Listserv Guidelines from Another Group (good example)

[List Owner]

As Friends become more familiar with listservs and netiquette etc. (some of us are old hands, others just 10 years old), looking at guidelines established by other similar groups may be advantageous. 

I offer this specimen, from a listserv I'm also on (but have no ownership responsibilities regarding).  I've kept all the contact information because Thirsters is indeed an important Greater Portland group about which Multnomah activists should be aware (no arm twisting to attend).  Lots of international people.  Lots of professors, Peace Corps vets, world travelers.

Meets weekly, E Broadway McMenamins, 7 - 11 PM roughly, with program at 8 PM.  Other Friends besides myself routinely attend.

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Proposed Thirster Discussion List Guidelines – February 9, 2015

The Thirster Discussion list was established on Feb 2^nd, 2015 to provide a vehicle for open discussions about peace, freedom, creativity, development, ethics, fairness, sustainability and respect for cultural differences.  Most often examining topics through a social science lens, ‘intercultural understanding” has often been identified as the primary concern of Thirsters.  The Discussion List was initiated to fill the gap created by the cessation of Bob Textor's 'Thirstergrams" and to find a way to increase discussions among Thirsters in the Portland Metro area and the many more Thirsters living around the world (approximately 640 worldwide).  The list is only open for Thirsters who are on the memberannouncements list and who request to be included in the Discussion list.  Sixty Thirsters have joined the list in the first week!       

 

The discussion list is a place to learn about recent trends, practices, publications, and job opportunities in the social science and related fields.   One also can ask questions about current social science issues and share experiences, as well as engage in debates on theory, and practice, and related topics.  Finally, it is a forum in which one may become more familiar with a diverse group of scientists and practitioners from around the globe.   

Although the list is not moderated, discussions on the list should be limited to the traditional Thirster topics.   Posting of messages containing personal attacks, criticisms of individuals posting to the list, harassment, or off-topic messages/replies, such as sales pitches, are not appropriate.  If you receive a message that you believe is inappropriate, and a message directly to the offending sender does not bring the desired results, please contact me at:  jdougherty-thirsters@earthlink.net.   Please do not forward your concerns about individual posts to the entire discussion list.  

All contributors to the list must use their real names on correspondence, with a signature block that tells their professional affiliation and email address.

Please set your email program’s out-of-office for the weekend or vacation auto-reply to exclude listservs so that the entire list does not receive those messages.   

The listserv will not accept email attachments; if you have resources you want to share that can't be put in the body of the message, please include a link to where the document can be downloaded or ask interested list members to contact you individually so that you can send the document to them outside of the listserv.   When replying to listserv messages, clicking the reply button will send your response to everyone on the list; if you want to send a reply only to an individual (as you should when asking for a document), please use the individual's email address that should appear on the message header or in their signature block. 

 

Please send ‘personal’ posts to individuals and not to the entire Discussion list.  This requires you to distinguish personal posts from listserv posts and to look at the "To" line when replying to sender.  Comments such as  "Thanks,"  "I'll do that," and "what is the URL for that site you just mentioned?" should be sent to an individual.   If the

individual doesn't know, the latter of course could be sent to the Discussion list.  

To help ensure that replies meant for individuals reach individuals, be sure to include your e-mail address in the body of your post.

When posting replies to other posts, please do not include the whole original post, unless it is a short one.  But, do include sufficient info so that another reader can understand the context of your reply.

When you've made an error, there's no need to compound it by apologizing to the Discussion list (that's just another extra post to delete), but providing the correct information to everyone is a good idea.  

If you're reading a long list of Discussion list posts, you might want to read through before responding - your point may already have been made by another Discussion list member.  Try not to be annoyed, however, if you see multiple, similar responses.  

 

You can subscribe to the Thirster Discussion list by email by sending a blank message to the address thirsterdiscussion-subscribe@thirsters.org.  To unsubscribe, send a blank message instead to thirsterdiscussion-unsubscribe@thirsters.org     If you are unable to subscribe or unsubscribe via email, please contact me at:  jdougherty-thirsters@earthlink.net

[MMM-PSC]

The text file attachment is a recasting of the above sample guidelines from another group (Thirsters).

For some it may be more readable in terms of formatting (same content).  Thank you Friend.