This forum is "auto-moderated". The moderator only screens messages from people who are not yet subscribers. This cuts out inappropriate and 'hit and run' commercial postings. It strikes a balance between the ease of access available through public newsgroups, and the responsibility in postings seen by 'membership required' discussion groups. Add into this a moderator that will approve appropriate messages from unknown people, and you hopefully have the best of all worlds.
Nonetheless, subscribers should consider that all postings to the group
will be open to public view via Usenet and the website. Subscribers are
asked to comply with these guidelines (you may wish to post it conveniently
near your computer):
1. WHAT TO POST:
Basically, only items from which many people are likely to benefit,
as follows:
a) Information on events and planned events relating to the MAI, whether in favour or in protest against the proposed treaty.
b) The text of published articles and essays relating to the MAI, provided that prior permission has been obtained from the copyright-holders where necessary.
c) Reference information for books and articles for which permission to reproduce has not been obtained, or which are too long (i.e. a page or two) for a single e-mail message.
d) Information on organizations which have come forward in favour of or against the MAI.
e) Copies of letters, faxes and e-mail messages sent to politicians, government agencies, the media, etc. calling for public debate of the MAI before it is signed or expressing citizens' concerns over its contents.
f) Suggestions for future activities by individuals or community organizations, names and addresses of people to contact about the issue, and other pertinent information.
g) Opinions and interpretations of the MAI as a whole, particular clauses of the MAI draft, or its implications for international, national, provincial or local laws, socio-economic conditions, the environment or human rights.
h) Discussion of the various possible strategies for bringing the issues involved to public attention.
i) Courteous, topical replies to postings by other subscribers, quoting _relevant excerpts_ from previous messages rather than repeating those messages in their entirety, i.e. one or two lines of the original message to set the context for your remarks. It takes only a second to delete the bulk of a message. People do not have time to re-read numerous messages only to find a brief remark.
2. WHAT NOT TO POST:
a) Any material not directly or indirectly related to the Multilateral Agreement on Investments, often cross-posts intended for other lists.
b) Extended discussion, articles or opinion-statements on matters peripheral to the MAI and its consequences.
c) Copyright material for which permission to post has not been obtained.
d) Personal or off-topic remarks, line-by-line refutations of other people's opinions, and insults.
e) Comments intended for one or more individuals rather than all subscribers: please post these messages to the individuals concerned, NOT the list. It takes only a second to find the individual's personal email address in the message header and then post your reply to him/her.
f) Messages promoting the interests of other organizations, companies or individuals for purposes other than the purposes of this list.
g) FILE ATTACHMENTS (graphics, wordprocessor files, "winmail.dat" format files) which may cause major problems for those using different software from your own. Instead, post ASCII text, or a brief message offering to forward attachments to those interested.
h) Articles that have already been posted on the same newsgroup. Please check your incoming mail before deciding to send a long posting from an outside source, in case someone else has already done so. It is especially discourteous when the same person posts the same article two or three times.
i) Articles larger than 40000 characters in size. Many people have limits to the size of their mailboxes, and some need to pay for their network bandwidth in bytes. If you have a large message you wish to post please consider putting it on a Webpage somewhere and posting only the URL to the discussion group.
j) Messages including large lists of Carbon-Copied recipients. These lists are often used to SPAM people so it is just not friendly to include them on a public list. Please make use of the Blind-Carbon-Copy feature of your mailer for any postings to MAI-NOT.
3. TECHNICAL ISSUES:
a) When you post a message to the flora.mai-not group, the message is not sent directly to the news system but first to the mai-not@flora.org mailing list address. This means there will be a delay before you see your posting in the mai-not group.
b) Cross-posting is not supported. Since mai-not postings are automatically approved and posted by a program, cross-posting needs to be disabled in order to ensure that nobody will ever cross-post to mai-not as a method of bypassing the moderator for a different conference.
c) Carbon-Copies do not always work. If you carbon-copy a message to two different mailing lists that are gated to a newsgroup, only one of those messages will appear in the news archive, visible from one group. This is because the NEWS system does not allow two messages with the same Message-ID to exist.
d) Threading doesn't currently work. This is a problem with the current tool, and volunteers are requested to contact Russell McOrmond if they are willing to help.
THANK YOU for complying with these guidelines. Feel free to offer suggested
changes to Terry Cottam at di238@freenet.carleton.ca. (Rev. Oct 14,
1998 by Russell McOrmond, russell@flora.org)
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