AusBDSM and AusBDSM-Chat Mailing Lists FAQ


There have been important changes to the behaviour of the List Admins in order to ensure that they can avoid any possible hint of being legally liable under defamation law. Please read this FAQ in its entirety.

Currently maintained by:
thorfinn@tertius.net.au (Thorfinn)

If you are new to the AusBDSM mailing list, please read this FAQ carefully and note the correct URL and/or email address for subscription requests.


CONTENTS

  1. READ THIS: HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE (REMOVE YOURSELF), SUBSCRIBE, SEND LIST MAIL, SET NOMAIL, ETC
  2. Problems with your subscription or listmail?
  3. Who runs AusBDSM?
  4. What is the AusBDSM mailing lists?
  5. Why was it created?
  6. What topics are discussed on the lists?
  7. What sort of people subscribe to this list?
  8. Etiquette
  9. Anonymity
  10. Non-Australian Subscriptions
  11. Social events
  12. Glossary

READ THIS: HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE (REMOVE YOURSELF), SUBSCRIBE, SEND LIST MAIL, SET NOMAIL, ETC

Please note that while this list is a forum for discussion of alternative sexuality and not a source for pornography, some of the material on this list may not be appropriate for underage readers (for some definition of "appropriate" and "underage"). If you are underage (under 18 years old in Australia, or equivalent age of adulthood in other countries), you MUST NOT subscribe to this list.

The list admin has no way of knowing how old you are. If you are on this list and you are underage, and a law enforcement agency decided to check, things could get quite uncomfortable for you, for me, and for the list as a whole. Do not subscribe to this list if it would be against the law where you are for you to read or view pornographic or material, or if you are less than eighteen years old.

To unsubscribe (remove yourself) or to subscribe, go to:
http://tertius.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ausbdsm for AusBDSM
and follow the instructions there. Please note, you use the same URL to unsubscribe (remove yourself) as well as to subscribe.

The above forms can also be used to access your individual settings, such as setting yourself to not receive mail on a particular address, retrieve a forgotten password, change whether you receive a digest or individual emails, and other similar things. You cannot change your email address via the above forms. To do that, you have to subscribe the new address and unsubscribe the old.

Note:To use the URLs above to do anything except subscribe, you must enter the exact email address you used to subscribe.

You may also send email to ausbdsm-request@tertius.net.au with the text:
help
in the body of your message, if you wish to find out how to subscribe, unsubscribe, or change other settings by email instead of using a web browser.

To send mail to everyone on the list, send it to:
ausbdsm@tertius.net.au
depending on which list you are on. Please note: You must be subscribed to the list in order to send mail to it. This means you have to send mail from the same address at which you are subscribed. If you need to send mail from multiple addresses, but only want to receive mail at one address, the easiest thing to do is to subscribe from all the addresses, and set most of them to nomail.

Problems with your subscription or listmail?

If you send mail to the list that contains any word starting with 'sub' in the first 10 lines or so, it is likely to bounce. This is an unfortunate fact of life. Mailman catches messages posted to the list with words starting with 'sub' and 'uns' in the first several lines, because far too often "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" messages are sent mistakenly to the list. So, if you use the word 'sub' in the start of your message, you may want to leave some blank lines at the top of the message. Sorry about that.

Unfortunately, there is no way to change your email address. Sorry about that. The best thing to do is to subscribe from the new address, then unsubscribe from the old address when you know the new one is working.

Any other requests, for instance, if you require more information, can be sent to ausbdsm-admin@tertius.net.au to reach a human. Please do not send administrative requests to this address.

To access all your individual settings, such as setting yourself to not receive mail for a particular address, retrieve a forgotten password, change whether you receive a digest or individual emails, unsubscribe (remove yourself) and other similar things, go to: http://tertius.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ausbdsm

Having trouble accessing your settings? To use the URLs above, you must enter the exact email address you used to subscribe.

Is the wrong name or email address appearing on your email? I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about that. That's not a setting related to the mailing list at all. That's a setting on your email program, and we can't change it from here.

Your email to list being held because of "implicit destination"? The list will not accept email does not have the list address in the To: or the Cc: fields. See a short thingy I wrote called What's an Implicit Destination? for more details.

You are told that non-members are not allowed to post messages to this list or that members only are allowed to post? You need to send email from the exact same address you are subscribed from. The From line is usually a configuration item in your email program... it is important that the email address and domain name when you post to the list are exactly the same as when you subscribed. You are free to subscribe from multiple addresses, and set some of them to nomail, if you wish to post from multiple addresses.

