One-time posting of the LevNet Rules and Guidelines

[LevNet Admin]

For a long time the original levnet hosted on discoveret.com was unmoderated and was a friendly free-for-all.  Sadly, those days came to a close and levnet had to have just a little oversight. These are the original Rules and Guidelines agreed upon back then, and since they are unchanged and pretty common-sense, there should be no surprises to anyone.  As always, if you have questions, please ask.

These rules and guidelines are stored at http://www.peterpringle.com/LevNet.html, and are also linked in the General Information section of this group.  So, here they are:

RULES AND GUIDELINES FOR GOOGLE LEVNET USERS

Due to a lack of space there is not enough room to publish the rules, objectives, and guidelines of the Google LevNet theremin special interest group in the Google Group description box, so the group moderators asked me if they could post this link to my website. I have no special status or connection to the group beyond ordinary membership. Here are the rules as they were agreed to several years ago.

 

PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES

The LevNet is a moderated internet forum of people interested in the electronic instrument known as the "Theremin". The LevNet was originally founded in 1997 following the FIRST INTERNATIONAL THEREMIN FESTIVAL, in Portland, Maine, and was named after the inventor of the theremin, Lev Termen (a.k.a. Leon Theremin). Membership is open to anyone, but requires proper user registration. Registered members may send and receive posts and will have access, through their passwords, to the LevNet Archives, membership lists, etc.

 

RULES FOR PARTICIPATION IN LEVNET DISCUSSIONS

1. The LevNet is for discussion of all aspects of the theremin and theremin playing, as well as related subjects. It is a society of theremin enthusiasts who welcome new members and new ideas. While off topic posts are not forbidden, they must be clearly identified in the subject box with the initials: "O.T." There is a huge variety of "related subjects" that are permitted (music history, electronics, film scoring, etc.) but something that clearly has nothing to do with the theremin - "O.T. My Dog Had Pups!" - must be labelled with the "O.T." identifier so that members who are not interested can disregard it. Should a totally off topic thread become dominant, something that has happened in the past, it is the duty of the LevNet moderator to restore focus to the discussion.

 

2. In any adult debate there will be disagreement. That is what makes discussion interesting and worthwhile. Although lively LevNet debate is encouraged, personal or general insults are not. If someone's posts are deemed by the forum moderator to be derogatory, offensive, untrue, or abusive in any way, then the moderator, AFTER A FIRST WARNING TO THE OFFENDER, has the right to remove the offensive posts. If the offender persists in spite of the warning, then the moderator has the right to remove that individual from the list of subscribers and bar any further participation in the Levnet. THE MODERATOR'S DECISIONS WILL BE FINAL. The simple rules of polite and civil discussion will be respected and enforced.


This does not mean that everyone must always either agree or remain silent. You can be open and honest without necessarily offending people. "I tend not to like aleatoric theremin playing." is O.K. "Your music sucks and so do you!" is unacceptable. It is rude, personally insulting, and could result in permanent expulsion from the LevNet. Everyone has the right to his or her own opinion, and the right to express that opinion freely and openly, provided it does not preclude the right of others to do likewise and respectfully disagree.

 

3. If anyone has a complaint or grievance as a result of a post by another member, THAT COMPLAINT SHOULD BE ADDRESSED PRIVATELY TO THE MODERATOR and not posted for the entire membership. Posting your complaints publicly polarizes subscribers and inevitably results in a deluge of off topic opinions about what is appropriate and what is not. It is solely up to the moderator to decide if someone has broken the rules, and his decisions are final.

[Gordon Charlton]

(apologies if you received this twice - I had a senior moment and hit the wrong button)

SOME INFORMATION ABOUT USING GOOGLE GROUPS

If, like me, this is your first time using Google Groups this will, I hope, be helpful to you.

First of all, there is a setting you probably want to turn off.

You need to do this on the desktop version of the levnet website. The mobile version does not provide access to your personal settings, as far as I can tell.

