[Culturechat] Culturechat: a moderated list and Monthly Netiquette Guidelines

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 16:08:42 -0500

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Culturechat is now a moderated list. This won't change the nature of the
list except for a few things. When you post you will automatically
receive a message that says:

<dl>
<dd>Your mail to 'Culturechat' with the subject : [Whatever the subject
line you gave] 
<dd>Is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.
The reason it is being held:Post to moderated list 
</dl>Everybody will always get that message. It doesn't have anything
to do with the specific content of the message. 
 
Either the message will get posted to the list, or you will receive
notification of any other decision by the moderator. As long as your
posting follows the guidelines below, you will see it on Culturechat in
short order. We won't be editing on the basis of politics. 
 
We are putting this policy into effect on a trial basis. Because opinions
differ so strongly on many issues that are currently affecting travel and
culture, we think it is natural that the &quot;tone of voice&quot; might
get a little strident. The moderating capacity simply allows someone here
at Idyll to read all messages before they are posted. Many listservs do
this automatically. On the rare chance that someone's post is way
off-base, the posting will be returned to the poster with a reminder
about the Netiquette Guidelines. 
 
We have already begun the moderation, as of Friday. As you can see from
the postings that have been on Culturechat for the past few days, we
don't &quot;moderate&quot; on the basis of your opinion. Still a wide
range of opinons and topics. We just moderate on the basis of staying
within reasonable distance of the guidelines below. Our moderator(s) (
the moderating duties will probably rotate amongst a few different staff
folks here) will only be there as safetey net. 
 
We know Culturechat folks and we know that there is only a very small
chance anyone would lose perspective to that degree, but in that rare
case, we'd rather have our moderators be the only ones to have to read a
truly offensive post. 
 
This doesn't mean you will like everything you read on Culturechat. As we
have said before, we appreciate an open dialogue. It does mean that
insults, obscenities and other extremes probably won't make it to your
mail box. 
 
Several other items: 
 
We agree with several posters who suggest that extended political
opinions probably fit the purpose of Culturechat better than Idyllchat.
Idyllchat's purpose to discuss Untours and the destinations that they
cover. Mainly travel. That being said, we're not particularly strict
about keeping to the subject and don't find a little politics on
Idyllchat too dismaying. Extended discussions are probably not of general
interest in Idyllchat but are more than welcome (within the Netiquette
guidelines) here at culturechat@untours.com 
 
 
If you would like to reply to this message or comment on the
&quot;moderation&quot; of the list, please reply using the subject line
Culturechat: a moderated list. That way people who are not
interested in discussing this procedural change to Culturechat can avoid
clicking those with that subject. 
 
We may find that moderating is not always necessary, and eliminate it at
some point in the future. We'll see how it goes. The bottom line is that
we want Culturechat (and Idyllchat)&nbsp; to be lively but welcoming
discussions. 
 
Netiquette/ Technical Guidelines 
 
Postings: General Etiquette 
 
Those new to Culturechat New participants are encouraged to monitor
the messages for a few days to get a feel for what the general topics of
conversation are. Look over Culturechat archives if you want to be even
more familiar with the range of topics over time. (Found at
<a href="http://www.untours.com/" eudora="autourl">www.untours.com</a>)
When you feel comfortable with the group, then start posting. A good
ground rule regarding whether your post is useful is to ask yourself if
it would add to the general knowledge of the group. 
 
Message content: Focus on one subject per message. If you want to
cover two different topics, send two different postings with appropriate
subject lines for each. 
 
Editing your reply messages When quoting another person, it is a
courtesy (not a rule) to edit out whatever isn't directly applicable to
your reply. People who have very full email boxes will appreciate it if
you take the time to edit any quotations down to the minimum necessary to
provide context for your reply. 
 
Capitals Do NOT write in all caps. This is considered shouting.
Use caps only to show emotions, like SURPRISE or to add emphasis to what
you are saying. 
 
Questions that have been covered Be tolerant of questions you have
heard before. We invite new members all the time; they will not always be
aware of a discussions held earlier. 
 
