From Newsgroup: news.groups.proposals

This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) to remove the
moderated newsgroup soc.sexuality.general.

The Big-8 Management Board plans to begin voting on this proposal
after five days. Please offer any final discussion or comments before
the end of this waiting period. Voting may take up to one week (seven
days); a result will be posted following the end of the voting period.


Newsgroups Line:

soc.sexuality.general Human sexuality in general. (Moderated)


Distribution:
news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
soc.sexuality.general

Pointers directing readers to this RFD will be posted in the following
groups: alt.polyamory, alt.sex, alt.sex.bondage, soc.bi, soc.motss, soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm


Proponent: Usenet Big-8 Management Board <board@big-8.org>


Charter:

The group soc.sexuality.general is a moderated forum for the mature
discussion of sexuality, both in a personal or a political manner.
Suitable topics for discussion include, but are not limited to social
issues, discussions of lifestyles both "alternative" and "mainstream", questions, and advice.

Soc.sexuality.general will be moderated by software and a backup team
of human moderators. The purpose of moderation will not be to
determine which views will be expressed, but to maintain the newsgroup
as a viable avenue for the mature discussion of human sexuality.
Moderators are volunteers who wish to serve the general USENET
community.

The newsgroup is _not_ for the purpose of posting binaries, requesting
binaries or advice on how to find binaries, personal ads or posts for
the sole purpose of soliciting meetings, erotic fiction, or commercial advertisements, except as noted below. Off-topic messages, flames,
and trolls are also not appropriate. See below for details.

The newsgroup will be moderated by software coupled with a team of
human moderators. The moderation team will rely as much as possible
on software to moderate the newsgroup, but we recognize that given the ever-changing nature of Usenet, we will use hand-moderation when
necessary to maintain the viability of the newsgroup.

The moderation team will be structured as follows: a Moderator Board
will be responsible for maintaining the moderation software and the
elaboration and implementation of moderation policies. Additional
moderators may be appointed or dismissed by the Board, and the Board
may appoint or dismiss Board members as necessary. The composition of
the Moderator Board will be posted regularly on the newsgroup and made available on the World Wide Web.

The following types of messages are inappropriate for the newsgroup,
and may be grounds for rejection by the moderators or the moderation
software. This does not imply that they _will_ be rejected.

1. Messages that fit the profile the moderation software is configured
to automatically reject.

2. Messages that are excessively or inappropriately cross-posted, or
reposted.

3. Binaries or ASCII art, requests for binaries or ASCII art, or
announcements for the availability of such. (Messages that contain
short binary sequences, such as PGP signatures, are acceptable.)

4. Commercial ads, except for products that primarily serve an
educational, historical, or advocacy function. Advertisements may
also be rejected if they are of excessive length, or posted too
frequently. Posts that are advertisements should make it clear in the
subject line.

5. Stories, or other works of erotic fiction.

6. Personal ads, or the solicitation for penpals or face-to-face
meetings of a personal nature.

7. Off-topic posts, and posts on topics that, while related to
sexuality, are more appropriate to other newsgroups. (For example, an
argument on the ethics of abortion would most likely belong on
talk.abortion.)

8. Posts that are adequately addressed by the newsgroup FAQ
("Frequently Asked Questions") or other on-line resources. We will
maintain a list of such resources.

9. Flame wars (defined for the purposes of this charter as message
exchanges for the primary purpose of trading insults).

10. Trolls (defined for the purposes of this charter as messages
posted for the sole purpose of disrupting the newsgroup).

11. Posts from bogus addresses or domain names. (Addresses that are deliberately munged to confuse spam e-mail software is acceptable, as
long as moderators can figure out how to unmunge the address, if
necessary. Posters who munge their address, and who plan on posting
to the newsgroup regularly, are requested to munge their address
consistently.) This clause should not be interpreted as excluding
anonymous or pseudonymous posts.

12. Messages from posters or sites that are on the moderation
software's "automatically reject" list. The policies for being placed
on the "automatically reject" list are as follows:

a. Advertisements for photographic or XXX BBSes or web sites, for
phone sex or escort services, singles cruises or introduction
services, are not welcome on this newsgroup. Posters of such messages
will be immediately placed on the "automatically reject" list.
Commercial sites that are known to frequently and heavily advertise
themselves inappropriately on Usenet will be placed on the
"automatically reject" list. Posters or sites who are placed on the "automatically reject" list for any of the above reasons will remain
on the list permanently unless they successfully appeal to the
Moderator Board.

b. Posters who use the newsgroup as a source of e-mail addresses for either harassment or mass commercial mailings may be put on the "automatically
reject" list, in which case they will remain on the list permanently unless they successfully appeal to the Moderator Board.

c. Posters who violate other charter provisions may be placed on the "automatically reject" list if the Moderator Board determines that
they have violated the posting guidelines twice within 60 days of
being warned of an infraction. The poster remains on this list for up
to 30 days. Repeated infractions may then result, with each
successive offense, of being placed on the "automatically reject" list
for up to 60 days, one year, and then permanently.

The moderators will endeavor to ensure that the actions listed above
will not be applied to users who commit infractions inadvertently or
because of misunderstandings of newsgroup policy (except as outlined
in part a above). All decisions to place a poster on the
"automatically reject" list may be appealed to the Moderator Board.


Rationale for removal:

The group currently has no moderator address assigned and hasn't seen
any posts since 2017.

In the years immediately prior to this, most posts were about the
amount of postings in the group, with only very few on-topic posts.
This shows that even when the moderation system was working, there
wasn't much interest in the group.

It brought to the Board's attention in 2025 that the moderation system
was not operational. Since May 2025 the Board has made contact with
several former moderators, and attempted to contact several more, but
this has not resulted in anyone volunteering to operate the moderation
system.

As the group is unusable in its current state, it is reasonable to
remove it.


Discussion so far:

No comments were received in response to the first two RFDs to remove
the group.


History of the group:

1997-06-09: 1st RFD (create)
1997-07-28: 1st CFV
1997-08-11: 2nd CFV
1997-08-21: Result: soc.sexuality.moderated passes 270:38


Procedure:

Those who wish to comment on this request to remove this newsgroup
should subscribe to news:news.groups.proposals and participate in the
relevant threads in that newsgroup.

To this end, the followup header of this RFD has been set to news.groups.proposals.

All discussion of active proposals should be posted to
news.groups.proposals.

If desired by the readership of closely affected groups, the
discussion may be crossposted to those groups, but care must be taken
to ensure that all discussion appears in news.groups.proposals as
well.

For more information on the newsgroup removal process, please see https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Removing_newsgroups


History of this RFD:

2026-08-13: 1st RFD (remove)
2026-08-27: 2nd RFD (remove)
2026-09-17: Final RFD / Last Call for Comments
--
Usenet Big-8 Management Board
https://www.big-8.org/
board@big-8.org

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