Your replies go to the poster, rather than to the list? The list Reply-To is not overridden to send things to the list, because it is too easy for people to accidentally send things to the list that were meant to go privately. That has led in the past to a great deal of trouble on a number of occasions. You should use "Reply To All", and then if you choose, remove the individual poster's address from the To line. See also a much more detailed argument from Chip Rosenthal on the subject, entitled: Reply-To Considered Harmful.

Who runs AusBDSM?

The lists are run by a piece of software called mailman, which is being run at the Tertius.net.au site.

The list-owner is thorfinn@tertius.net.au (Thorfinn)

What is the AusBDSM mailing list?

AusBDSM is an Australian-based mailing list for discussion of consensual BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Domination and Submission, Sadism and Masochism) and directly related topics.

Any other requests, for instance, if you require more information, can be sent to ausbdsm-admin@tertius.net.au for a hopefully quick answer.

Why were they created?

AusBDSM was created in June 1994, as a reaction to the huge US influence in other net fora related to BDSM - particularly Usenet's alt.sex.bondage, and IRC's #bdsm.

In particular, Skud, Thorfinn and others found it difficult to make contact with others people locally who had similar interests and who could give more geographically accurate information, and were feeling kinda isolated in the backwoods of the net.bdsm community.

AusBDSM-Chat was created in August 1998, in large part as a reaction to the fact that AusBDSM had reached well over 300 subscribers, with that number growing rapidly. As a result, we'd reached that list size where if random chit-chat was welcome on the main list, it would swamp any serious discussion to the point of unusability. It has been decommissioned as of April 2010, on the basis that neither list has sufficient traffic to warrant the existence of two lists.

It is hoped that this list will provide fora for discussion, advice, social interaction and support for Australian BDSMers.

What topics are discussed on the lists?

Welcome Topics on AusBDSM

Generally speaking, anything directly related to consensual BDSM is welcome on this list, including bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism, domination and submission, personals, discussions related to other fora such as soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm, and anything else that's pretty directly related. Announcement of BDSM related events and a small amount of discussion of those events is welcome too.

Some non-BDSM discussion is welcome, but please keep it to a minimum. It is preferable that the volume of non-BDSM discussion does not swamp the BDSM related discussion.

If you are unsure about whether a post you are about to make to AusBDSM is on topic or not, then you might like to add a paragraph or so labelled ObBDSM: (ObBDSM stands for "Obligatory BDSM" comment) which contains something that is directly BDSM related. Then you know for sure that the post is on topic.

If you post a lot of off-topic material to AusBDSM, then you can expect the other subscribers to complain at you. Please don't do it. However, for complicated reasons involving Online Defamation Law, the list administrator will not get involved, because to do so may risk being accused of exercising editorial control, which would in turn expose me to legal risk of being responsible for any potentially defamatory material sent via the list.

Not welcome are: spam, advertising of non-BDSM services or products, personal insults and flames, and any behaviour that endangers the list or its members - in terms of safety, privacy, and so on.

AusBDSM email list is a discussion lists for the practitioners of consensual BDSM, and those who are interested in it. Descriptions or discussions of non-consensual, illegal, or highly unsafe activities on this list are not welcome except within the context of a discussion of the broader topic of BDSM issues.

If you want to discuss that kind of thing, please take it somewhere else. The administrator of these lists wishes to provide a space for safe discussion of consensual BDSM practices, and doesn't wish to deal with the legal and social consequences of appearing to condone non-consensual or unsafe practices. Please note that this does not apply to humour, debate, or appropriately marked fantasy - but that any extreme material may be upsetting to some readers, and the subject line or the first few lines of the post should outline its contents if the material is likely to upset someone, especially in the case of fantasies or fiction.

There has also been some discussion about the appropriateness of personal ads. Generally speaking, we don't mind them if they're well done. (Read the alt.personals guide to writing personals if you don't know what makes a good personal ad.) However, we'd much rather just get to know you by having you join in the day-to-day discussions on the list, attend a munch or two, and so on. This method is actually more likely to help you find someone than posting a personal.

What sort of people subscribe to the list?

Subscribers vary from those who are mildly curious about the subject, to those who have some intellectual interest (or claim to :)), to those who participate regularly and enthusiastically in various forms of BDSM.

