MTB-OZ Posting Guidelines

Guidelines
Acceptable topics are anything that's even peripherally related to mountain biking and Australia. Total tangents will be tolerated, particularly if they are amusing, as long as they don't generate a deluge of complaints from other list users.

Commercial postings are NOT permitted except express permission of the list owner or manager. I have no objection to people making a living, but I set mtb-oz up as a hobby. I don't use it to make money and I don't see why anyone else should either.

In addition, members of this mailing list are not permitted to use the resources it provides for commercial purposes. This includes obtaining the list's member list and using that list to send commercial e-mail without going through the mechanism of the list itself.

Discussion in mailing lists often gets heated. That's fine - passion is good. However, if such passion degenerates to personal abuse, then it gets nobody anywhere. Unless abuse is particularly witty and entertaining it should be taken to e-mail. Yellow cards will be waved and red cards may follow.

These guidelines can only be enforced by the list owner and managers. If you want to play net.cop, go start your own list.

Experience of the way certain topics tend to take over mailing lists, means that some things are beyond the pale. Messages on the following topics may bring on summary delisting:

• Virus warnings -- most of these are hoaxes anyway, and list members don't all useWintel PCs. Here are some sources of information on virus hoaxes. Read these before sending on a virus warning:
  • Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability
  • Symantec Anti Virus Research Center
  • The Urban Legends Web Site
  • Urban Legends Reference Pages
  • F-Secure Hoax Warnings
• Mac vs PC -- Who cares which billion dollar corporation you want to give your money to?
• Very large postings -- attempts to post images or executables to the list will fail. If you want to make an image, or other large file available to the list, post a URL or -- for images -- send it to me and I will put it up here.
• Netlore -- Do not post big lumps of 'netlore' such as lists of jokes, urban legends, Darwin Award stuff or, in short, anything that has been sent to you and already copied to five million people and is not relevant to mountain biking. Chances are people have already seen it, or don't give a toss. If you have a gem that you feel absolutely must be shared with the list, post a URL. While this may seem to contradict the 'off-topic material is acceptable if it's amusing' idea, the point is that a) this stuff is not terribly amusing if you've seen it more than, say, once; 2) conversations drifting off topic is one thing, deliberately starting something off topic is quite another and iii) These collections have a habit of starting flamewars or are just inconsiderately large.
• Defamatory claims and accusations -- a defamatory comment about a person, company or product made in a mailing list is, in the eyes of the law, published just as surely as if it appears in a print newspaper. If you want to make severe negative comment about something, check with John that what you are saying and how you are saying it is acceptable.

Posting
To post a message to the list, simply send it to:

mtb-oz@topica.com

Similarly, to block the attentions of certain known net.loonies, mtb-oz is a 'closed' list. This simply means new subscribers have to be approved. As a result it may take a few days for new subscriptions to become active. This also means that in order to get off the list you have to send the unsubscribe message from your list address.

List volume
Traffic on mtb-oz does sometimes get pretty high. If you want to carry on reading the list, but can't cope with the volume of traffic, there is a 'digest' alternative. To switch to this, you'll have to go to lists.topica.com, sign up, and change your setup. Frankly, it's easier to just filter it all into a mailbox.

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