[Nobbc] Guidance from the Administrator

[Greg Tatarian]

  Hello Folks,

I'd like to weigh in here as the administrator of this email forum. One 
of the founding ideals of this club was that there were no rules. That 
works as long as we behave in a civil manner and treat each other with 
respect. As we all know, email as a means of communication has its 
limitations, and email forums such as this do require that we adhere to, 
if not rules, than let's call them "reasonable principles of behavior".

It took me a year of cajoling Ron to establish an email forum for the 
club so that members could communicate together, and when we had bumps 
in the road or minor scuffles on the forum, Ron and I talked by phone 
and email about how to respond and what direction we wanted to influence 
the discussions. We as members are very good, on the whole, at 
self-administering our posts, and Ron always avoided laying down any 
firm ground rules, in the spirit of the club's philosophy, but also 
because Ron felt that we would all work things out as we went along. 
Despite this, there were several times where Ron had to take action by 
sending a personal email asking for a different approach or for a 
discussion to be ended, or in the case of hacked emails and/or email 
threats, temporarily unsubscribing a person when needed.

Since I have volunteered to take on this and other administrative 
responsibilities, I'd like to present some ground rules - or reasonable 
principles of behavior, for this forum. They are not oppressive and will 
not stifle free expression that is appropriate within the boundaries of 
this forum and our club. If you disagree with them and want to express 
sound reasons why, please do so - I am always open for discussion.

1) When replying to an email, please delete the original text whenever 
possible. This saves bandwidth both for the server and for everyone's 
email systems.

2) If you want to change a discussion, post under a new topic (subject 
line) - don't just hit reply to another topic.  Please do not hijack 
someone else's topic and veer the discussion away. This is basic email 
forum behavior; it is the only way for computer-based systems to allow 
accurate topic searches. It also is proper etiquette to allow an 
original post to stand on its own.

3) All the normal rules of acceptable behavior towards other posters 
apply here, such as; no abusive language, no ethnic or sexist slurs, no 
unfounded accusations, no flamewars, no threats. If you wouldn't say 
something to someone's face, don't write it in an email on this forum - 
send it privately, at your own peril. As I said above, we have been very 
good about this, but now it's being clearly stated.

4) Commercial advertising is not appropriate here. Again, this hasn't 
been a problem, I'm just stating it.

5) Personal advertising for items related to British cars is 
appropriate. That means occasional posts about a car or parts you are 
selling that have appeal to the membership. Repeated postings in a short 
time are not appropriate. Although many of us share other interests, I 
don't think it is appropriate to sell unrelated items on this list.

6) Spam - ah, yes, what constitutes spam? We have all noticed that some 
of the more trivial discussions on this list tend to go on and on and 
on, for days. I guess when we don't have something to say about the 
important stuff, it's easy to talk about the trivial, but my position is 
that posting information that relates to British cars is appropriate, 
while long discussions about totally unrelated topics is not. Posting 
information about laws, events, conditions or other things that impact 
us as drivers of British cars, is appropriate, but we start to stray 
afield when we flog a subject for days, or when we post information of a 
very general nature.

7) Beware of including unverified links in your posts. We don't want to 
spread viruses or other malware to other members. If you are unsure 
about the URL, don't post it, just suggest we Google the subject for 
ourselves.

Using recent postings as examples, while I understand and appreciate 
Andy's intentions to warn the club of potential hazards, this material 
is general in nature, and in fact, is re-hashed internet lore with no 
citations or references. As other posters pointed out, these warnings 
have been established as urban legends, and aren't really on topic for 
this email forum, despite the good intentions.  Why? Because there is no 
verification of fact or truth. As Steve Plath pointed out, snopes.com is 
a good resource for recognizing rumors and misinformation before posting 
to 138 members. It also happens that Andy posted this material right 
after Rick Adams' hacked email posted a link to the list, making 
everyone a bit nervous.

Using Andy's recent post in response to John, John's use of the list to 
advertise concert tickets is not appropriate in my opinion, since it is 
not on topic for our club. If we start doing this, I have a ton of crap 
I'd like to sell to you all... ;-) . John's advertising of his car 
storage facility is probably OK, since it is specific to our cars and is 
being offered to club members.

Last, if you object to what you are reading in posts on this forum, 
don't just take your marbles and go home - let people know. We are a 
very democratic club, and everyone should get a chance to use this 
forum. Rather than unsubscribing, perhaps you can start by deleting 
emails with topics that are not of interest to you (see, Principle #2 
has merit!), or as we often do, let people know that the dead horse has 
been flogged enough.

Hmm. Perhaps I've reached that point... ;-)

Cheers,

Greg Tatarian