LOCAL UUCE e-COMMUNICATIONS

QUESTIONS about LISTSERVS

·         “Chat rooms can be dangerous places.” Possibly true and probably more so for children, but UUCE listservs (even the one called "Chat") are not the same as public "chat rooms." UUCE listservs are where folks you already know from Sundays and other church events discuss things they are mutually interested in.

·         “Some folks don't have computers, so we shouldn’t rely on email for important communications, as they will be left out of the loop.” True, but those of us who do have computers can share information with those who don’t. And there are other ways to stay connected, such as the newsletter, the Sunday Order of Service, and by phone.

·         “Listservs and email are probably really difficult for those of us not familiar with electronic media and computers to subscribe to the listserv, right? And once you are subscribed, you can never get off, right?” Neither of these rumors is true. UUCE listservs are very friendly "places" and you will know most folks on them. And you have the guidance of an experienced webmaster and list moderator to help you through any potential pitfalls, should you encounter them. Just ask.

·         “Some folks have Web-TV for email only - they can't get the Web at all.” True, but many folks - even most, according to national statistics - DO have access to email and the web these days. Since most of us still drive even though others don't have cars, let’s not limit those who do have email.

·         “I'll get spammed, right?” Nope! You will only receive one email a week on the “UUCE-News” listserv. More on the other UUCE listservs, deppending on their topic areas. Spammers do not have access to your email address from the listservs at all.

·         “I already have too much email and can’t even get through what I have.” Well… We wish we could help you there… Many of us do get more email than we want, but we hit “delete” when necessary. And no feelings will be hurt if you delete even the “UUCE-News” without reading it, whenever you need to. (But remember, there are three good quotes in the weekly UUpDate on UUCE-News, plus items are divided for quick skimming, and there is a section of national religion-related news items to laugh or cry with, learn from, or which will raise your blood pressure.)

·         Our listmanager enjoys this stuff. Rather than a burden, the listmanager sees teaching email, listserv and web skills as a way to empower people and is truly pleased to help you with your email, listserv, and web questions.

Application for new listserv for your UUCE committee or group

Application for new page for your committee or group on the church's website

CONTINENTAL AND EVEN WORLD WIDE UU LISTSERVS

Over 250 lists on different topics sponsored by the UUA

Listserv guidelines that the UUA has developed
(though we may be less formal, locally):Dealing with conflict on UUA listservs: http://www.uua.org/lists/listconflict.html

Subscriber guidelines (UUA): http://www.uua.org/lists/subscribers.html#rules
Manager guidelines (UUA): http://www.uua.org/lists/listmanagers.htmlFor UUA-sponsored listservs for all kinds of interests with UUs from all over the contintent and even the world, see UUA lists

Using PDFs

Your computer probably already has the free PDF Reader (aka Acrobat Reader or Adobe Reader). To find out, click on the PDF document you want to open. If you do have it, it will open, If you don't, it will tell you you don't have it, and will probably also tell you how to get it, immediately, via the Web. Or use this link here and download the free Reader program right now: Acrobat Reader

If you still can't view a PDF or you just get a white screen in Adobe Reader, try downloading the PDF first, then opening it from the local drive: a) In Windows, use the right click on the link and select "Save As", then name it and save it to your desktop. THEN open it. b) On a Mac, from the Browser (Safari, Netscape, Internet Explorer...) window, choose Command+S (to Save As"), then name it and save it to your desktop. THEN open it.    

Netiquette-Lite   

The Ten Commandments of E-mail
Thou shalt include a clear and specific subject line.
Thou shalt edit any quoted text down to the minimum thou needest.
Thou shalt read thine own message thrice before thou sendest it.
Thou shalt ponder how thy recipient might react to thy message.
Thou shalt check thy spelling and thy grammar.
Thou shalt not curse, flame, spam or USE ALL CAPS.
Thou shalt not forward any chain letter or virus warning.
Thou shalt not use e-mail for any illegal or unethical purpose.
Thou shalt not rely on the privacy of e-mail, especially from work.
When in doubt, save thy message overnight
and reread it in the clear light of the dawn.

NETIQUETTE -
Expanded, with examples

Each mailing list has its own rules of list etiquette, as determined by the list managers and subscribers. Following are some ordinary netiquette guidelines:

Don't talk if you don't have anything to add. Put that way, this rule seems pretty obvious. There is no need to respond to every message, and indeed you will annoy everyone else if you try to.  Put that way, this rule seems pretty obvious. But lots of people post messages that essentially say "Me too!" or "I agree!" or "Good for you!" when they don't have anything to add to the discussion.

