Separation of discussion and announcement lists

[Christopher Beland]

DSNC mailing list administrators are currently adding everyone on this list to a new Google Group, dsnc-discussions. You may get an invite to that list, which you can accept or decline depending on how many emails you wish to receive. Most people with gmail.com addresses will be copied over automatically, and you can unsubscribe later if you don't wish to receive discussion emails.

Unfortunately, we can only add people 100 at a time, so it may take a few days. There will be another email announcing when the new list is ready for use.

The old list will keep the same email address but will be used for DSNC Board-approved announcements only, and posting will be restricted. Anyone will be able to post to the new discussion list (moderators will continue to suppress spam).

We hope this will help reduce email overload and prevent folks from missing important announcements, while continuing to facilitate dialog among neighbors.

Thanks,

Chris
Vice President of too many emails

[Rachel Rosenberg]

Hi neighbors,

While the membership of the DSC may ultimately decide that there's merit to the separation of this list into two, announcements and discussion, this undemocratic unilateral decision from an unspecified "we" (though only signed by Chris) appears to have been an ideologically motivated tactic to suppress dissenting views, specifically mine.  In a democratic organization, there is no legitimate excuse for excluding membership input on a decision that affects our ability to communicate with one another.  

For important context, I sent my email at 10:49am on Tuesday, May 19 (screenshot below) but it was withheld from distribution for 30+ hours, until May 20 at 5:38pm.  During this same time frame, two other emails from members were approved for distribution before mine, so it must have been seen by the moderator(s).  Chris's email announcing the unilateral decision was sent just over an hour after mine was approved.  Therefore that unilateral decision must have been made during the time period that my email was withheld from distribution and as a reaction to the views I expressed in my email.  Had this been something in progress prior to my email, it would have been democratically discussed at the Monday, May 18 DSNC meeting the night before.  Further, there were only 3 total DSNC member emails sent within that 30hour timeframe, so volume of emails is not a reasonable explanation for this sudden undemocratic action.  (A stark contrast to months ago, when there was an overwhelming volume of email discussion on the list serve, but no similar action proposed or taken.)

I move that the membership discuss, agree upon, and ultimately adopt fair and unbiased protocols that any moderator of the DSNC Google group will be bound to follow.  I also move that the current moderator(s) be removed, and that a special meeting be called for the membership to select a new fair and impartial moderator with a live vote.

The timestamp of this email is 9:21am on Thursday, May 21.

Best,

Rachel

--
Davis Square Neighborhood Council · https://DavisSquareNC.org · https://linktr.ee/DavisSquareNC
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[Elaine Almquist]

Rachel,

We've had requests from members of the neighborhood council to separate the list into an announcement channel and discussion board for months, and we've both discussed this at meetings and presented different options we've been exploring (Slack, Discord, Discourse, etc.) for at least 6 months. We're implementing this change now because we've elected a new board and have come to a resolution on how to move forward. This was a request from members that we assessed fully and are implementing now along with other improvements to our communications such as our website, social media, and other communications methods through the Outreach committee.

We are in the middle of transfering the Google Group moderation from our old board members to our new. We just met to have our Secretary handover and implement this yesterday evening. Apologies in any posting delays while we are undergoing this transition. The Google Group only allows us to add 10 people at a time, and 100 people per day to the new group. It will take a minimum of 6 days for everyone to migrated over.

Everyone is still allowed to post to the main Google group until the Discussions list is finalized. We're all volunteer and we approve messages as our moderators have time to do so. Only new members are moderated, but your account was still listed as under the "new" period. I manually overrode this to allow your messages to go through without moderation, so you shouldn't see any delays if you continue to post.

Best,

Elaine

Elaine F. Almquist

(she/her/hers)

BlueSky @EAlmquist  Instagram: @EFAlmquist
Phone: 978.375.2448

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAN%2BJWrMDPBPXzYAyN1muadKvnaqZSVncKc_EUBHiMNxmq-S2rA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Elaine Almquist]

We do not edit or suppress or edit any messages except the vent cleaning messages or other obvious spam (although a few have snuck through, regrettably.) Everyone is allowed to discuss topics of their choosing, without prejudice of point of view, with strong encouragement that it be relevant to Davis Square. Most people's messages go through without moderation.

