Mailing list
Contents
List URLs
The official, members-only mailing list
- How to post
- either click that link right up there and use the New Topic button
- or send email to i3detroit@googlegroups.com
- Explicitly appropriate traffic
- Communication between members about the organization, policy discussions, etc.
- Communication between members about the space, tool maintenance, etc.
- Discussion of announcements that were posted to -announce.
- Explicitly prohibited traffic
- "Me-too!" posts and other replies that add no actual content to the discussion.
- Abusive posts, flaming, general cyberdouchery.
- Cross-posting between this and -public. (Members are expected to keep up with both, and those who do should not be penalized by getting things twice.)
- Hey guys! I saw this on the internet! and other traffic with no specific i3 connection.
- Personal communication between members that holds no relevance to the rest of us.
The official, public mailing list
- How to post
- either click that link right up there and use the New Topic button
- or send email to i3detroit-public@googlegroups.com
- Explicitly appropriate traffic
- Member-to-non-member communication, class announcements, event postings.
- Non-member-to-member communication, signup questions, host-and-guest coordination. (But please take it off-list, i.e. email each other directly, once it reaches a point where that's possible.)
- Job postings for LOCAL jobs that might have something to do with i3's community. (Direct, i.e. non-recruiter, postings preferred.) Particularly if a member's company is hiring, but "outsider" postings are OK too if they're relevant.
- General tech discussion if it has a *kerspace-related angle.
- Explicitly forbidden traffic
- Me-too posts, abusive posts, flaming and general dickishness.
- Job postings that AREN'T LOCAL, have insignificant overlap with the community, or look spammy in general. (Recruiters aren't automatically spam, but are treated skeptically.)
- Hey-guys-i-saw-this-on-buzzfeed, and other traffic with no specific i3 or *hackerspace/makerspace connection.
- Cross-posting between this and the members-only group. (As above.)
Note that new subscribers are moderated until they make their first post. Due to the size of the public list's distribution, and the propensity of new posters to actually be spammers or otherwise totally botch their first post, new posters join in moderated state. When they make their first post, if it isn't junk, they're set to approve this and all future posts from this author, and no longer moderated.
This has been overwhelmingly effective in reducing spam on -public, but it sometimes surprises or confuses people. Don't worry, it's normal and it only happens once! (Unless they totally botch a few posts in a row, in which rare case they may be set back to moderated status while we sort things out. This has only been used 2 or 3 times.)
The official, members-only low-traffic moderated announcement mailing list
- How to post
- either click that link right up there and use the New Topic button
- or send email to i3detroit-announce@googlegroups.com
- Note that the -announce list is MODERATED and posts may be examined before being approved.
- Explicitly appropriate traffic
- Important stuff: Parking tickets, vote announcements.
- Emergencies that require alerting the membership.
- Explicitly forbidden traffic
- Discussion of announcements. If you wish to reply to an announcement, address it to the members-only list, above.
All members should be subscribed to all three lists as part of New Member Orientation.
Please be considerate of your fellow members and keep the chatter and "me too" replies to a reasonable level. The Members' list may occasionally be thrown into Moderation when things get out-of-hand.
Mailing List Etiquette
Attitude:
- Assume good faith.
- Be excellent to each other.
- Gently correct, off-list the first time.
- Offer help, not derision.
- If you must criticize, back it up with facts, not feelings.
- In that case, be sure to offer a path to make it right.
- Keep your vitriol on your own blog
Volume:
- When you make one post, roughly a hundred people to have to read it.
- The mailing list is not chat. Please use IRC or Slack or off-list email for that.
- If every member posts ONE MESSAGE A DAY, the resulting deluge overwhelms us
- Therefore, strive only to post when you materially contribute to the discussion.
- Resist the urge to "chime in", as this snowballs and doesn't add to the discussion.
- Make your first post in a thread count. Put in all the detail you think people might ask about, to avoid the ask-and-respond message pingpong.
- If you have multiple posts within a single thread to reply to, chop 'em all into a single reply, rather than posting back-to-back.
Choice of venue:
- direct email is often the best, unless there's a reason we should all see it.
- i3detroit-public is appropriate for local events, tech questions, etc.
- i3detroit (the members-only list) is for stuff-in-the-shop, and private business.
- For chit-chat, try Slack.
Technical:
- To start a new thread, email the list directly or use the New Post button on the Groups website. DO NOT REPLY TO AN OLD MESSAGE WITH A NEW SUBJECT LINE. That breaks things.
- Trim your quoted section to just the relevant parts. Some mailers do horrid things with quoted sections and we all have to slog through it.
- If replying off-list, try to remember to change the [i3detroit] subject tag to something else, so their filters know it's not a list email.
- Rather than playing schedule-tennis, use When Is Good? to figure out when people are available.
- When putting together a group order, use a Google Spreadsheet or a page right here on this wiki, to track requests and payments.
- If replying to a digest, DO NOT REPLY TO THE DIGEST. Go to the web interface and reply to the specific thread in question.
How to reply off-list
- When someone says "reply off-list", they mean "email me personally, not everyone".
- If you're using your personal email client to compose the reply, REMOVE "i3detroit@googlegroups.com" FROM THE ADDDRESS FIELD
- If you're replying from within the Groups interface, it's this function right here:
Hall of Fame
Terry's Song of the Kiln in the style of Dr. Seuss
“There was a Space,” quoth he The Rime of the Ancient Hacker.
Specific topics
Some netiquette advice from 1983. Some of the details have changed in the thirty years since then, but some like "use mail instead", "exhibit care", and "use appropriate titles" are truly timeless.
Moderation
Moderation is usually triggered by an outbreak of incivility or an overwhelming volume of messages. Persistent offenders may find themselves moderated even when the rest of the group is not. As moderation progresses, this page will/should/may be updated with examples of messages that were zorched from the moderation queue, and why.
