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uk.gay-lesbian-bi is intended as a safe space for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, their friends and those interested in matters of sexuality. All posters are requested to respect this.

The newsgroup is moderated and operates under the moderation guidelines listed in the moderation policy statement contained within this charter.

Announcements of relevant events are allowed. Long announcements belong in uk.announce.

Personal advertisements must not be posted to uk.gay-lesbian-bi; use uk.adverts.personals.gay-lesbian-bi or one of the many other personal groups instead.

Commercial advertising is forbidden.

Pointers to commercial sites fall under the rule about commercial advertising other than statements in .sig files four lines or under in length.

Test postings should be sent to appropriate test groups.

Excessive cross-posting is inappropriate. Posters are requested to restrict cross-posting to no more than two other newsgroups and all such articles must meet the requirements of the charters of all groups involved. All cross-posts with other moderated groups, except those for uk.net.news.announce and signed by Control, may be rejected unless sequential approval rights have been established.

Encoded binaries e.g. pictures, compressed files, etc. are forbidden. Such material belongs on a web or FTP site to which a pointer may be posted. Cryptographic signatures e.g. PGP may be used where authentication is important and should be as short as possible and under ten lines.

All articles must be readable in plain text; no HTML, RTF, or similar, or attachments are allowed. To see how to make your newsreader comply with this, please read <http://www.usenet.org.uk/ukpost.html>.

Please do not top post; when quoting parts of a previous post please retain the author's name and quote only enough to give context and place your reply beneath the quoted section.

Warning

Moderation Policy Statement

Method

Individuals who have made one approved posting will automatically be added to the pre-approved posters list, unless posting using a shared non-individual generic 'From' address in which case all such articles shall be approved individually.

All pre-approved posters will have their articles automatically accepted and forwarded on to the group unless contrary to the auto-reject software. Their pre-approved status can only be revoked by the moderators if they violate the moderation policy and this action must be supported by a two thirds majority of the moderation panel and reported immediately to the group.

Withdrawal of pre-approved status will be for a period of one calendar month, during which the poster shall be removed from the pre-approved and added to the manual list and have articles manually moderated; upon expiry of the withdrawal period they shall be removed from the manual list and pre-approved status shall be restored on the same terms as first time posters i.e. following their next posting of an approved article. A record will be kept of all withdrawals of pre-approved status for a period of twelve months from the date of withdrawal.

Pre-approved posters who have inadvertently breached the moderation rules can apply to the moderators to be restored to the pre-approved list sooner than one month and the moderators can do so if they are satisfied that the offending post was genuinely made in error.

All encoded binaries, HTML and other non-plain posts identified by the moderation software will be rejected by the moderation bot.

The remaining posts from people not on the pre-approved list will be sent to the moderators.

The moderators will approve all postings regardless of content unless they are:

1. a personal ad.
2. a commercial article, including those aimed at overcoming the ban on commercials e.g. by generating commercial URLs or pop-up windows for the sole purpose of advertising or by including a time-delayed subscription requirement or silent dialler.
3. an encoded binary, HTML or non-plain text article that has escaped the automatic software, or any article not readable as plain text; no HTML, RTF or similarly formatted or word processor formats or any attachments are allowed.
4. an article cross-posted to more than four groups in total including uk.gay-lesbian-bi; or an article cross-posted to another moderated group unless a group where sequential approval rights have been established; or unless to uk.net.news.announce and signed by Control; cross-posted articles must meet the charter requirements of all the groups involved.
5. a test post, except from a moderator or one of their Admins; all zero content articles, random character or randomized text and incomprehensible articles shall be deemed to be test posts.
6. an identical debut article; or an article with identical content or an article with similar content but different headers which has been sent to the group more than twice in any 24 hour period; or an identical or similar article which has been sent to the group more than twice in any 24 hour period and which in the opinion of a moderator forms part of a mail-bomb attack on the group and a moderator's vote shall be obtained to ratify the action taken in the interests of accountability.
7. an article of spam or velveeta, defined as one which has been multi- posted across usenet and, or, posted simultaneously or separately to each of several other groups unless a request for help or advice when consideration will be given since uk.gay-lesbian-bi provides both and the article may be relevant to several other groups.
8. an article where the follow-up has been set by the author as part of a flood to another hierarchy or group.
9. an article intended for the moderators or their Admins including all automatic responder messages; or a repetitive robot generated reply to formal reject notifications and after 12 or more similar replies auto-reject software will be activated to drop any recurrences.
10. an article intended to scam or to acquire passwords or money, or to request money or donations unless by an appropriate registered community charity, or a robot or worm generated article.

