked to keep answers in h.en.misc
                lecteurs francais répondrez en h.fr.divers
                Antworten in deutscher Sprache bitte nur nach h.de.misc
        -------

5.) Articles have to be delivered in plain-text.

    For hamster global discussion groups 7bits us-ascii is required.
    Charset which contain US-ascii are allowed.

    Attachments (including VCards) are strictly forbidden

6.) Multi-posting is strictly forbidden.
    For hamster.All multi-posting is defined as posting
    nearly the same body of article, at the same time
    separately in several groups.

    As usenet is not a real-time medium, 'the same time' means
    within 7 days.

7.) Violations against Art. 1 to 6 can be cancelled by everybody.

    Third-Party-cancels must be announced in hamster.cancelreport
    according to the charter given there.
    The poster of the cancelled article has to be informed
    (if possible) by e-Mail.


8.) Test postings SHOULD only be posted to hamster.test, the creation
    of second-level test groups is not allowed, because one test group
    should be enough for everybody. ;-)


9.) Requirement of Fullname, special charsets etc. can be declared in
    the rules of second level hierarchies (i.e. language hierarchies)

    Second-level hierarchies shall provide clear rules that state under
    which conditions 3rd-party-cancels by participants are allowed, and
    there shall be explicit rules regarding the use of cancelbots.

10.)Changes to these rules can only be done by voting with a majority
    of 66% of valid votes.
    The voting has to be organized by the moderators
    of the language hierarchies and the hierarchy maintainer.