List rules

[Cray]

Hi, everyone.

The following rules are currently effective about the SDC e-mail list. Your suggestions/comments are welcome.

The main concepts:

1. People should get what they were subscribed to, and nothing more. Spam should not go to the list.
2. Horizontal equity. The person, advertising some event/group/good, should advertise all the similar events/groups/goods.
3. We should utilize our forum’s possibilities. Only urgent announcements (or those everyone must read) should go to the list.
4. Significant part of the subscribers should be interested in reading the announcement.
5. All the announcements should be written professionally. Not just forwarded. Well-formatted. Informative.


Particular list rules

1. No commercial messages (nothing for sale where the sender has some profit).
2. At most – twice a week. All the news are summarized.
3. The messages are sent by moderators.
4. All the discussions should be moved to the forum.

Categories of the news:
1. Club events (like weekly dancing or classes);
2. Club announcements (registrations, voting, and so on);
3. Club life (the results of the voting, reports)
4. Outside advertisement.

Outside event advertisement:
1. The list is used to inform the members. If you know e-mails of everyone who might be interested (and the number of those people is small enough) – send your e-mail to them individually.
2. At least 10% of all the people on the list (we currently have 80 people on the list) should be interested in getting this ad/attending the event.
3. The sender personally should attend the event he/she advertises.
4. The event should be directly related to the club. For example, swing dance or salsa should not be advertised (there are other lists for this). Current groups of Social Dance Club: Argentine Tango and Hustle.

[bugdriver]

This is what I talked about. Few people really used this forum.
But I am still fighting to get more freedom to use the mailing list.

Very nice of you to put your rules down in words.
However, as you know, I agree with some and disagree with others.
Particularly, I do not agree with your definition of "advertisement".
We are a student club who provide activities and another channel of
dancing information. I do not agree most points of your "Outside event
advertisement." For example, if I am going to a swing dancing event,
am I "allowed" to "advertise" to our club since I personally will
attend to that event? If there is a tango event that is near State
College within 30 miles but I personally will not go, can I tell or
"advertise" it to the club?
I would say yes to the above examples.

How related is "directedly" related? May I help Yang advertise her
yoga lessons? Because I believe yoga will definitely help dancers'
flexibility. And Yang is one of the core members of the club.
I would probably say no to this example. But I do not mind to spread
this information to our club.

Remember our argument on Stephanie's selling her old dancing shoes?
Your argument really was not convincing at all.
How come is selling her dancing shoes not related or directly related to our club?
You said "we should benefit someone by help them selling things."
She is not just someone. She danced tango. She is not selling shoes for a living. We can help her sell her shoes so that one of our female member can get a nice pre-owned dancing shoes. The whole thing is NOT a commercial act. But you put it like she is selling viagra. You put it like people except you would be spam senders

I propose that at least all the core members or officers have access to the mailing list and have the right to email everyone on the list.

[devaldivia]

I didn't even know these were the rules....

I would prefer:

1. The content should be informative and relate to Argentine Tango or Hustle.
2. At least 10% of all the people on the list (we currently have 80 people on the list) should be interested in getting this ad/attending the event.
3. Discussions should be on the forum.

I don't think the forum gets much use, I'd rather that it be kept for discussions, as I think some of these can get out of hand and best if only the interested parties remain updated. Also, information that does not meet rule #2 can be posted to the list-serve.

Aside from that, everything goes. If problems come up, the moderator(s) can deal with them then. As a try out period, the above rules can be adopted but still go to the moderator for approval. If the message meets the rules, it gets posted, if not, then a reason is sent to the poster and all officers and moderators. If all goes well for a while, then no need for moderator approval, things get changed back again later if necessary.

As far as what Peggy said about Shoes, and Yoga, I think these are related enough to Tango that they merit posting. Also, these things are done by "core members," so I'd err on the side of letting them post rather than being overly harsh.

b.

[Horatio]

I tried to help defuse this by talking with a couple of the main participants, and while it seemed like everyone agreed with me, I still see the debate spiraling out of control.

The main reason those of us who organized this group put it together is communication in the BDC is terrible. Fortunately, from what I understand, NO ONE here wants to prevent people from communicating. Therefore, we all agree about our main goal, and we can hopefully keep it civil.

There are three viable options for making sure everyone who wants to say something has a way to say it.

1) Open the mailing list to everyone
2) Make two copies of the mailing list, one for formal announcements and one for everything, so that if traffic starts to get out of hand people can remove themselves from the informal list
3) Make the mailing list only open to officers and teachers and let everyone else use the forum

I am against #3 because sometimes there will be something like a milonga organized by someone who isn't an officer or teacher. People won't go to the forums often enough to guarantee they see such an announcement in time, but almost everyone checks email daily, so this kind of message should go to a mailing list. The organizer(s) of this theoretical milonga shouldn't have to track down an authorized member to get their message to the mailing list.

Actually, I support #1, at least until it becomes clear that people are sending too many trivial messages. So far, I haven't seen any evidence of that, but if there are enough people who believe it has already happened, then I think #2 is a reasonable fix.

Let's just vote on these three options, and if the winning solution doesn't work out, we'll vote again next semester. I propose that people get to vote for a first and second choice so that the crap that's about to go down in Connecticut doesn't happen here.

My vote:

First choice: #1
Second choice: #2

[Cray]

Justin, I totally agree with you that all the rules are questionable. But we have to make the effort, if the moderation by one person (and on his discretion) is not an option.

John, all 3 options you give are "there are no rules for some group of people", and you just define different groups of people. I would prefer if we outline what we want: discussion, selling personal items, renting an apartment, Salsa and so on. I personally do not know any non-moderated list right now (among non-social).

Zabeth, I personally want to know what to post to the forum and wnat to send to the list. We have to decide, that is not much work, we just have to do it together. Otherwise everything will go to the list, including the information which is better to have on forum.

My suggestion: after we have thought about possible solutions, we can meet (I had suggested to Peggy twice already that she calls for a meeting, as it is her idea to change something), and discuss and decide it during the meeting.

[Horatio]

I suggest that only announcements, meaning no followup discussion is expected, should be allowed on the mailing list. Anything that might spark a long discussion thread belongs in the forum. Anything that is not related to dancing should go in the forum, but dancing that is not directly related to our club is still allowed in the mailing list.

Specific examples:

Looking for suggestions about who to invite for a workshop: forum, but you can announce such a discussion over the mailing list

Dance party thrown by a member or by a member's friend: mailing list