GPCA Email Rules of Decorum http://www.cagreens.org/it-protocol/email-decorum These Email Rules of Decorum are designed to govern GPCA email list conduct. They are based upon the premise that people participate in order build the Green Party and advance the Ten Key Values, and are meant to promote a productive, transparent and respectful environment for this to occur. Participants are encouraged to state their views, inform one another and discuss issues in a manner that enables energy to be focused on productive work. Good faith disagreement over issues and ideas should be honored as an expected part this process, and not considered a disruption or impediment. At the same time, the Green Party's consensus-seeking orientation reminds us to seek and build upon commonalities. By subscribing to a GPCA email list, one agrees to follow these Rules of Decorum. GPCA email lists are open only to GPCA members. Subscribers who are no longer GPCA members are expected to unsubscribe immediately. Participants who break these rules willfully and repeatedly will be given reminders/warnings and may be subject to suspension for a period of time. Subscribers have the right to appeal their suspension to the state Coordinating Committee. GPCA Email Rules of Decorum 1. No anonymity. All subscribers must truthfully identify themselves at the time of subscription and in each message. 2. Address the group. Messages must be addressed to the entire group of subscribers. Side conversations and personal interactions must be taken to one-to-one email. 3. No "personality-based" discussion. Speculation or accusations about another's motives, thought processes, or beliefs is off-charter. A focus on 'issues rather than personalities' should be the participants' guiding light. Personal attacks, verbal threats and/or harassment can be grounds for loss of subscription. 4. No misrepresentation of another's work. Participants shall not misrepresent the work of others and shall make a good faith effort to be factually correct. 5. No prejudicial, biased, or offensive language, with respect to race, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, spirituality, sexuality, or age. These are well-established principles of basic respect for each other in a healthy society. 6. No insulting, disparaging, degrading, or demeaning language or any other ad hominem attacks. It's never necessary to label others in order to discuss their ideas and activities. Chronic, hurtful sarcasm, or giving people vengeful nicknames, or any other disrespectful treatment of fellow activists, is grounds for loss of subscription. It is never necessary to compare people to historical war criminals or other reviled figures. 7. No flooding, repetition or crossposting. No double posting to other lists. A message posted to GPCA email lists must have no other recipients except the list address in its To:, Cc:, or Bcc: lines. 8. No off-charter material. There are thousands of Internet mailing lists about issues of interest to Greens. Nobody can read them all, and each of us must be free to set our own priorities. One can repost a message from elsewhere, but must introduce it by explaining where it came from and how it relates to the list description, even if the relevance seems obvious. 9. Accurate, substantial subject lines. The "Subject:" line must truthfully identify the topic, so that people can decide whether to read your message, before they read it. Therefore, It is seldom appropriate to name another person in a Subject line. In particular, messages with Subjects such as "Joe Green" or "Joe Green's post" are inappropriate, as are messages with no Subject line. 10. Limit message size. When replying to a specific discussion thread, it's not necessary to quote the entire email each time. This helps servers run faster too. ###