This separation of lists is meant to solve the delay for any messages that Google Groups sends to moderation (which is only for new members or messages that are caught automatically by Google Groups) to allow everyone to post directly into discussion, and for everyone who only wants to receive the official announcements of member meetings and such to opt-out, which has been the bulk of the feedback we've received from members.

Best,

Elaine

Elaine F. Almquist

(she/her/hers)

BlueSky @EAlmquist  Instagram: @EFAlmquist
Phone: 978.375.2448

On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 2:58 PM Tim Kness <timk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Elaine -  

I too have found the "approval" process on what posts or replies that are seen and or suppressed to be very haphazard.  I've have a number of my responses go unplublished, edited and only sectons responded to, or even deemed "spam" to be denied. 

There appear to be No protocols in place in regards to the process, and that moderators decisions are unclear, and are at a whim. 

I also move to second Rachel's request that:

"the membership discuss, agree upon, and ultimately adopt fair and unbiased protocols that any moderator of the DSNC Google group will be bound to follow.  I also move that the current moderator(s) be removed, and that a special meeting be called for the membership to select a new fair and impartial moderator with a live vote."

This issue has been a running case ever since I signed up and have been receiving these postings.

Thank you.

Tim Kness

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAEK62JfFW93mVZquro17zpcYB-bd566GH30_CY09N24M%3DFpwkA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Tim Kness]

Elaine -  

I too have found the "approval" process on what posts or replies that are seen and or suppressed to be very haphazard.  I've have a number of my responses go unplublished, edited and only sectons responded to, or even deemed "spam" to be denied. 

There appear to be No protocols in place in regards to the process, and that moderators decisions are unclear, and are at a whim. 

I also move to second Rachel's request that:

"the membership discuss, agree upon, and ultimately adopt fair and unbiased protocols that any moderator of the DSNC Google group will be bound to follow.  I also move that the current moderator(s) be removed, and that a special meeting be called for the membership to select a new fair and impartial moderator with a live vote."

This issue has been a running case ever since I signed up and have been receiving these postings.

Thank you.

Tim Kness

On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 2:38 PM Elaine Almquist <elaine....@gmail.com> wrote:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAEK62JfFW93mVZquro17zpcYB-bd566GH30_CY09N24M%3DFpwkA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Beth Kevles]

Does anyone know how much spam suppression is automated by google? And are the moderators able to retrieve email from the spam folder? Similarly,  how many messages are pulled into moderation-required by google rather than by our human moderators?

That is to say, how much of the problems that we are experiencing are caused by google's automation rather than by humans?

Thanks,

--Beth 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAL8shwpiMQbLDffhg6N0abo0MQXzvfzDtWc7C7Y_t0pTc9muzQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Marilyn]

Rachel, I promise, splitting the DSNC mailing list came up at the Outreach Committee meeting on May 11. Ask Ed Woll. He was present and can confirm. This was more than a week before your email. There is no nefarious purpose behind the effort. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAN%2BJWrMDPBPXzYAyN1muadKvnaqZSVncKc_EUBHiMNxmq-S2rA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Christopher Beland]

On Thu, 2026-05-21 at 18:23 -0400, Beth Kevles wrote:

Does anyone know how much spam suppression is automated by google? And are the moderators able to retrieve email from the spam folder? Similarly,  how many messages are pulled into moderation-required by google rather than by our human moderators?
That is to say, how much of the problems that we are experiencing are caused by google's automation rather than by humans?

All messages sent by real non-spam humans are supposed to be approved out of the moderation queue as long as they comply with the code of conduct the DSNC membership adopted on February 23. As far as I know, no one has been moderated for violating the code of conduct since that time, it's just been dryer vent and other scams and spam.

I believe what goes into the moderation queue in the first place is anything Google marks as spam, plus anything from people who either aren't on the mailing list or who are individually set to "moderated". I see a lot of real humans on the list marked as "moderated", so I'm guessing that at some point after a deluge of dryer vent spam that wasn't getting caught by the automatic filter, we set everyone to "moderated" and then started flipping senders to "unmoderated" once they were somehow identified as a real human. This is what I've been doing for small DSNC committee e-mail lists, and in a small setting it's also easy to realize an email address belongs to a human when you meet them in person or on Zoom.

