These are the guidelines for emails, i.e. posting to the Laurel Village Yahoo Group listserv:
- Please keep communication respectful and remember that you are talking to people who live right near you, over 800 of them, and whom you might actually meet at some point, either at the drycleaners or a cafe. We are all your neighbors, who live and/or work in the Laurel District of Oakland, too.
- Events, information, and activities that you are involved with or support are appreciated an
- Local Business Thursdays: Local businesses, or individuals selling locally made products from the Laurel District, may make commercial announcements on the listserv on Thursdays, provided that these announcements do not occur more than once a month. Announcements of yard or garage sales will continue to be allowed. Items, goods, or property that neighbors might be getting rid of for free are also allowed. Please remember no commercial posts for the sale of real estate or personal property. It is appreciated that sales of this sort, such as furniture, cars, rentals, etc. be posted on sites such as Craigslist.
- Please no newsletters. Members are welcome to subscribe to local representatives newsletters on their own if they wish to receive them.
- Collecting email addresses for marketing purposes is not acceptable.
- Remember – emails sent to the list can be read by everyone on the list. It’s best NOT to include information, such as locations of house keys, home/work phone numbers, vacation plans, etc. But do include a first name and a street, so neighbors know you are a real person and have an idea as to where you live.
- Before posting about any criminal activity, please notify OPD first and indicate such in your post.
- Please no profanity.
- Requests for referrals on local services are welcome. It would be appreciated if people would search the listserv first. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/
Laurelvillage/messages Also appreciated would be responding just to the requester. The requester can then post a summary of all the responses to the listserv. - Please be careful when changing your “out of town” or “out of office” settings to prevent spamming your neighbors with each email sent! Messages are saved on the yahoo site so you won’t miss any while you are gone.
- Please no purposefully inflammatory posts. There’s a lot to get emotional about in this city these days. Getting others riled up does not work towards a stronger community.
- Please avoid personal attacks. Name calling is not appropriate for in-person conversations. Same goes with electronic ones.
- Posting announcements regarding political event in the Laurel or surrounding neighborhoods is fine. Writing an attack on any political perspective is not.
- If an email exchange gets to where there only two or three people are participating in a discussion, especially with regard to controversial subjects, i.e. emails sent out addressed only to one other participant with the group cc’d, it would be beneficial if the conversation was taken off list. If a few people are replying more than once to a post, we define it as having started a debate and this listserv isn’t the right venue for such.
Please remember to strive for positive communications and if the discourse gets into political or controversial territory, please keep it brief, provide links for those who want to further research and take the back and forth to a different venue. Also, for those who really want their perspective to get out to the world, there are free blogging sites out there: http://wordpress.com/ and Google’s Blogger, https://www.blogger.com/tour_
As to what will happen if participants do not follow the guidelines, as in the past, they will be emailed initially by the moderator and be reminded of what the guidelines are. Upon the second time of straying, the participant will be put on moderated status, which means all email communications go through the moderator and have to get approval before being seen by the listserv. If the subscriber continues to ignore the guidelines, they will no longer be allowed on the listserv.
Many of the people who subscribe to this listserv have done so to find out what is going on around them and to connect to their neighbors. While many issues deserve to be aired, wehave found that these back and forth conversations have gotten so voluminous ?10-20 emails at times ? that it takes hours to sort through them all and discourages many who might otherwise participate more actively.
As always, we are open to your feedback, ideas and concerns. You can connect with us via our website at https://www.laurelvillage.org/