The website is here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/levnet

Log in if you are not logged in already. 

The cog icon on the upper right of the page is a drop-down menu which includes "User preferences" as an option.

It will lead you to here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!usersettings/general 

The first item is "Allow group managers to direct add me to their groups"

It is checked by default. That means anyone can add you to a google group without asking. You might well want to deselect it. And then you might want to head over to "My groups" - the link is on the left hand side, near the top.

That will lead you to here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!myforums

If there are any which you did not expect to find (I found two when I looked) you can leave them by clicking on them and then on "My membership" and "Leave group". It may reduce your spam slightly. Both the groups I had been forcibly joined to were spammy.

It is also useful to know that clicking on "My membership" in the LevNet group will allow you to determine how you receive your levnet eMails. I set mine to "Don't send email updates" because I prefer to use the mobile levnet website on my little tablet thingy. 

The mobile site is here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/levnet

Slightly annoyingly, there is no RSS feed, so I'll add it to my list of regular internet activities along with my emails, my social network sites, my RSS feeds et cetera. My leisure time is so busy these days!

(This, incidentally, raises a point. If you are treating levnet as an email mailing list, if you hit reply to all on one of my postings, you will send me an email as well as posting it to the group. I'll just delete it and read it on the website later, so don't bother.)

[Mike Buffington]

Slightly annoyingly, there is no RSS feed, so I'll add it to my list of regular internet activities along with my emails, my social network sites, my RSS feeds et cetera. My leisure time is so busy these days!

RSS can be added via this link:

http://groups.google.com/group/levnet/feed/rss_v2_0_topics.xml

Mike

[Gordon Charlton]

Thank you, Mike.

Gordon

[Mike Buffington]

Update:

The RSS for individual messages is:

http://groups.google.com/group/levnet/feed/rss_v2_0_msgs.xml

the previous link I posted was for the first new topic message:

http://groups.google.com/group/levnet/feed/rss_v2_0_topics.xml

Mike

On Friday, February 15, 2013 5:50:42 PM UTC-7, Gordon Charlton wrote:

Thank you, Mike.

Gordon

[Olivia Mattis]

Question:  Who is the Levnet admin?  The post was unsigned.  (Shows how out of touch I am with the current group.  Sorry if everyone knows this but me.)  Also, I would appreciate more responses to my question in another thread about Facebook.  Having Facebook "community standards" moderate our group would take the onus off of our moderator, whoever you are (and thank you for serving in this capacity!).

Olivia

[Pierce Krouse]

Gordon Charlton and I are the moderators, and the levnet rules and guidelines are unsigned because if either/both of us resign the position, the guidelines remain in force for the next admin or admins to enforce.

Can't say anything about Facebook.

--PK

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "LevNet" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to levnet+un...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Gordon Charlton]

It's really not an arduous responsibility, Olivia. In fact I wish we had more obnoxious posters because I really love crushing trolls with my ban-hammer. Mwahahahahaha!

Gordon

[Olivia Mattis]

Gordon, you and Pierce appear to have done an excellent job.  Thank you for doing it!  Now, why don't you set up a FB Levnet page and be the page admin?  Think of it as doubling your chances for crushing those trolls! ;-)  No, seriously, there seems to be a demand for it, and it might allow new voices to join in the dialogue. How about it?

Warmly,
Olivia

[Pierce Krouse]

Maybe someone with a facebook account can post an invite to join levnet?  They're welcome to join, but they need to leave their Facebook kool-aid at the door :-)

--

[Dean Rohs]

On Monday, June 23, 2014 9:56:17 AM UTC-4, Pierce Krouse wrote:

Maybe someone with a facebook account can post an invite to join levnet?  They're welcome to join, but they need to leave their Facebook kool-aid at the door :-)

I would be happy to post an invite. I don't think I have many ~ if any ~ theremin loving friends, but they may have some. Someone send me a draft of exactly what you'd like it to say.

- Dean -