When replying, include only the most relevant part of the original message. Most E-mail programs provide way to "quote" the text of the message you are replying to; learn how to use your email program. When people read your reply, they may not remember exactly which message you are replying to. Including the message puts your message in context. On the other hand, delete the parts of the message that aren't relevant, so each reader doesn't have to wade through headers, signatures, and other stuff that doesn't pertain to your message.

Reply privately when your message isn't of interest to the group. When you reply to a message, consider whether to send your reply to the mailing list or to the person who wrote the message you are replying to. If you want to make a point that contributes to the group discussion, post your reply to the mailing list. If you want to criticize, ask a personal question, or ask something off the topic of the list, send your reply directly to the person who wrote the message.

Use plain text as your default. Generally we request that you not send messages with fancy fonts, colors, different sizing, bolding, underlining, fancy lettering, "rich text", photos, documents, software, graphics, music, or pretty backgrounds. The best way to do attachments or graphics (i.e., cartoons, photos) is to 1) describe what you have and ask those who want to receive it to contact you offlist with their request, or 2) upload what you have to a website and give the URL (website address) to folks in your message to them.  If you send an article, just send the parts that you wish to discuss or highlight, plus the URL ("address") where the rest of the article can be found.  How to set to plain text:   www.expita.com/nomime.html . Use descriptive subject lines. When writing a new message or replying to a message (ESPECIALLY on Digest), make sure that the subject line describes your message as specifically as possible. Never send a message with the subject "Help!" when it could say "Need 4th grade curriculum about Islam."

Don't post chain letters and virus messages or unverified sob/disaster stories. It doesn't matter how worthy the chain letter sounds! Don't post messages to a list unless it is on-topic AND you personally know the information in it to be true (ie, the little English boy who wants postcards from around the world before he dies of cancer is now 35 and, please, does not want any more postcards thankyouverymuch...) The place to go before you forward the forward of the forward of the forward about the "new" horrible virus that will destroy their computer is <http://snopes.com/>  Do actually READ the Snopes article to see that the subject line is indeed what the article talks about, that it is current (vs. 8 years old), and that God has pronounced on it. Then and only then should you send it on.

• Identify yourself. Most E-mail programs let you define a signature which appears at the end of each message you send. Your signature should be no more than four lines long and include your name, your E-mail address, your Web home page (if any), and a pithy quote or tag line. Don't include "ASCII art" (pictures made out of punctuation), your mailing address or phone number, or use more than four lines in your sig.

• Do not annoy the listmanagers. The listmanagers are volunteers who love this community, AND they won't tolerate abuse. They alone will determine when they are annoyed, and they will take appropriate action. Said actions can include a private warning, a public warning, a public demand, individual moderation, suspension, and expulsion from the list, not necessarily in that order and wholly dependent upon the magnitude of their annoyance. There is no appeal to a listmanager's decree. To be reinstated onto a list, it is considered appropriate to respectfully approach the offended listmanager with extreme courtesy and good chocolate (not just M&Ms and certainly not a mere Snickers bar), along with heartfelt promises to never do <whatever annoyed the listmanager> again.

REDUCING SPAM

How do I reduce/prevent spam?

1. Take responsibility for keeping your computer's anti-virus software up-to-date and install a firewall. Unprotected high-speed Internet connections are vulnerable to infection by viruses that are programmed to open gateways, also known as proxies, to relay spam. By not keeping your PC secure, you may unwittingly be a courier for spam.

2. Give your primary e-mail address only to friends and family. Give a different e-mail to others on the Internet. Although this second address will likely receive unwanted e-mails, it is more disposable and can allow you to better control the e-mails you receive.

3. Do not post your primary e-mail address in newsgroups, bulletin boards or chat rooms. [The UUCE email lists are not newsgroups, bulletin boards or chat rooms.] Spammers use software programs, often referred to as spiders, web crawlers, or (ro)bots, to search for and harvest e-mail addresses on public forums. To prevent this, use a secondary e-mail address or alter the primary address so that it is not deliverable in that format. For example, if your e-mail address is test_account@comcast.net, you could post it as test_account@NO.SPAM.comcast.net or "test _ account at comcast dot net".

