Proposal for new BPA Email List Guidelines – Your feedback please!

Jul 292013

The BPA Board is considering adopting new guidelines for our neighborhood email lists. The Board would like the members to look at this proposal, which is still a draft, and to receive your feedback.

The proposal includes a brief List Description, describing the use of each of the three BPA lists. Guidelines for Mailing Use Subscribers provides guidance for proper use of the email lists, Mistakes and Abuses informs subscribers what happens if they make mistakes or violate the guidelines, and Rules for the List Manager specify what the List Manager does in those cases.

Use the Contact Us link on the navigation tab (above). Tell us what you think about this proposal and give us some suggestions for further improvements.

Art Liberman, BPA President

—Draft—

BPA Mailing Lists

The mailing lists made available by the Barron Park Association are intended to help Barron Park residents exchange information relevant to our community. They are maintained by the BPA as a service to the Barron Park residents, overseen by a committee, and managed by a member of the community on a voluntary basis (the list manager).

List Description

The BPA maintains three principal mailing lists: BPA-news, BPA-misc, and BPA-issues. The lists are separate from each other, and you must be a member of the respective list in order to receive messages or post to it.

The purpose of each mailing list is as follows:

BPA-news: This list is meant for announcements of public events, city meetings, community meetings and announcements, alerts about vandalism and other crimes, alerts for lost/found pets, and alerts on other problems of general interest. This list is not for discussion of issues or expressions of personal viewpoints, although additional information in the form of meaningful links and short comments may be attached to the announcements (to provide context, but with special sensitivity given to exclude personal opinions or bias). Unlike the other email lists, BPA-news is moderated, i.e., the list manager must approve email postings (with the exception of messages from BPA board members).
BPA-misc: This list handles a variety of messages by Barron Park residents likely to be of interest to other residents. Examples: requests for house-sitters and nannies, house repair advice, yard sales, repair service recommendations, and houses or apartments for rent or sale by owner (but not for houses or apartments for rent or sale by a realtor) in Barron Park. This list is not for discussion of issues.
BPA-issues: This list is for discussions of Barron Park and Barron Park Association related issues. You may start a discussion on a topic and conversations may continue (threads) with a number of other people participating.

In summary, BPA-news is more for announcements and alerts of broad relevance or an urgent nature, BPA-misc is more for personal requests, and BPA-issues is for discussions.

BPA-misc and BPA-issues are not moderated, i.e., any subscriber can post messages without prior approval, but subscribers are asked to follow the guidelines described in the next section. How we treat mistakes and abuse is explained in the subsequent section.

The BPA lists are “Google Groups”, so sending a message requires you to place “@googlegroups.com” at the end of the name of the list (e.g., email to bpa-misc@googlegroups.com). To subscribe, send an email message to ListName+subscribe@googlegroups.com (e.g., to bpa-misc+subscribe@googlegroups.com). Note that you have a number of options when using Google Groups; for example, you can choose whether to receive messages individually or combined in a daily digest. You can find more information about “Google Groups” on the internet (e.g., start here).

Guidelines for Mailing List Subscribers

The BPA mailing lists provide tremendous value to BP residents. In order to keep them useful and practical for all subscribers, senders are asked to follow generally accepted etiquette. Specifically:

Post to the appropriate list as defined in the Description section. Keep topics specific enough to fit the list definition.
Use the subject field to indicate the topic. Do not use a blank subject.
Stay on topic, as specified in the subject line.
Refrain from personal attacks. Keep the discussion focused on the topic rather than the person.
Refrain from obscenities or name calling.
Do not send anonymous messages. Include your first and last name.
Do not forward chain letters, jokes, hoaxes, spam, or junk mail.
When announcing an event, send only one reminder.

Use of the BPA mailing lists is a privilege. If you use a list, you opt in to following these guidelines. Mistakes will be pointed out in private reminder messages. Repeated abuse has consequences up to removal from the list, as explained in the next section.

Please use current antivirus software on your computer and keep it up-to-date.

For more information on email etiquette see here. There are many other websites and books on this topic (e.g., search for “netiquette”).

Mistakes and Abuse

The list manager will respond to both mistakes and abuse found in emails sent to the mailing lists. Mistakes and abuse relative to the above guidelines will be determined by the list manager and will lead to reminder messages. Repeated abuse can lead to the eventual removal of the offending subscriber from the mailing list. Specifically:

Reminder and warning messages on mistakes and abuse:
- 1st occurrence: a message will be sent privately by the list manager to the subscriber.
- 2nd occurrence within 30 days: another private message will be sent.
- 3rd occurrence within 30 days: a final private message will be sent, and the subscriber’s email address will be marked for removal from the mailing list. The subscriber can appeal to the BPA mailing list committee (via the list manager) to have this action be reconsidered.
No public messages to the mailing list will be sent on violations. When removed, the offender can rejoin after 30 days.
The list manager will occasionally send out a public reminder message about the guidelines to the mailing lists (once a year or when a need is perceived). This message will not refer to any particular violations or subscribers.
Egregious violations or emails of a highly offensive nature may result in immediate and/or permanent removal from all lists.

The Mailing List Oversight Committee will review (grey-area) decisions, provide violating subscribers with an avenue of appeal to decisions by the list manager, and make changes and adjustments to the guidelines as necessary from time to time.

Rules for Mailing List Manager

For the private and public reminder messages described in the Mistakes and Abuse section, the list manager will use the message templates approved by the BPA mailing list committee. The list manager will not engage in any discussion of the message with the subscriber and will not send a public message regarding a violation to any mailing list. The approved templates are as follows.

Template for private reminder message

Dear <name>, please review the BPA mailing list guidelines at <link>. Your message, “<subject>”, is in conflict with rule(s) <numbers> of the guidelines for list <name>. The guidelines are enforced in order to keep the mailing lists useful and productive for all subscribers. <This is your second/third reminder within 30 days.>

Sincerely,

BPA List Manager

Template for public rules reminder message

As a reminder, the guidelines and policies for the BPA mailing lists are posted here: <link>. The guidelines will be enforced in order to keep the mailing lists useful and productive for all subscribers.