A Brief FAQ
===========

Revision: $Id: lets-faq.txt,v 1.2 1997/02/13 06:21:31 russell Exp $


What is LETS?

The LETS (Local Employment Trading System) exchanges are a non-profit
local trading networks used by community members to exchange skills and
services; using their own currencies instead of Canadian currency. 


How does LETS work?

LETS Exchanges are based on alternate currencies called by various names,
such as Green Dollars or Ecodollars. These currencies are often equal in
value to federal dollars, except that no bills are ever issued. 

There are also hour-based currencies in which labour time is traded. All
such currencies are a form of community credit that is created through the
act of trading within a LETS system. They cannot be used except within the
community of their origin. This ensures that the full value of each
transaction stays in the community and can be used for further local
trading. 


Are commerical posts allowed in ott.community.lets?

Posting of trades could often constitute commercial postings for people
who make a living relating to the trade.  Commercial postings are not
allowed in Ottawa-wide discussion groups other than in the newsgroup
ott.business.ads . 

More details about commerical postings in ott.* groups is available at:
<URL http://www.pinetree.org/ONAG/ott.business.ads-charter_1.3a/>


A few words about Anti-Social behavior:

It has been suggested that a rule be made to disallow any form of
cross-posting to keep the postings of interest only to those outside of 
Ottawa away from this group intended for local discussions.  The problem 
with this proposal is twofold:

  a) It disallows legitimate cross-posting with other Ottawa-wide 
discussion groups where LETS may be an appropriate topic.
  b) It does not address the real problem, which is the flooding of 
off-topic messages to this LOCAL group.

  Tools that can be used to enforce a no-cross-posting rule, such as for 
ott.business.ads, are available and could be turned on.

 It is our hope that they will never need to be enabled.  Please 
be aware of the feelings of the community before posting topics not of 
local concern as you would be very directly responsible for this filter 
being enabled.

Let's be friendly here and make sure that we never get to the state 
where we need to police the content of this discussion group.


Other LETS related discussion groups:

own.eco.lets  - One World Network - Newsgroup
               http://homes.cls.de/users/t/thilo/own.html

econ-lets     - Mailing list from the UK.
               http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists-a-e/econ-lets/

lets-can@vcn.bc.ca  - mailing list out of Vancouver -- similar to the 
               UK's econ-lets. 

lets@vcn.bc.ca - List?

For more information see:
<URL:http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/multilets/>
<URL:http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/lets/>