4. Do not post your primary e-mail address on a Web site. Use a secondary address for placing on Web sites. [This is a good idea if your address is on the UUCE website.] Spiders also scan Web sites for e-mail addresses. You can alter your e-mail address to help protect it but remember that e-mail harvesting software can read HTML code, so remove the "mailto:" tag.

5. Do not reply to unsolicited e-mails. NO bank will EVER send info to you via email. Ever. If the e-mail does not appear to be from a trustworthy or legitimate source, delete it without replying. A federal anti-spam law called The Can Spam Act, went into effect January 1, 2004, requiring a functioning "opt out" link or a legitimate "reply to unsubscribe" e-mail address. Note: Some unscrupulous spammers have ignored this law and continue to trick recipients into unwittingly responding to a fake "opt out" link, which actually verifies their e-mail address as a valid one. Therefore, it is still strongly recommended that recipients of unsolicited e-mail carefully consider whether an "opt out" or "reply to unsubscribe" seems legitimate and act accordingly.

6. Consider using an alternate e-mail address when signing up for services, filling out forms or taking surveys on the Internet. Read the privacy policy of these sites. Keep in mind, if the service is "free" they often need to generate revenue in some manner. Advertising is often used to do this, selling your email address is another way.

7. When signing up for a mailing list, read the terms and policies. Signing up should result in wanted or solicited e-mail (such as at yahoogroups.com), but the list provider should disclose whether signing up will result in the sale or trade of your e-mail address to other parties. [The UUCE email lists protect your privacy and never give out, trade, sell or share your address for ANY reason.]

8. Let friends and family know that you do not wish to have them share your e-mail address.

9. Make sure your e-mail address is difficult to guess. Don't use a common name or common words. It is not uncommon for spammers to use software programs to generate random user names based on common names and words in the dictionary. In addition, common e-mail addresses may have been used previously and may still be on old mailing lists.

10. Check "sent mail" folders for suspicious messages. Take responsibility for your PC by checking your "sent mail" folder regularly to ensure that all sent mail is really being sent by you and not by a spammer using an open gateway (proxy) on your computer.

Courtesy: the Comcast.net website

IDENTIFYING SCAMS, HOAXES, SPAM

This is how I determine whether something is one of those Urban Legends (fibs, rumors, deliberate lies, fear-mongering, spam) that unknowing or unscrupulous folks like to start around the Internet so much. Sometimes these are just fun to send around, and thus there are other reasons to send them on besides whether they are true or not.  But IF you feel annoyed or manipulated when you find out that these are untruths (some of which can be harmful), here are some ways I sort them out.

1. Look for a DATE IN THE BODY OF THE MESSAGE.
Not a timeframe such as yesterday or last week or next week, but a full date like January 15, 2008 or August 11, 2005. If there is no date in the body of the message, be suspicious and move to item 4 below.

2. THINK a moment. 
That story about the dog saving people from the 118th floor of the WorldTrade Center? Well, there were only 110 floors. 
If I send a petition to a hundred people, and each of them sign it and send it to 100 more people and they send it to 100 more people, my signature is suddenly on 10,000 petitions, and each of the earlier people's names are on 1000. Multiply this out, and then THINK: what in heaven's name is the (supposed) receiver (Is there a receiver, in reality?) going to do with all these thousands of lists of huge numbers of names that are repeated many thousands of times?  Often, the clue that I am being manipulated is right there in the message. I can just say no--or move to item 4 below.

3. URGENCY.
Does it say to send this immediately to everyone in my address book? Such as "PLEASE tell everyone ASAP not to open the Life is Beautiful virus." On the Internet, the more urgent the message, the more I am  suspicious and move directly to item 4 below.

4. VERIFY.
To check whether a message can manipulate me into "spamming" everyone I know and being someone else's unwitting pawn, I can check with SNOPES.com before sending that message on to all my friends. If the message isn't in Snopes, or if Snopes declares it to be true, then I can send it on with a clear conscience. Even if the message itself says it has been verified by Snopes as true, I check it myself.  (From the Nigerian scams, I know that just because General Mbosa's wife says she is a Christian does not mean she is a Christian OR his wife, assuming he or his rank even exists in the first place.)  Snopes makes it easy by having a good search engine so I can chose any main word and get a few choices that should lead I to the one I want to verify.