Everything goes into one moderation queue, so I don't think we know what got incorrectly marked as spam and what got moderated because the sender is individually marked as "moderated". It would be good practice to flip senders to "unmoderated" when it's made clear they are a real person. Maybe moderators haven't been doing that either because it's not obvious when it's needed, or because they simply haven't had the time given the size of the list and the email volume and everything else we've been busy with. I am also remembering a message or two that came from the email address of a real human, but their account was being used by a spambot, so there may be a few people who are on "moderated" in case that happens to them again.

This mailing list overhaul is a good time to revisit our practices and figure out how to fix the problem of members having a bad moderation experience, and tidy up our settings. If things are working as intended, real humans shouldn't be held up by moderation hardly ever. I've added this to the proposed agenda for the board's May 27 meeting. With the seating of a new board and handoff to a new secretary, we've also just reallocated and clarified responsibilities in an effort to spread the work around and keep up better with necessary tasks. It's not just email moderation we were falling behind on, but also web site updates and social media announcements. I'm hopeful that after a few weeks the new organizational structure will produce some visible progress.

Chris

[Philip Higonnet]

Rachel and Neighbors - Confirming what Marilyn and others have noted. There’s been a long and ongoing discussion of how to find a sweet spot between those who want to get every email, while respecting folks who just want notice(s) of key events. These systems aren’t perfect. Kind volunteers with tech skills way above my pay grade are continuing to try and make that happen, from what I understand. If you felt somehow censored / silenced, that’s unfortunate and I’m sorry about that.

In a very neighborly way, I might pushback on something you said in your email from yesterday.  You describe the DSNC as having “factions”. There are plenty of people the DSNC who are genuinely on the fence about this project, and look forward to learning more.  I am one. There’s also some pretty amazing depth and breadth of experience in our group, as well as lots of folks with very diverse, passionate views.  I’ve learned from you, for example, how important the connectivity and critical mass of the Burren, its patrons, musicians and culture are to our Square. 

Most of all, I look forward to our friends in City Hall showing some leadership at this important time! Let’s get that professionally guided, result driven, Davis Square planning and zoning effort going PRONTO!

cheers

- Philip

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAOm-7z0oDrx-%2Bso%2BAKtxuZFwKCZKHDjrn_xTphLFTV-%3DxaDGrA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ashish Shrestha]

I'd like to remind everyone that the DSNC Code of Conduct does require everyone to refrain from targeted harassment and not sharing unsubstantiated information.  This inquiry over the motivation and timeline of the discussion group change is valid, but could have been much better brought up as an inquiry rather than an unfounded, targeted accusation about censorship.

Perhaps it would be good to refresh ourselves on the Code of Conduct in an upcoming meeting.

Ashish

[Kendra Fox]

Hello everyone,

We were able to make progress a little quicker than expected, as the invitation limit that slowed us down when first announcing this, as Chris mentioned, seems to have lifted as we moved forward. All current members of the DSNC, all applicants to the DSNC who are awaiting verification, and all current members of this Google Group should have received an email invitation to the dsnc-discussions group. This has just been completed, and there was a notification that it may take a moment for all invitees to receive an email, so if you don't see it yet you should soon. If you continue to find the invitation missing, please feel free to reach out to me or ping me in this thread and I will be happy to make sure you are added. 

In light of recent concerns, I wanted to reiterate that the settings for the new discuss board allow for all users to post freely without awaiting moderator approval. We will continue to moderate out any obvious spam messages to the very best of our ability, and continue to moderate as needed on the rare occasion that our code of conduct may need to be enforced, to keep everyone's access fair and unhindered. I am in solidarity with my fellow board members in hoping that some of the user experience issues folks have experienced here will be lessened in this split-list approach, but we will remain open to feedback and continue to troubleshoot any new issues that may arise. Please reach out to any of us if you have questions about this update. 

We won't be closing down or removing any open discussion threads here in the original group, but you are all encouraged to take up any new topics in dsnc-discussion. Getting some conversations started on the new board will help us move towards the end goal of allowing this existing board to be reserved for announcements.

Thank you all for your patience as we work on getting up to speed as a new group of board members, and transitioning through some much-needed administrative updates. Looking forward to continuing to improve our ability to work (and thrive!) together. 

Kendra Fox

Board Secretary