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Discussion List Guidelines

Discussion List Guidelines

Amended July 2023.

  1. Before sending a message, think about whether most people will find it interesting. If it’s mainly aimed at one person, then it should be a private message.
  2. Saying thank you is always polite, but sending individual thank you emails to each person on the list who has helped is unnecessary. Send a personal thank you off list, or send a single thank you email to everyone on list instead.
  3. Please be civil, and do not use language that is offensive, inflammatory or provocative (this includes, but is not limited to, swearing and obscene or vulgar comments).
  4. Remember who the list is for; is the topic something which is likely to be specifically of interest to members of the list?
  5. Emails sent to the list are held in a publicly available archive. Before sending a message consider whether you are comfortable with this. Please do not post personal information such as telephone numbers, email addresses and address information unless you are sure you would like others to have access to it.
  6. Keep your email on topic. If the subject of your email changes, change the subject line.
  7. Do not post private messages from individuals, or communicate private information, without the clear consent of the owner.
  8. Advertisements of products and services cannot be placed on this list without the permission of the moderator. Short emails pointing to adverts and new information are welcome.
  9. No top quoting. Many access the list from work or in circumstances where we need to read messages as easily and quickly as possible. Top quoting and other erroneous characters make this hard to do and in a lot of cases, stop people from reading what you have to say.
  10. While we all enjoy a good laugh, people need to access the list information as quickly as possible, so please avoid posting jokes, anecdotes or miscellaneous information.
  11. Please do not post comments which break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright.

NB: We moderate all messages and reserve the right to remove those which break our moderation guidelines. This is not about censoring your views. Moderation will not be used to suppress legitimate, reasoned discussion, criticism or complaints.