Wendell Townsfolk Code of Conduct and List Guidelines
Introduction
Wendell Townsfolk was started by two town residents, one who created the
structure and one who offered to host the listserv on his private
server. The list is managed by Wendell resident volunteers.
Wendell Townsfolk has no connection to the town of Wendell, although
some resident members also serve the Town of Wendell in various
departments. Please direct any complaints, comments or questions
regarding Town business to the appropriate department or committee
through Wendell's town website https://www.wendellmass.us
.
Wendell Townsfolk is open to anyone who lives or has lived in Wendell.
Present members, who live in abutting towns and have no prior Wendell
residency are grandfathered. All new subscription requests are vetted
for Wendell residency.
Applicability & Scope
The purpose of this code of conduct is to cultivate, support and
maintain a safe and respectful community environment reflected in all
list interactions.
This code of conduct applies both to discussions on the list and those
continued off list between individuals in direct response to list posts.
Wendell Townsfolk Expects Friendliness, Consideration and Civility:
List related exchanges should exhibit respectful engagement conducive to
the cultivation and maintenance of a comfortable, inclusive and safe
community environment.
When someone asks for help, politely suggest specific documentation,
contact information, website or more appropriate venues.
Discerning common-sense considerations are recommended before, rather
than after, sending posts or responses. Addressing the issue in a
thoughtful or informative manner is encouraged. You statements and
name calling that is direct and personal to another list member is
unacceptable.
In general, if you would not feel comfortable saying something to a
co-worker or acquaintance, it is more than likely not appropriate on
Wendell Townsfolk or in an exchange with a list member taken anywhere
off list. Avoid aggressive or vague responses which are not in the
spirit of the list.
Finally, disagreement is no excuse for poor conduct or personal attacks.
A community where people feel uncomfortable is not a productive one.
Respect of Time and Attention
List members are often busy people and some members may have limited
data use or web access. Emails that are brief and conversations that
remain focused and on topic create an efficient and tidy list.
To identify list participants, all list members are asked to end their
posts with their full first and last names as a first name can be the
same for more than one list member. If you are better known in Wendell
by a name other than your legal name, please note that in a message.
Your address is optional under your name however addresses are helpful
when a pet is lost or an event is announced in an area of town.
Respect of List Member Personal Information and Privacy:
List member email addresses may appear in list messages either because
that member either chooses to include it in their post or is ccd in a
discussion. Various mail readers display sender information differently.
Other web related information specific to the members online
associations or activities may also appear in a members signature,
including a home address or phone number. This personal *proprietary
*information may not to be used without permission unless that poster is
specifically asking to be contacted within their post request.
When list members contact each other privately, they generally assume
that their messages will remain private. Do not share private messages
with the list without the permission of the other party. If someone has
sent you a harassing or abusive message, please report it as described
below to a team of three administrative moderators rather than sharing
it with the list, as moderators will take action based on the code of
conduct.
Wendell Townsfolk will not tolerate abuse or harassment of any kind.
Examples of abuse or harassment include:
Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression,
sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality,
physical appearance, pregnancy status, veteran status, political
affiliation, marital status, body size, age, race, national origin,
ethnic origin, nationality, immigration status, language, religion or
lack thereof, or other identity marker. This includes
anti-Indigenous/Nativeness and anti-Blackness.
Unwelcome comments regarding a person's lifestyle choices and practices,
including those related to food, health, parenting, relationships,
drugs, and employment.
Stalking or following online or in the physical world.
Derogatory, discriminatory, threatening, *vulgar, abusive* or
inflammatory language towards another.
Libelous, knowingly false, misrepresentation of another.
Violating the privacy of others.
Unwelcome sexual attention.
Patterns of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming
inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.
Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease.
Reporting Incidents of Abuse or Harassment:
If you are fearful for your physical safety or are being threatened with
violence, call the police. If you are subject to or wish to report
unacceptable behavior, adverse to this code of conduct, that involves
Wendell Townsfolk interaction on list, off list or online, please notify
the Administrative Moderator Team as soon as possible at
wendell-townsfolk-owner@deepsoft.com.
Enforcement Process
Every code of conduct violation report will be treated with seriousness
and care. If a member's immediate safety and security is threatened, an
individual administrative moderator may take any action that they deem
appropriate, up to and including temporarily banning the offender from
the community and encouraging the victim to enlist the aid of the
police. In less urgent situations, at least two moderators will discuss
the offense and arrive at a suitable response, which will be shared with
the offender privately. The decision of the administrative moderator
team will be considered final.
Moderators will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of
protecting victims of abuse. However, at the moderators discretion, the
offender may be publicly named or third parties may be informed if doing
so will increase the safety of the list members or the general public.
Moderators will not name any victim without their affirmative consent.
Consequences
Participants asked to stop abusive or harassing behavior are expected to
comply immediately. If a participant engages in abusive or harassing
behavior, the moderators may take any action they deem appropriate, up
to and including expulsion from the community and identification of the
participant as an abuser or harasser to other members. At the discretion
of the moderators, or by request, one or more of the parties involved
may request to discuss the violation and how to avoid similar situations
in the future.
