Group: 'The Black & White'

I am so sorry to miss your question, my friend! I truly am!
Well, the rules come from the original founder of the group who is not with us anymore and I keep them (the rules, and maintain the group) in the way that he did when he was here.
Like many of us he started with film photography so his stance about Photoshop (and other photo-editing software) was: if you use your computer software as a darkroom mimicking what was possible to do in the latter that's OK. Removing link specks and scratches - for sure! Correcting skews - no doubts! Adjusting exposure and contrast - absolutely!
This list of allowable manipulations is obviously much longer.
But no computer toning/tinting is accepted (as opposed to scans of actual monochrome prints that may be accepted and sometimes they are).
I know that I should update the rules (and make them more clear), I know...
But I am still reluctant to change original Hugues' words because it feels like saying the final goodbye...

So, are you saying that to convert any photo, whether it be on film or digital, from color to black and white is not allowed in this group?

I am not saying nothing like that.
See this:
www.thephotoforum.com/threads/printing-black-and-white-photos-from-color-film.254066

I'm not understanding you. Can you explain exactly what is not allowed in this group? Because your comment above seems to only ban "toning" and "tinting." Isn't converting a color image to black and white toning or tinting? What exactly is toning and tinting? It may be something that is lost on me, due to me not being able to see color.

OK, once again:
"The Black & White" group is for black and white photos only.
They may come from film or digital cameras.
Sources may be black and white or color but colors must be discarded for publication - fully desaturated or converted to pure B&W either with filters available inside your digital camera or your computer software (Photoshop has many filters to do just that; I personally prefer old Nik Collection Silver Efex Pro).

So what is not allowed by definition:
* colors

Other rules prohibit heavy software manipulations (e.g. visible use of HDR), fancy frames and panoramas. That's how Hugues wanted the group to be and I am doing my best to keep his legacy, so when I allow an exception I kinda (I imagine that I) discuss it with Hugues before making a decision.

You may read about toning and tinting here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_tinting

In a nutshell:
Toning and tinting is adding some color to a black and white picture, not the other way around.

Ah, thanks for that explanation. And I'm not a big fan of HDR, either.

The reason I ask is because I used to belong to the biggest black and white group over on Flickr. I got kicked out because they said one of my images was sepia. It was an old family photo from the 1930's and I figured, knowing my relatives, they couldn't have afforded color film back then, so it must have been black and white film. But they said it was sepia. I said, that's pretty ironic - I can't see any colors and getting kicked out of a black and white group. I just wanted to know the rules here, so that doesn't happen again.

Stay assured that you are not going to be kicked out of this group.
As far as I know nobody here was kicked out by me nor by Hugues nor by other admins.
Obviously I cannot speak for admins (or moderators) of the group on Flickr that you refer to.

well, I see that some admin are posting photos, but my proposal are still in the pending queue, they are perhaps not really interested to the group. So I leave, sorry.
All the best anyway !