A week ago we moderators published the proposed change in
moderation policy attached below, requesting comments from
readers of this newsgroup.

We received many comments in support of the proposed change, and
only one disagreement. The person who disagreed raised two points:

1. He said he preferred to read articles about how to program with
STL in this newsgroup instead of in others. Such articles
nevertheless violate the charter of the newsgroup, as explained in
the proposed change.

2. He also said, "discussion of future language features most often
stems from the discussion of common problems with the use of current
language features (especially new or complex ones like the STL)."
That's a good point, but we don't think the tightening of policy
necessarily dampens such discussion.  For example, you can ask why
a feature is the way it is, or suggest improvements, or ask whether
a feature is part of the standard.

Someone else raised a question about the treatment of cross-
posted articles that are not suitable for this newsgroup.

The moderators of comp.std.c++ and comp.lang.c++.moderated
previously discussed the issue in some detail. One possibility
is simply to remove comp.std.c++ from the list of newsgroups
and forward the article to the remaining groups. But that would
be exactly the wrong thing to do if the sender particularly
wanted the article to appear in comp.std.c++ and would have
been willing to modify it to fit the newsgroup charter. Instead
of trying to guess the sender's intentions, the uniform policy
on all inappropriate articles is to return them to the sender
with an explanation. (In the cases where the sender does not
provide a valid email address, the article is simply discarded,
as explained in the FAQ.)

Accordingly, we'll begin rejecting new articles that are merely
about how to write programs using STL. Existing threads of
discussion will be allowed to die out.

 comp.std.c++ moderators:
 - Matt Austern <austern@mti.sgi.com>
 - Steve Clamage <stephen.clamage@sun.com>
 - Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>

>  - Proposed change in moderation policy -
>
> According to its charter, comp.std.c++ is for discussion of
> standard-related topics and is not supposed to have discussions
> about how to program in C++.  Nevertheless, we moderators since
> the beginning of the newsgroup have allowed wide discussion of
> "new" features, because there was originally no good place to
> find out about namespaces, STL, details of type bool, and so on.
>
> We now find that all, or nearly all, C++ implementations provide
> the STL part of the standard library in nearly standard form, and
> information about it is widely available in magazine articles and
> textbooks.
>
> Accordingly, we are proposing to stop approving for posting articles
> along the lines of "How do I use this STL feature?"  Such questions
> could still be posted in comp.lang.c++, comp.lang.c++.moderated,
> or in other C++ newsgroups.
>
> When you post an article to multiple newsgroups including
> comp.std.c++, or when you reply to such an article, the article
> would be rejected and returned to you if it was not appropriate for
> comp.std.c++. (There is seldom a good reason for cross-posting
> articles in any event.)
>
> As always, questions about whether code or implementations are in
> compliance with the standard are appropriate.  Articles about
> programming methods and coding style are not.  Please refer to the
> newsgroup FAQ for more details.
>
> We'd like feedback from the comp.std.c++ users regarding this
> proposed change. Please address your comments to
>  std-c++-request@ncar.ucar.edu
>



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 - Proposed change in moderation policy -

According to its charter, comp.std.c++ is for discussion of
standard-related topics and is not supposed to have discussions
about how to program in C++.  Nevertheless, we moderators since
the beginning of the newsgroup have allowed wide discussion of
"new" features, because there was originally no good place to
find out about namespaces, STL, details of type bool, and so on.

We now find that all, or nearly all, C++ implementations provide
the STL part of the standard library in nearly standard form, and
information about it is widely available in magazine articles and
textbooks.

Accordingly, we are proposing to stop approving for posting articles
along the lines of "How do I use this STL feature?"  Such questions
could still be posted in comp.lang.c++, comp.lang.c++.moderated,
or in other C++ newsgroups.

When you post an article to multiple newsgroups including
comp.std.c++, or when you reply to such an article, the article
would be rejected and returned to you if it was not appropriate for
comp.std.c++. (There is seldom a good reason for cross-posting
articles in any event.)

As always, questions about whether code or implementations are in
compliance with the standard are appropriate.  Articles about
programming methods and coding style are not.  Please refer to the
newsgroup FAQ for more details.

We'd like feedback from the comp.std.c++ users regarding this
proposed change. Please address your comments to
 std-c++-request@ncar.ucar.edu

comp.std.c++ moderators:
- Matt Austern <austern@mti.sgi.com>
- Steve Clamage <stephen.clamage@sun.com>
- Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>


[ comp.std.c++ is moderated.  To submit articles, try just posting with ]
[ your news-reader.  If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu    ]
[              --- Please see the FAQ before posting. ---               ]
[ FAQ: http://reality.sgi.com/austern_mti/std-c++/faq.html              ]