Charter: Soc.Sexuality.Spanking
1. Purpose of the Group
Soc.Sexuality.Spanking (SSS) is a moderated forum for adults to discuss spanking in an erotic context, whether as fantasy or consensual real-life experience. Suitable topics for discussion may include: original fiction and fantasies, anecdotes, childhood memories, real-life consensual spanking between adults, questions, advice, party announcements and other scene information. Anonymous posts are welcome, provided they meet the other criteria in this charter.
2. Moderation of the Group
Moderation of SSS is performed by a software 'robot', backed up by a team of five human moderators.
2.1 The Scope of Moderation
Although SSS is technically a moderated group, moderation of the group is restricted to the following scope:
In all other respects, SSS is intended to function as an unmoderated group. The moderators will not accept any responsibility for the content of posts to the newsgroup, and are not obligated or empowered to use the robot software or their positions as moderators to regulate off-topic discussions, trolls, flame-wars, outing posts, or other issues related to the content of posts to the newsgroup.
However, moderators may act to provide information concerning Usenet, moderation policies, the Charter, and the newsgroup.
Moderation relates only to spam, binaries, cross-posts, commercial ads, MMFs, and technical issues affecting the wider Usenet community. Any future changes to the charter must be consistent with this scope of moderation.
2.2 Moderation Policy
The moderators of SSS may make use of any accepted Usenet technique to prevent those posts that are defined as disallowed by the current moderation policy from reaching the group.
Spam: Persons posting cancelable spam on Soc.Sexuality.Spanking may have all subsequent posts rejected, regardless of content.
The established definition for cancelable spam is substantially identical posts with a Breidbart Index of twenty or more in a sliding forty-five day period. The Breidbart Index (BI) is defined as the sum of the square roots of n (n is the number of newsgroups each copy was posted to).
Crossposting Limit: All posts cross-posted to more than three newsgroups (including SSS) are disallowed. RFDs (Requests For Discussion) and CFVs (Calls For Votes) issued as part of the formal Usenet group-creation process are excepted.
Binaries: Posts containing binaries are disallowed, except those considered acceptable in the current Usenet definition. (For example, PGP and similar signatures are not considered binaries for the purpose of this criterion.)
MMFs: MMFs are disallowed.
Commercial Advertisements: Commercial advertisements are not allowed on Soc.Sexuality.Spanking, except as follows:
Vendors of primarily spanking-related products or services are welcome to post advertisements to the newsgroup no more than once every two weeks. Such posts must be tagged with the string 'AD:' at the beginning of the Subject line and be posted from a returnable e-mail address.
Vendors who violate the commercial ad policy after the first warning, by posting off-topic or incorrectly tagged ads, or by exceeding the one-ad-per-two-weeks rule, or by posting from an unreturnable e-mail address, may have all subsequent posts rejected, regardless of content.
Technical Issues: (Cross-posting) Crossposts involving other moderated newsgroups will be handled as per standard Usenet protocol for moderated groups.
2.3 How To Change the Moderation Policy
If an issue arises that is not covered by the charter (or on which the charter isn't clear), and which lies within the scope of moderation defined in 2.1, the moderators may propose a solution to the group for ratification.
Ratification Procedure:
Each proposed change must be approved by all or all but one of the moderators as being within the allowable scope of moderation (section 2.1), and viable both technically and in terms of effort required to implement.
The moderators will post a prominent announcement of the intended change, including the proposed language, a description of the scope of the change, and illustrative examples of the effects.
This announcement will be posted twice a week for two weeks, inviting reasonable discussion from all interested. At the end of two weeks a Call For Votes (CFV) will be issued.
The votes of the moderators in response to a CFV have no special weight or significance.
This ratification procedure cannot be used to modify or increase the scope of moderation defined in 2.1, or to make any changes to the charter outside of that scope, except that...
This ratification procedure can be used to modify itself, so long as any such modification does not increase the procedure's scope.
End Charter
