(Guidelines for posting to the Information Systems Forum are posted
periodically for the edification of all.)




Dear ISF Colleagues,

Welcome to the Information Systems Forum, an online discussion for
nonprofit professionals who are interested information and
communication technologies to increase organizational effectiveness.

This is a moderated, flame-free email distribution list that is open
to anyone who is interested in the topic and willing to adhere to the
idea of civil society.

Here are a few tips for making your contributions to the list more readable:

o Write about subjects that pertain to information and
communication technologies for nonprofit organizations. Readers
subscribe to the list because they are interested in this specific
topic. If you stray too far from it, other members of the group are
likely to ignore your messages.

o Trim, trim, trim! Unnecessary repetitions of previous posts,
list footers, and signature lines are tedious for other members to
negotiate. If you're replying to a previous message, please trim away
everything but the essentials of that message and your response to it.
If you don't trim your post down, and I think that it would benefit
from trimming, then I edit it myself. This means extra work for me,
and a trim job for your message that you (as the author) may deem
unduly harsh.

o Clean up jagged margins; readers tend to get so discouraged
by them that they skip your message and go on to the next one.

o Double-check your subject line, and make sure that it
summarizes the topic. If you subscribe to the digest format of the
list, then the subject line will automatically be something like
"Digest Number 123." Please change it to something more topical. It's
also helpful to trim away clutter from previous generations of
forwarding; "FW: Funding for nonprofit technology" is much more
readable than "Fwd: FW: Re: [Other Listserv] RE: Funding for nonprofit
technology."

o Avoid using all capital letters. In email, this is equivalent
to shouting, and considered an insult to one's readers.

o Write for an international readership. If you say that an
event is happening tonight at "the Firehouse in J.P.," the Bostonians
will know that you mean "the Firehouse Multicultural Art Center in
Jamaica Plain," but maybe the folks in Thailand won't. And if they
need to fly in from Thailand to attend, it's probably a good idea to
give them more than a few hours' notice.

o Frame your message in the language of civil discourse, and
avoid inflammatory rhetoric. The rule of thumb is to assume that
others are motivated by the best intentions, even when you think that
they are gravely mistaken.

The following kinds of posts are always unacceptable for posting to this group.

o Flames, or rhetoric that might incite flames. Sometimes
members of the group have perfectly good points to make, but choose
language that is inflammatory. Posts that are simply attacks on
someone else's religion, operating system, ethics, ancestry, internet
service provider, or attitude are usually deleted without comment.

o Advertisements of products or services. As the group
moderator, I delete the blatant spam before the rest of the group ever
sees it, but there are some borderline cases. For example, each
newcomer is invited to introduce him/herself to the group upon
joining, and it's appropriate to mention any products or services that
he/she sells to the community. That's fine, but thereafter it's best
to let your satisfied customers recommend your product or service.
Another borderline case is announcements about conferences and
workshops. These are fine if they are specifically tailored to the
needs of our community. Bulletins about workshops and conferences
given by nonprofits are usually approved; posts about for-profit
organizations that offer these events are approved on a case-by-case
basis.

o Solicitations of cash donations for organizations or
individuals. Requests by nonprofits for in-kind donations of either
products or services are approved on a case-by-case basis.
(Legitimate offers of cash or in-kind donations are acceptable.)

o Off-topic questions, out-of-office auto-replies, and personal
messages that were never intended to go to the whole list. I try to
catch these before they go out, and they are usually deleted without
comment.

Please note that the moderator (Deborah Elizabeth Finn) and alternate
moderator (John McNutt) reserve the right delete any inappropriate
messages without circulating them to the group, or to bar disruptive
individuals from membership in the group. While I will do everything
possible to encourage community building, fruitful dialogue, and free
expression, the moderators remain the only arbiters of appropriate
content for this community.

Thanks for your attention to these guidelines.

Best regards from Deborah

Deborah Elizabeth Finn
Information Systems Forum moderator

Cyber-Yenta
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
www.cyber-yenta.org