Add a brief explanation of the need to chmod 0771 ~userid, and
~userid/public_html in httpd.conf.  The existing text is Apache 
generic and does not reflect the Red hat approach to home directory
security ...

Position it just above:

UserDir public_html 

-------proposed text------
#
#     The path to the end user account 'public_html' directory must 
#     accessible to the webserver userid.  This usually means that 
#     ~userid must have permissions of 711 and ~userid/public_html 
#     must have permissions of 755 
#
#     To the client browser, an error such as:
#        Forbidden
#  You don't have permission to access /~username on this server
#
#     And /var/log/htpd/access_log will have a '403' return 
#     respecting the path in question:
#
#     10.0.0.2 - - [01/Feb/2001:22:00:06 -0500] \
#           "GET /~userid  HTTP/1.0" 403 206 
#                                   ^^^^^ -- note the '403'
#     Thiis is NOT an execution error, so far as the web SERVER 
#     is concerned -- just a proper return of a 403 code in the
#     ACCESS_log.
#

----------------text ends---------------------