Cycle Sheffield Email List Protocol

Q1 – What items are welcome on the list?

• Items about cycling relevant to Sheffield
• comment,
• personal experiences,
• ideas, requests for information and advice,
• information about events,
• occasional personal cycle-related sales/wants (as long as you are a CycleSheffield member)
• reasoned debate,
• discussion of specific problems or difficulties.
• requests for empathy when motorists mistreat you
• replies to requests for empathy
• advertisements for cycle promotion jobs in the Sheffield area

Q2 – What isn’t welcome on the list?

• Personal abuse or offensive comments of a personal nature
• language that some might find offensive
• trade adverts
• woffle
• sexism/racism
• trolling (starting an argument for the sake of it)
• Intemperate ranting.
• obsessive pursuit of a subject following a dispute on the list, that may cause offence even if the email content is courteous.

Q3 – Can I ask a question about cycling in Sheffield on the list?

Yes but please have a look at the Frequently Asked Questions page first – you might find the answer there.

Q4 – If I come across a local difficulty for cyclists that I think needs drawing to someone’s attention what should I do about it.

Write about it to the list so that CycleSheffield who attend the City Cycle Forum (meeting with the council) know about it.

Q5 – How can I cope with all these emails?

There are several ways of viewing our email list:

(i) Receive each email as it is sent

(ii) Receive an abridged version of email – in this mode you get the first few lines of each email and a link to the full text. You need to be using a Google account to access this.

(iii) Receive a digest of the postings, usually every day if there have been several posts.

(iv) Don’t receive any emails but view the group on the Google Groups website. You need to be using a Google account to access this

(v)  You can also view the group as an embedded forum on our Members Google Site. In this mode you can have any of the options above activated.

If you are using a Google account to receive our email you can change these settings on the Google Groups page. If you’re not, you can ask us to change them.

If you’d rather not participate in the discussions you can get occasional newsletters and mailouts – again, please ask us.

Q5 – Can I send attachments to the list?

Answer: Small attachments (Under 1MB) are OK. Larger ones clog up the mailboxes of those who are relying on webmail or G3 mobile to read their messages. If you have an attachment such as a word document you would like to share with other members please send it to cyclesheffield@gmail.com, and we will put it up on the web site for downloading, or notify members that it is available if they wish to contact you directly. Google Drive is increasingly being used to share documents without sending them as attachments.

Q6 – Can I ask someone to post a message for me?

No you can’t. If it’s worth saying you should be able to say it yourself.

Q7. How should I format my messages?

If you are responding to a specific point from a previous post, please trim everything from the post except the point that you are replying to. If you don’t do this, subscribers in digest mode end up with reams of text that obscures the point of the discussion.

3. Acceptable Use Policy

Exchanging emails with others generally involves using common sense regarding the content material and being polite and courteous. The vast majority of our members understand what is appropriate when sending or receiving emails. Regrettably, there are occasions when individuals or groups of people exchange emails or involve in online activities, which are considered to be unacceptable by the Internet community. This is described by the generic term of “abuse of email policy”.

Abuse of email policy

It is not always obvious whether an activity is innocent, inadvertent, or intentional but as a general rule, email users should be aware that what is unacceptable (and possibly illegal) offline (oral or written), applies equally online. As with telephone calls, you must not send any emails which cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.

You should not send messages likely to cause distress or any other material which is distressing, grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing or in any way unlawful. This includes any material which may be offensive to people on grounds of gender, race, colour, religion or other similar categorisation.

When dealing with others who are not members of the campaign, whether council or government, private companies or members of the public, always remain courteous and avoid personal comments or allegations as to the competence of the person involved. Failure to do so is regarded as a serious threat to the good relations the campaign has built up over the years with other organisations.

We will operate the following sanctions against those who break these guidelines.

1st occasion of abuse of email policy: Opportunity to address the problem, emails being moderated for a three week period

Any disputes or discussions must take place off list.

Immediate 2nd occasion of abuse of email policy: Permanent suspension from the list.

There is no right of appeal. However, the decision to suspend someone will be subject to peer review and the person making an abusive email will have the opportunity to right any wrongs and prevent a suspension. Except for extreme cases which will lead to automatic suspension without discussion.

Where such abuse takes place outside the realm of email, cyclesheffield policies apply equally. The following policy was adopted at the meeting on the 21st June 2001:

“anyone declaring membership of CycleSheffield should express only those views which accord with the agreed manifesto or decisions made at CycleSheffield meetings” .

Again, where this rule is violated it will be made plain to all concerned that the views expressed are not those of CycleSheffield.

Any Comments? send ‘em to the FAQ maintainer or the Mailing List Owners.