(End Code of Conduct)
LIST GUIDELINES
Trimming Messages
When replying to a posting, many E-Mail programs will append the
previous message(s) to the end of your reply. As additional replies are
made, this 'tail' of previous messages grows and grows. There is a
limit on how large a message can be before it is held for moderator
review. If you are not replying to ALL of the previous messages, it
makes sense to delete those parts of the tail that are not relevant to
your reply.
Hijacking Threads
When you are posting a new message, create it as a new message and don't
just reply to a random existing message. Most E-Mail program have an
Address Book feature. You can use this feature to store the list
address and have the mail program fill in the To: field from addresses
stored in your address book, instead of finding an old address and
replying to it. The address to send messages to the list is
wendell-townsfolk@deepsoft.com
Large Attachments
The Townsfolk List is a text only list. If you have pictures or
documents (including posters and fliers) to share, you should upload
the pictures or documents to a picture or document sharing web site
(there are lots and lots of these and most are free) and include the
URL (Uniform Resource Location -- a web address) of your uploaded
picture or document in a short text message.
Replying to messages
There are two ways to reply to a message. Most mailers have two reply
buttons or commands. Typically, these are 'Reply' and 'Reply to All'.
Selecting 'Reply' will send a *private* reply to the person who posted
the message you are replying to. This makes the most sense when
replying to something like an item for sale, for example. Selecting
'Reply to All' makes sense if you are contributing to an ongoing
discussion, since this reply will go to everyone on the list.
Replying to a Digest
If youve chosen to receive your list messages in digest format,
a grouped mailing of list messages rather than individual messages,
please remember, when you reply to the list to delete and change your
message subject to the subject youre replying to in the digest.
Additionally, deleting the digest contents you are not replying to
will shorten your message.
. ADMINISTRIVIA
The list address is wendell-townsfolk@deepsoft.com. Sending to this
address sends to the entire list. If you have a question about the list
or your subscription, etc. you can send a message to
wendell-townsfolk-owner@deepsoft.com.
This will go to the list owner (Robert Heller). There are a few
other E-Mail addresses that might be of use:
wendell-townsfolk-join@deepsoft.com
wendell-townsfolk-subscribe@deepsoft.com
These two addresses join or subscribe to the list. The two
addresses do exactly the same thing and are completely interchangeable.
wendell-townsfolk-leave@deepsoft.com
wendell-townsfolk-unsubscribe@deepsoft.com
These two addresses do the reverse of what the previous two
addresses do. They take you off the list. Again, the two addresses do
exactly the same thing and are completely interchangeable.
wendell-townsfolk-request@deepsoft.com
This address lets you talk to the Mailman robot about your list
settings. The Mailman is rather simple minded and does not really
understand English. Sending a message with a subject of 'help' or just
the word 'help' on a line by itself in the body of the message will get
you a set of instructions of what the Mailman robot can do for you.
In addition, there is a web address where you can get information about
the list, visit the archives, and modify your list settings. That
address is:
http://mailman.deepsoft.com/mailman/listinfo/wendell-townsfolk
One can subscribe to the list from this page, visit the archives (you'll
need to enter your E-Mail address and your password), and do various
other things relating to your subscription (this last bit it down at the
bottom of the page).
Here is a brief list of the things you can change:
Membership information: your name and/or your E-Mail address.
Unsubscribe from the list.
List your other subscriptions at deepsoft.com.
Get a password reminder.
Change your password.
Turn mail delivery on or off (turning it off is good if you are going
to be away for a while).
Select digest mode (messages collected in a daily digest) or direct
send mode (messages are sent one by one).
Select mime or plain text digest mode (this is a bit techy).
Receive your own posts? yes/no
Receive acknowledgment mail when you send mail to the list? yes/no
Get [monthly] password reminder email for this list? yes/no
Conceal yourself from subscriber list? yes/no (only the list admins can
see the subscriber list, so this is somewhat useless).
Avoid duplicate copies of messages? yes/no (Reply All will likely
include you as a Cc and this avoids sending you an extra copy of the
message).
And you can select to receive messages relating to a specific set of
topics.
Subject lines and Keywords: Topics
This list has the 'Topics' feature enabled. At present these topics
have been defined:
A) Buy Sale Trade Free Wanted
Keywords: For Sale, For Free, For Trade, Wanted, Needed
Description: Stuff for sale, free, or trade.
B) Jobs
Keywords: Job Offer, Job Wanted, Looking for work
Description: Jobs offered or wanted
C) Event
Keywords: Event, Performance, Party
Description: Event Announcement
D) Town
Keywords: Town
Description: Town Announcements, events, hearings, meetings, etc.
E) Lost and Found
Keywords: Lost, Found
Description: Anything lost or found, including pets
F) The List
Keywords: List
Description: Messages about the list itself
G) Admin
Keywords: Admin
Description: Administrative Messages
H) Advice Sought
Keywords: Seeking Advice About, Looking for Information, Advice Sought
Description: Advice sought, looking for advice, etc.
If any of the keywords listed above occur in either the Subject:
heading or in a Keywords: header Mailman (the list management software)
will 'pigeonhole' the message with the topic listed. People on the
list can choose to receive messages that are flagged as pertaining to
one or more specified topics.
Otherwise you should use concise and complete subject headings. The
subject heading should provide a complete and useful 'one-line'
synopsis of what the message is about. It is good to come up with a
subject title that gives enough information so that people can skip the
message if it is not something that they are interested in (or can
relegate it mail folder for later reading).