[FAQ] Charter of aus.legal.moderated

[aus.legal.moderated]

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*Charter of aus.legal.moderated*

[This Charter replaces the Charter dated 31 March 1998]

The purpose of the group is to enable contributors who have genuine legal
problems to ask for practical advice from other people (lawyers or laymen)
who have dealt with similar problems in the past.

A secondary purpose is to discuss

1. topical issues relevant to Australian law or to lawyers, law
enforcement or legislators;
2. the Australian legal system and suggested changes in the legal system
or laws;
3. international law, if relevant to Australia; 4. ethics and morality, in
the context of discussions about Australian law;
and
5. academic legal issues, to enable law students or laymen to seek help
with hypothetical legal questions.

This is a moderated group. This means that all contributions are
evaluated for suitability for the group, and some contributions may not
appear after posting. In a few cases, contributions will be rejected.
The moderator will not edit contributions. Normal Usenet standards and
etiquette apply.

*Posting process*

If you want to contribute to the group, whether starting a discussion or
participating in a discussion, the preferred method is that you post your
contribution to the group using your news reader in the usual way.

Your post will be forwarded by email automatically to the moderator, who
will normally approve it and post it to the group fairly quickly.

You do not have to use your real name when contributing.

If your post appears in the group, you have contributed.

If your post does not appear, either your news reader/news server
arrangement is defective (you can test this by posting a test message to
aus.test), the automatic email process failed and your post did not reach
the moderator (possible) or your contribution was rejected (more likely).

If your contribution is rejected, you should either get a rejection email
or your email address does not work. If you do not have an email address
that works, you cannot get a rejection email. There is no requirement
that you have a working email address, or that your working email address
uses your real name. (Be aware that using a working email address in
Usenet can attract spam - you can modify your email address eg
mychosenname (at) yahoo (dot) com.)

There is no rejection email, however, for obvious non-compliance with
normal Usenet standards and etiquette, cross-posting, forgery,
spam/advertising, or posts with binaries or bad formatting.

If your contribution does not appear, you do not get a rejection email,
and you believe that your contribution is suitable for the group, contact
the moderator. Mistakes do occur.

*Moderation Policy*

The moderation policy is one of light moderation. Other than obvious
non-compliance with normal Usenet standards and etiquette (eg clearly
off-charter or off-topic, flaming or abuse), cross-posting over more than
two groups, forgery, spam/advertising, or posts with binaries or bad
formatting (eg HTML rather than plain text), contributors can expect posts
to be approved fairly quickly.

*Approved contributions and forged approvals*

A contribution that is approved by the moderator will have an "Approved"
header, and will be posted from the Albasani news server. A contribution
that has an "Approved" header but is from another news server is not
approved by the moderator, and the approval is a forgery. The normal
consequences of forgery will apply.

*Cross-posting*

Where a cross-posted contribution is rejected, the other cross-posts will
automatically fail.

*Moderator Contact*

Mail related to the moderation of the group can be sent either directly to
the group (as an ordinary post) or to the moderator (by email).

The submission address for contributors who want to post to the group by
email is

aus-legal-moderated (at) albasani (dot) net

The moderator of the group is

Epsilon aus.legal.moderated (at) gmail (dot)com

*[NOTE: Contributors who comment on legal issues are not offering legal
advice or creating a lawyer/client relationship. Those needing legal
advice should consult a lawyer licensed to practice in their jurisdiction.]*