Email List Usage Guidelines

SCBG Email Listserver Rules
All currently paid members in good standing are allowed to use the SCBG email list. As with any community list, guidelines must be set and followed. If you have questions, contact the list managers. The list managers have the right to deny, suspend or terminate subscriptions for any reason.

General
Do not collect names or email addresses, also known as “harvesting”, to be used for contacting any list subscriber outside of the list server..

Do extend the same professional courtesies in your electronic communication as you would in non-electronic exchanges.

Do not challenge or attack others. The discussions on the lists are meant to stimulate conversation not to create contention. Let others have their say, just as you may.

Do not post commercial messages or solicitations of any kind whether on behalf of an individual or entity.

Do not send repetitive messages. The cyberspace term for this unacceptable practice is spamming.

Exercise professional judgment in your comments. Information posted on the lists is available for all to see, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.

All defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive, or illegal materials are strictly prohibited.

Do not post anything in a message that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you. Remember that list participants have the right to reproduce postings to this list.

Etiquette
State concisely and clearly the specific topic of the comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject. Include only the relevant portions of the original message in your reply, delete any header information, and put your response before the original posting.

Only send a message to the entire list when it contains information that everyone can benefit from.

Send messages such as “thanks for the information” or “me, too” to individuals–not to the entire list. Do this by using your e-mail application’s forwarding option and typing in or cutting and pasting in the e-mail address of the individual to whom you want to respond.  For the yahoo group, there is also a link to ‘reply to sender’.

Do not send administrative messages; such as remove me from the list, through the listserver. Instead, use the Web interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list. If you are changing e-mail addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new e-mail address. Simply change your settings.

Warn other list subscribers of lengthy messages either in the subject line or at the beginning of the message body with a line that says “Long Message.”

Administration
Mailing lists are administered by one or more managers, referred to in listserver jargon as “owners.” The term owner is not used in the traditional sense of the word but simply conveys responsibility for operation of the list. List owners can set a wide range of subscription and posting policies and also have the option of moderating all messages submitted to the list. The privileges and responsibilities of “ownership” include:

Deciding who can and can’t subscribe to the list
Adding or removing subscribers
Approving or rejecting subscription and unsubscription requests
Deciding who can and can’t post messages to the list.
Approving or rejecting posted messages
Editing submitted messages before they are posted
Creating long and short descriptions of the mailing list
Creating welcome and farewell messages
Setting the available delivery options
Setting a schedule for digest activities
Setting rules for access to the subscriber list
Setting text to be added before and after the body of all posted messages
Specifying e-mail headers to be added or removed from posted messages.