Just to prove myself wrong, though, remember the message where women were (urgently) told to avoid placing their purses on the table at a restaurant or on a kitchen counter at home because of how filthy the bottom of most purses are? And to send the message to everyone in your address book? Well, Snopes says it's TRUE.  <grin>  http://www.snopes.com

And just to put us in our places:

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids. He applies for a janitor's job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test. The human resources manager tells him, "You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day." 

Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address.  To this the manager replies, "You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day." 

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers' market and sees a stand selling 25 lb. crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than 2 hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100% profit.  Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that night with several bags of groceries for his family. During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly.  Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck. 

At the end of his fifth year, he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company's payroll has put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed over one million dollars.

Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically. When the man replies that he doesn't have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you'd had all of those five years ago!" 

"Ha" snorts the man. "If I'd had e-mail five years ago I would be sweeping floors and making $5.35 an hour." 

Which brings us to the moral of the story: Since you got this story by e-mail, you're probably closer to being a janitor than a millionaire. Sadly, I received it also. 

Some other UU Listserv policies

Editorial policy of listmanagers at UU-Community

"What is not pleasant to you, do not to others. All the rest is just commentary."
- Rabbi Hillel

     · Speak from your own experience and feelings. It is better to hear about someone's own experiences with spirituality, UUism, or whatever, than to hear theories about it or opinions about other people's opinions.

     · UU-Community is not a debating society; scoring points is not the goal. Instead, this list seeks to foster a conversation where the members hear everyone and attack no one. Bear in mind that attacking an idea held dearly can feel like a personal attack.

     · Beware False Tongues, rumors, false-hoods, spam, nasty tricks, and second-hand information. Do not send screams of "Fire!" More harm than good is the usual result.

     · Check rumors out at the Snopes web site at <http://www.snopes.com/> before posting them -- then don't bother posting them.

     · Be considerate and caring in your search for understanding when expressing your opinions, or pointing out the merits of your opinion to others.

     · When in doubt about whether a draft message is disrespectful or not, wait 24 hours, and then reread the message. You may answer your doubts when time has lapsed and you read it fresh, or you may discover a better way to phrase it that is more respectful.

     · The author of a private message holds a copyright on it, as with all works of original authorship, under US and international law. It is an open question whether sending such a message to others gives the recipient the right to further distribute it. The recipient of a private message may not quote from it to the list without obtaining explicit permission from the sender.

     · Many people consider the public distribution of a private message, without permission, to be a violation of the author's right to privacy.

     · Point-by-point refutation of messages usually causes people's positions to harden, and is discouraged. When people start doing the point-by-point, quote and counter-quote thing, the discussion goes right down the toilet (except where technical points are being clarified). Instead, choose no more than three of the more important points to quote. Better yet, say in your own words the most important part of what you think the other person meant, and then add your response.

     · The Moderators are human and will make mistakes. Let them know in a kindly way, preferably by private email to <UU-Community-owner@uua.org>, so they can learn from, and fix, their mistakes. If you feel that the Moderators aren't doing a responsible job, complain to the UUA Office of Electronic Communication at <oec@uua.org>.

     · Don't abuse, libel, defame or malign the Moderators in public about the way they moderate UU-Community. Don't misrepresent, or lie about, the actions of the Moderators in public. Don't be abusive to the UU-Community Moderators in private email to them. Any of these actions is cause for expulsion from UU-Community, either summarily or after an initial warning, at the discretion of the Moderators.

     · If you are having an off-list argument with an UU-Community subscriber, don't bring it up here. For example, if you were having an argument on another list, or by private email, in which you just called someone a filthy epithet involving a rhinoceros, it would be inappropriate to bring up rhinos in a message to that person on this list. This does not preclude private conversations among members, as long as they don't send these messages to the list. However, never forward a message from this list to a non-member without getting explicit permission from the sender of the message.

     · UU-Community is like an informal party after church, hosted by the Moderators. Like a party at church, it's not the place for no-hold-barred arguments, gossip about each other, or throwing spitballs at the hosts. Instead, it's a place where people can hear interesting ideas, consider them, and discuss them, and where they can get to know some fellow UUs better.

     · If you find that you are replying to too many messages, be more discriminating and select only those you find most interesting. Let someone else respond to the other messages. Often, if you wait, someone else will make the same comment that you were thinking about making. There is a quiet beauty in waiting until some of the more introverted persons have a chance to respond to a message. It takes them longer to respond. If the more extroverted members jump in and respond to messages quickly, some members will always remain lurkers.

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