[Sust-mar] Sust-Mar posting tips

[Peter Watson]

Happy 2010 to all Sust-martians!

>From the moderator's chair, a few tips for getting your messages approved 
and promptly posted on sust-mar.

PLEASE DO SAVE THIS MESSAGE for future reference, as it covers our policies, 
why some messages get rejected, and almost all of the issues and problems 
that cause you to contact us or us to contact you. We hope you will find it 
helpful.


SUBMIT MESSAGES FROM THE SAME EMAIL YOU SUBSCRIBED FROM:

We're often getting contacted by members whose messages are suddenly being 
rejected, and this is almost always because they changed email addresses. If 
you are you submitting from an email different than the one you subscribed 
from, the sust-mar server will not recognize it and will send you an 
automatic rejection message.

If you change emails, please remember to subscribe the new email address and 
unsubscribe the old one.

You can subscribe, unsubscribe, and change your settings yourself by 
visiting the sust-mar home page and following the appropriate links.

www.sustainablemaritimes.ca

Note: If you regularly use two different email accounts, you can subscribe 
both addresses and set 'Mail delivery' on one to 'disabled'. To do this, 
follow the 'Unsubscribe or edit options' link to the 'sust-mar mailing list 
configuration page'. You can then submit your messages from either address, 
but not receive duplicate copies of everything.


NO ATTACHMENTS:

Sust-mar is not configured to send out attachments, and they will be 
automatically stripped from your message. Please send all messages in text 
format.

It makes for easier reading, saves bandwidth, eliminates the risk of 
computer virus transmission, and reduces the need for people to buy new 
computers every three years so that they can handle state-of-the-art 
attatchments.


USE DESCRIPTIVE SUBJECT LINES AND ACCURATE LOCATIONS:

Subjects like "Message to submit" or "Please post to list" give readers no 
idea what the message is about. Please give a short, accurate description in 
your subject line. You can include the general area (Halifax, Fredericton, 
PEI etc) to help readers know quickly if it's in their region.

"Benefit for Sust-Mar Jan 4, Halifax" would be an ideal Subject line.

Please include the full date and location (including the city/town) of an 
event at the top of the message body. This way readers wont have to scroll 
down to find 'what' 'where' and 'when'.

And Halifax area subscribers, please remember we are Sustainable MARITIMES, 
so do remember to specify Halifax if that is where your event is happening. 
Or else someone might look for your event in the wrong town. For example, 
Robie Street, Queen Street, Young Street, Willow Street and Prince Street 
are major streets in Truro too. And that's just Truro.


LOCAL NEWS TAKES PRIORITY:

We have always prioritized events, announcements, and news from or 
pertaining to Atlantic Canada specifically. And yes, this does include 
Newfoundland and Labrador! You can always submit messages regarding general 
or more distant sustainability news, but they will be placed in the queue 
behind local messages. The same applies to messages that are
opinion pieces, or replies to or comments/discussion on previously posted 
messages. You can send them in, but since we're not set up as a discussion 
forum they wont be prioritized and may wait longer before approval.


EVERYBODY DESERVES A CHANCE TO CONTRIBUTE:

This means we cant guarantee approving more than one message per person per 
month.

The great news is that sust-mar continues to grow and every message posted 
now goes out to over 600 subscribers. However, in order to give everyone a 
fair chance to contribute, we give priority to subscribers who have not yet 
posted in a given month. Those who have not yet had messages posted in a 
given month will have their submitted message moved up in the queue in front 
of messages from those who have already posted that month. The slate gets 
wiped clean at the start of each month.


CONSOLIDATE MESSAGES IF YOU CAN:

If you have more than one news item or event to announce, we strongly 
encourage consolidating everything into one message. This is especially true 
if the messages are related in some way, such as coming from the same 
organization or about the same issue. It will all get approved and sent out 
to members much quicker in one message than in two or three different ones. 
Shortens the queue too.


WHAT YOU SEND IN EQUALS WHAT GETS SENT OUT:

We are unable to edit any messages that get submitted to sust-mar, so what 
you send us is exactly how it goes out to subscribers. Every word and space, 
the Subject bar, the Address bar - everything gets included. We cant clean 
it up.

*IMPORTANT* If you send your message to multiple addresses, everything in 
the address bar (ie in the To: bar) will be sent out on sust-mar as is for 
600+ subscribers to read. So please Bcc (blind carbon copy) any other 
addresses or send to them separately. This is advisable to do at any time 
due to privacy issues.


SUBMIT EARLIER RATHER THAN LATER:

Sust-mar is a moderated list and we (the moderators) approve one message a 
day. Experience has told us that a moderated list posting a limited amount 
of messages works best for members, most of whom dont want to deal with 
multiple messages arriving daily in their inbox.

A queue of messages awaiting moderator approval does frequently develop, and 
this queue has occasionally exceeded 10 messages. Please be patient. To 
ensure that your time-sensitive message gets submitted to both the digest 
and non-digest lists in time for members to see it, it's best to get your 
message in well in advance of the event or deadline. At least a week early 
is recommended.

Note: We are continuing with the one message a day rule for now, as there 
were no major message backlogs this past fall. If the queue gets 
consistantly too large and messages wait too long before approval, we will 
consider changing this rule in the future


CONTACTING THE LIST MODERATORS:

As always, remember that we are here to serve the membership and we do try 
to run things as a democracy. If you have any problems, or any comments, 
questions or feedback about sust-mar and how it is run, please do contact 
your volunteer sust-mar moderators Paul Falvo and Peter Watson at 
sust-mar-owner at list.web.net .
.
Note that this is different than the address for mailing list submissions, 
which is sust-mar at list.web.net .

And finally, a big thank-you to the membership - everyone who contributes to 
sust-mar - for making it the success it has become!

Sustainably yours,

Peter