• Personal ads, and suggest that future ads should be sent to uk.adverts.personals.gay-lesbian-bi or other personals newsgroups, mailing lists or websites. A personal ad is an article with no other content such as could be sent to a personals newsgroup or appear in a lonely hearts column, or one which is aimed at someone more or less unknown. Where the poster appears to need guidance or help a personal e-mail from a moderator will also be sent to offer appropriate advice. All personals sites will be rejected as personals (or, sometimes, as commercial and all subscription sites will be rejected as commercial).
• A posting that exceeds the cross-posted limit of four groups; or a posting that includes another moderated group unless necessary sequential approval rights have been established.
• Multiple or identical postings.
• Test posts.
• Commercial posts.
• A posting in other than readable plain text.
• Encoded binary posts, and scam, robot and worm articles will be rejected but not returned.

Unless on notified leave a moderator will have been deemed to have abstained from any website or e-mail discussion if no response is made within three days of the matter first being flagged or raised. A quorum for all panel decisions where a majority or two-thirds is required shall comprise at least four moderators.

Openness

The moderators will be subject to annual election and recall as set out below.

Housekeeping the pre-approved list

Requests for removal of pre-approved listing

Cancels

Moderation Panel

Composition

Election

3. Then each year thereafter elections will be held for the posts of moderator.

1. 11 months after moderation comes into effect (and every twelve months subsequently) the moderation panel will appoint a neutral party to conduct the election as votetaker. The votetaker will issue a call for nominations for a new moderation panel.
2. Nominations will be open for 10 days and to be valid each nominee will have to be proposed and seconded by pre-approved posters (self-nomination is permitted). All pre-approved posters shall have the right to vote, regardless as to whether they were pre-approved before or after the opening of nominations.
3. At the end of 10 days a list of candidates (including their proposers/seconders) will be published.
4. A five day period of hustings will be held during which the candidates will answer questions from posters to the group.
5. The votetaker will issue the first call for votes, to be followed by a second call for votes five days later, the voting period lasting in all for 10 days, votes shall only be valid if submitted on official ballot forms.
6. Voting will be by the Single Transferable Vote method, with a reopen nominations candidate (RON) added to the ballot. If RON passes the quota then all the then unfilled places are void requiring a new election for those vacancies.
7. Each voter shall receive an acknowledgement from the votetaker. They will be given a unique identification as part of their acknowledgement, this will enable them to verify their vote when the result is published while protecting their identity from other voters.
8. The votetaker will publish the result and a voting list comprising voter identifiers and their vote.
9. In the event of less than 4 moderators being elected or RON passing quota the votetaker will issue a second request for nominations no later than 1 month after the close of ballot and hold elections for the remaining vacancies. Those elected at this election shall serve until the annual round of elections are held.
10. In the event of the resignation, removal or death of a moderator the next highest candidate (if they are still willing) from the previous election will be appointed for the remainder of the term.
11. If the number of moderators falls below 4 or if the moderators consider it necessary due to excessive workload, they will appoint such temporary moderators as are necessary (the total number of moderators not to exceed 12) to efficiently moderate uk.gay-lesbian-bi. Their appointment to be confirmed by a vote of the pre-approved posters within 21 days. They will serve until the annual round of elections are held.

Leave of Absence and Removal

Other than such periods any moderator that does not take part in moderation activity for 21 consecutive days shall automatically be removed from the moderation team.

5. Moderators who either approve excluded posts or decline to approve non-excluded posts may be removed by a two thirds decision of the other moderators.

6. Any moderator may be removed by a vote of no confidence.

1. Such a vote may be proposed by any pre-approved poster and will need to be supported by 9 other pre-approved posters.
2. People on the pre-approved list at the time when the vote of no confidence is tabled shall be eligible to vote on such a proposal i.e. people added to the pre-approved list after the formal request for a no confidence vote will not be permitted to vote on this occasion.
3. A ballot should be held within 10 days of a formal request for a vote of no confidence. A neutral person will be asked by the moderation panel to conduct the ballot.

   The question shall be:-

   "Do you have confidence in X as a moderator of uk.gay-lesbian-bi yes/no/abstain"

4. For the purposes of calculating a majority only votes yes or no will count. A simple majority of votes cast for no shall indicate that the group has no confidence in the moderator and s/he shall immediately be removed from the moderation panel.
5. A vote of no confidence in the whole moderation panel will not be permitted, only a vote for each individual moderator.
6. The votetaker shall use the same anonymising method as outlined for the annual election of moderators and shall publish the result with the anonymous identifiers and how they voted.
7. After the conclusion of a vote of no confidence which fails no such similar motion shall be brought against the same person for a period of three calendar months.

Moderation Software and Location

<http://www.algebra.com/~ichudov/usenet/scrm/robomod/robomod.html>.

Changes to Moderation Policy

Moderators

Bryan
Dale
Gregoire Kretz
Kate West
Paul Anderson
PaulG
Stephen M Baines
Yaz

Moderation submission address

uk-gay-lesbian-bi@usenet.org.uk

uk-gay-lesbian-bi-request@usenet.org.uk

uk-gay-lesbian-bi-admin@usenet.org.uk

Newsgroups line

uk.gay-lesbian-bi	For bisexuals, lesbians and gays in the UK (Moderated)

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