ECAP Listserv Policy
Netiquette
The purpose of the Listservs sponsored by the Early Childhood and Parenting (ECAP) Collaborative at the University of Illinois is the exchange of information related to the topic of the Listserv among professionals and others. ECAP has established the following points as part of its Listserv policy related to general netiquette.
Respect for All Participants
It is expected that list members will respect the views of others on the list in all online conversations, regardless of how different the others’ views are from their own.
- Expressing opposing points of view can be done with consideration for the feelings of others. If you are upset and want to respond to a controversial posting, a good suggestion is to wait a day before sending your response.
- Use of profanity or derogatory comments is not appropriate.
Postings: General
- New members
New participants are encouraged to follow the discussions for a few days and then to post an introduction about themselves.
- Subject lines
To help other members screen messages that may be on topics of interest to them, use a short phrase in your subject line that describes the topic or topics included in your message.
- Short responses
Do not send one-line responses or other responses that do not add substantively to the discussion.
- Long responses
If you are responding to a long message, it is best to cut out those parts of that message that are not relevant to your response.
- Copyrighted materials
It is important to be aware of copyright issues on the Internet. Members should not post copyrighted information to the list (e.g., an extended excerpt from a research article). Please note that email messages, like written letters, are considered copyrighted by the author of the message. Therefore, it is inappropriate to forward another person's email message to the list without permission from that person.
- Signatures
It is helpful and courteous to "sign" your message or to include your signature with every message.
- Postings to individual members
To post a message to the entire list, send the message to the discussion address for that list. If you want to send a reply to an individual list member only, remember to change the address in the "To:" field of your outgoing message to that individual member’s email address, not the list discussion address.
Postings: Specific Types of Posts
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Jobs
Job and conference announcements generally ARE appropriate. (See related document, "Listserv Policy: Job and Conference Announcements.") -
>Commercial
Commercial postings generally ARE NOT appropriate. (See related document, "Listserv Policy: Advertisements of Products or Services.") -
Long Attachments
Generally, you should not post attachments to the list. Because many list members may not be interested in the attachment, it is discourteous to require them to spend downloading time and disk space (some members may be paying for time and disk space) for a document they don't want to read. Some email systems are unable to handle large attachments. Also, many list members are concerned about viruses that may accompany an attachment.
You should NEVER post long unsolicited attachments. If you have a long document that you think some list members may be interested in, either put the document on a Web site and let members know the URL of the page; or post a note to the list that you have the document and you will be glad to send it to anyone who specifically requests it from you. -
Questionnaires
Posting a questionnaire or other type of survey to the list IS NOT appropriate. If you would like list members to complete a survey, send a request to the list owner or list administrator describing what you would like to do. The list owner will determine if it is appropriate for the list members. Then, the list owner will post a message to the list describing the survey, and asking list members to contact you if they are interested in completing the survey. -
Chain letters
Posting chain letters IS NOT appropriate. This refers to any type of chain letter, whether it is a money-making letter, a petition, or a "feel good" letter. - Personal messages
It generally IS NOT appropriate to post to the entire list a message of a personal nature intended for one person. Simply send such a message to the person him- or herself.
Administrative Issues
Note that if your electronic mailbox becomes full or if your e-mail server is down, those who send you email messages will have their messages bounced back as error messages. If this happens when you are subscribed to a Listserv list, messages sent to you through the list by other list members will be bounced back to the list administrator's mailbox. After a certain amount of time, the Listserv software automatically deletes a subscriber when this happens. If your subscription is removed for this reason, you can, of course, always resubscribe when your mailbox is cleared or your server is back online.
If you have a question about the appropriateness of a posting that you would like to make to the list, or a complaint or comment about a posting that was made to the list, please contact the list owner (see the list page on the ECAP Web site for the list owner) or send an email message to the list administrator at listadmn@ecap-mailserver.crc.uiuc.edu.
ECAP will contact individuals who appear to be unaware of this policy, reminding them of our purpose. ECAP reserves the right to remove individuals from the list who continue to detract from discussion by violating list netiquette.