Disagreement Expressing opposing points of view can be done with
consideration for the feelings of others. If you are upset and want to
respond to a controversial posting, a good suggestion is to wait a day
before sending your response. 
 
Subject Lines To help other members screen out messages that may
not be on topics of interest to them, always include a pertinent subject
title or a ‘content-rich” subject line. Doing this helps everyone: user
can locate specific messages quickly; people can pick and choose which
messages they want to read. If you change the subject when replying to an
earlier message, change your subject line, or divide your reply into two
messages. 
 
Tone of voice Be careful in your use of humor and especially
sarcasm in your communication. E-mail is not face-to-face and it is quite easy for someone to interpret your message in a way other than you intended. 
 
Short messages Limit one-line responses (“me, too”, “I agree”). Again, a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself “Does my response add substantively to the discussion?”. If it doesn’t, but you would like to express your appreciation, send your positive feedback to the individual member, not the whole list. (You do this by finding their email address, listed in the FROM: part of the posting. Use this as your address line to an individual member, rather than idyllchat@untours.com) That being said, if you think a brief comment adds to the discussion, short messages are also perfectly welcome. 
 
Appropriate Language Use of profanity or derogatory comments is not appropriate. In addition, avoid personal criticism. Whether or not such observations are warranted, research on online communities has shown that a critical tone in postings intimidates other members and discourages participation. We want Culturechat to be a welcoming kind of community. 
 
Technical Guidelines 
Culturechat welcomes members with all ranges of technical expertise. Please feel free to participate even if you are brand new to email and computers in general. Technical advice from other members is just that, advice. That being said, technical advice is often very useful in this electronic medium to which most of us are so new. On this list in particular, we ask you to have patience with each other. Everyone was a network ‘newbie’ once. Minor errors need not be corrected. If you think a technical correction is warranted, send a courteous correction to the person via private email. Technical advice that you think is useful to everyone is greatly appreciated. 
 
Copyrighted materials It is important to be aware of copyright issues on the Internet. Members should not post copyrighted information to the list (e.g., a travel article published in a magazine). Please note that email messages, like written letters, are considered copyrighted by the author of the message. Therefore, it is inappropriate to forward another person's email message to the list without permission from that person. It is perfectly acceptable to quote briefly from copyrighted material and provide a hyper link reference as to where others may read more. 
 
Signatures It is helpful and courteous to &quot;sign&quot; your message or to include your signature with every message. Some email programs do this automatically; others will need to type it in their post each time. 
 
Postings to individual members To post a message to the entire list, send the message to culturechat@untours.com. If you want to send a reply to an individual list member only, remember to change the address in the &quot;To:&quot; field of your outgoing message to that individual member’s email address, found in their message, rather than posting to culturechat.com as a whole. 
 
Technical questions posted to the entire group Occasionally subscribers to the list who are not familiar with proper netiquette will submit requests to SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE directly to the list itself. Be tolerant of this activity, and possibly provide useful advice to the person via private email, as opposed to being critical. 
 
Requests regarding administrative tasks When you would like to make technical changes to your membership, e.g. be added or subtracted, or change your email, temporarily disconnect from Culturechat, you can do that yourself by going to the Idyll website (<a href="http://www.untours.com/" eudora="autourl">www.untours.com</a>) You will find a link to Idyllchat Discuss Untours on the home page. Please do not post these requests to the general list. Try making the changes using our website. If you have technical problems making the changes yourself, we will be happy to do them for you, and you can send such requests TO: marilee.taussig@untours.com, SUBJECT: Culturechat Administrative Request. 
 
Attachments Generally, you should not post attachments to Culturechat. . Because many list members may not be interested in the attachment, it is discourteous to require them to spend downloading time and disk space (some members may be paying for time and disk space) for a document they don't want to read. Some email systems are unable to handle large attachments. Also, many list members are concerned about viruses that may accompany an attachment. Links (hypertext/ web addresses/URLs) are not attachments. It is OK (often quite useful) to include links to web sites in your posting.

Marilee Taussig, 
Marketing Director 
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Untours - Independent Travel With Support! 
Tel.: 888-UNTOUR-1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Web:
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