BPA Email 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, namely the List Manager and backups.

List Description
Guidelines for Mailing List Subscribers
Mistakes and Abuse
Rules for Mailing List Manager
Technical Instructions for Subscribers

Email:

Email:

Email:

 

List Description

The BPA maintains three principal mailing lists: BPA-news, BPA-misc, and BPA-issues.
The lists are separate from each other, and one must be a subscriber of the respective list to receive and post messages. See the section on Technical Instructions for how to subscribe.

The purpose of each mailing list is as follows:

• BPA-news:  This list is meant for announcements of public events and alerts relevant to Barron Park. Unlike the other email lists, BPAnews is moderated, i.e., the List Manager must approve email postings. Although this list is not for discussion of issues or expressions of personal viewpoints, additional meaningful links and short comments may be attached to provide context while avoiding bias,endorsements, and personal opinions. Typical messages include:

  ○ public events such as city, community, organization, and political meetings;
  ○ alerts about vandalism and other crimes;
  ○ alerts for lost and found pets and other items.

• BPA-misc: This list primarily handles requests. It covers a variety of messages by Barron Park residents likely to be of interest to other residents, excluding commerce. This list is not for discussion of issues or presentations of viewpoints. Typical messages include:

  ○ requests for house-sitters and nannies;
  ○ house repair advice, service recommendations
  ○ yard sales, offers of free items;
  ○ houses or apartments for rent or sale by owner (but not by a realtor) in BarronPark.

• BPA-issues: This list is for presenting a point-of-view or discussions of Barron Park related issues. Anyone may start a discussion on a topic, and conversations (threads) may continue with a number of other people participating. If a topic is not a notice of an event or an alert (BPA-news) or a request (BPA-misc), it probably belongs in BPA-issues.

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

BPA-misc and BPA-issues are not moderated, i.e., any subscriber can post messages without prior screening, However, subscribers are expected to follow the guidelines described in the next section. How to deal with mistakes and abuses is explained in the subsequent section.

 

Guidelines for Mailing List Subscribers

The BPA mailing lists provide valued information to BP residents. To keep the lists useful and practical for all subscribers, senders are asked to follow generally accepted email etiquette (“netiquette”).

List users opt in to the following guidelines. Mistakes will be pointed out in private reminder
messages from the List Manager. Repeated abuse can lead to removal from the list.

Guidelines:

1. Post to the appropriate list as defined in the List Description section.
2. Use the subject field to indicate the topic. Stay on topic
3. Include the sender’s fulln name.
4. Keep the discussion focused on the topic.
5. Limit reminders of events to one.
6. Don’t “reply to all” when responding.
7. Post only issues directly relevant to Barron Park and associated neighborhoods.
8. Avoid personal attacks on other mailing list subscribers.
9. Avoid misrepresentation of another subscriber’s inputs.
10. Avoid disrespectful, provocative, or inflammatory language.
11. Don’t forward chain letters, jokes, hoaxes, spam and junk mail.

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 privately to both mistakes and abuse found in emails sent to the mailing lists relative to the above guidelines. Mistakes happen, and the List Manager will simply point out the mistake to the subscriber. When a message is sent to BPA-news that is not in accordance with the guidelines, the List Manager will ask the sender to make changes and re-send the message. On repeated abuse, however, the List Manager is empowered to terminate the list subscription.

The Mailing List Oversight Committee will review decisions, provide violating subscribers with an avenue of appeal to decisions by the List Manager, and modify the guidelines as needed. Appeal messages can be sent to listmanager@bpapaloalto.org.
 

Rules for Mailing List Manager

For reminder messages about the guidelines, the List Manager will typically use the message templates suggested by the BPA mailing list committee. The List Manager will avoid controversial discussion of the message with the subscriber and will send only a private message about mistakes or abuses. The following templates are expected to be sufficient for use by the List Manager.

Template for personal notice

Dear <name>, please review the BPA mailing list guidelines at <link>. Your message, “<subject>”, on list<name> does not follow guideline <number>, <Helpful, neutral explanation if it is deemed a mistake.>has do-post / do-not-post feature <number> of the guidelines for list <name>. The guidelines are used to keep the mailing lists useful and practical for all subscribers. Please revise and resend as necessary,
Sincerely,
<Name>
BPA List Manager

Template for public netiquette reminder message

Dear subscribers, as a reminder, the guidelines and policies for the BPA mailing lists are posted here: <link>. The guidelines are in place to keep the mailing lists useful and productive for all subscribers.
Sincerely,
<Name>
BPA List Manager

 

Technical Instructions for Subscribers

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).

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

10/13/13