We have a selection of male and female, gay, straight and bi, students and those in the "real world", young and old (age ranges from 18 to 60-something, I think), married/divorced/single/searching, monogamous and poly, etc...

Victoria and NSW claim most of the subscribers, with a decent showing from all the other states and various other countries.

That said, the list is primarily inactive these days, with very little traffic.

Etiquette

These lists used to be a blatant dictatorship. However, for complicated reasons involving Online Defamation Law (See EFA on Defamation Laws and the Internet and a UNSW Law Journal article on Online Content Legislation), the list administrator will no longer be involved in any way (except for the purposes of preventing the publication of defamatory material as advised by qualified legal practitioners as described above, and for the technical purpose of keeping bandwidth down by filtering on a purely technical basis to prevent attachments and non-plain-text emails).

Posts caught in the mailing list software's "moderation" queue will only be refused if they originate from an email address that the list administrator has placed on "moderated" status due to being notified in writing by a qualified legal practitioner that the email address has been posting defamatory material, or if it fails the technical requirements of posting to the list (plain text email only, no attachments allowed). There will be no alteration to content of posts.

People will not be put under moderation for their views or posts, unless the list administrator is notified in writing by a qualified legal practitioner that said posts are defamatory in nature.

Note also that for a variety of reasons (primary amongst them being the complete lack of interest in being asked to contribute evidence to other people's court cases), the list administrator has not in the past, does not currently, nor will in the future, keep any archive of the posts made to AusBDSM or AusBDSM-Chat. This says nothing about what other people may have archived.

Anonymity

Anyone can subscribe to these lists, given the ability to follow some simple directions. The list admin does not have the time to verify the sanity, safety, age, or anything else of the subscribers, and we make no attempt to do so.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that many of those who would like to be on the AusBDSM lists are not able to "out" themselves for various reasons, including just general shyness.

If you are one of these people, then you should be aware that the subscriber list is private (accessible only to the list-administrator, and the sysadmins of the tertius.net.au machine), so if you do not post to the list, then your email address will not be visible to anyone. Conversely, if you do post to the list, then your email address details will appear on the list for all subscribers to see.

If you can't deal with this, there are a few options available:

Please note, what "name" appears next to your email address is not under the control of the list administrator. It is a setting within the software you are using to send email. Where that setting is varies from program to program, and you will have to search your software's options or help files to find it.

Remember, also, that you can only post from addresses that you are subscribed from. It is entirely allowed to subscribe from multiple addresses, particularly if you set some of the addresses to nomail. This means you can subscribe from the address you want to receive email from as well as a free "anonymous" webmail account to post from, and post from the webmail account only.

Non-Australian subscriptions

There was some discussion about the approriateness of non-Australian subscriptions. The admins' policy on this is to let them occur. We will not limit subscription to *.au readers.

Social Events

Currently, at least Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, Newcastle and Sydney have held munches. Timing, venues and organisers vary a fair amount, so ask on AusBDSM for when they're happening. There are also several city-specific mailing lists where these are often organised. You may need to search around or ask to find these.

Note: If you are organising a munch, please arrange to post the announcement to both AusBDSM and AusBDSM-Chat.

Glossary

Certain terms may pop up from time to time which not everyone is familiar with. Here's a brief list of terms, primarily abbreviations, which may help you understand what's going on...

BDSM
Used as a general terms for Bondage and Discipline, Sadism and Masochism. Note also that the two middle initials can stand for Domination and Submission, making a 4-letter abbreviation stand for 6 words. :)
B&D
Bondage and Discipline
D&S
Often written D&s, this stand for Domination and Submission
S&M
Sadism and Masochism
SS&C
Safe, Sane and Consensual (the supposed motto of the BDSM community)
YKINOK
"Your kink is not OK"
Safeword
A safeword is a word agreed upon by those engaging in BDSM play which is understood to mean "Stop, I've had enough and can't handle this anymore". Often the word "red" is used, with "yellow" meaning "please slow down".
Scene
This has two meanings... the first means a BDSM session as in "Fred and I had a really intense scene this weekend"; the second describes the BDSM community in general, as in "Is Fred in the scene?" or "What's the scene like in Sydney?"
Munch
Term often used in net.bdsm fora, meaning a social gathering often including food... hence the name. Various geographic subsets of the AusBDSM list often hold munches, so keep an eye out for posts to that effect.