The original email list guidelines are reproduced below, with modifications.
Do you have Questions like?:
What is the focus of the bozone-orgs email list, and what kinds of messages are appropriate?
How many people are subscribed to the list? Which organizations are represented?
Who can post (i.e. - send an email that gets to everyone's inbox) to the list?
Bozone Orgs is a community email list serve centered around the individuals and organizations working to promote environmental health in Bozeman and the surrounding region. Individual email addresses are subscribed to this list. You might work directly as an activist, educator, or researcher on environmental issues; or perhaps you are tangentially involved as a volunteer, agency personnel, board member; or have some other deep involvement with clean air, healthy wildlife, fresh water, wild lands, or human powered recreation in the region. There are now about 1900 subscribers, represented by an alphabet soup of organization names.
What messages are appropriate? Hmm, good question. Only two Rules:
- No Political Candidate emails. Many folks on this list work for 501(c)3 s, and get this email at their place of work. Having emails which espouse one or another candidate put them, or their org, in a bad spot.
- No fundraising appeals! All of our organizations need money, especially in these tight economic times. But if we are all just hitting each other up for money, that doesn't really work. In the case of, for example, events with a fee, it gets a little tricky. If the fee mainly offsets the cost of the event, that's cool, it is OK to be posted. But if the event is your orgs $2000/plate fundraiser, this listserv is not the place to spread the word.
Guidelines: So those are the rules, but what are the GUIDELINES? ( according to Captain Barbosa, the pirates code is more like Guidelines). Is it OK to advertise a house for rent, or a car for sale? In general, Yes! If the house, or the car, is in line with the values of the folks on this list. So DON'T advertise your McMansion for rent; or your car that gets 8 miles to the gallon. And if you are posting something that is, um ... environmentally marginal ... then poke some fun at yourself or entertain us in some way.
Almost any posts by individuals (car for sale, room for rent) are acceptable, because we are a community of individuals; posts on behalf of organizations (here's our event) are held to a higher standard -- they should relate in some way to environmental issues around SW Montana.
Use the correct 'Channel', i.e. email address. Read about the channels here. The channels are 6 different email address, each targeting a different interest that someone may have: core enviro, community, housing, rides, commerce ( jobs, small businesses, etc. ), stuff. Everybody is subscribed to Core Enviro by default. The community channel will also have a lot of subscribers. The temptation will be to send to these larger groups when, say looking for housing, in order to capture as many people as possible, but please don't do it. Use the housing@bozone-orgs.com , which would be the correct channel.
Don't double post. For example, if you are advertising a job at an environmental non-profit, DON'T post it to BOTH core-enviro@bozone-orgs.com AND commerce@bozone-orgs.com , some people would get 2 copies of your message.
Careful with Forwarding. If you forward a message from another listserv, or an e-newsletter of some kind, the best is to copy and paste the text to a fresh email to send to the group. At a minimum, strip out the 'unsubscribe' or 'update my preferences' part of the email (in the footer, usually ). See more below under bulk email.
Respect the Inbox
What I have tried to instill in my extremely occasional posts is the understanding of "hey, you can post lots of stuff, probably marginal, but people will get tired of your crap." You are filling up inboxes trying to give away cardboard boxes. You are selling the services of your sole-proprietorship business, with every new cycle of classes or seminars or whatnot; we are not a marketing channel, we are your community.
Everybody who posts excessively in such a way will be judged by the rest of us, the community. It's not anonymous, it's lot's of people who know you. If your tone is too shrill, or your your subject matter too trivial, or you cry wol" too much, everybody knows.
Digest Format - One email daily
If the shear volume of emails on the bozone-orgs list is overwhelming, you may want to switch to once-daily Digest format.
To do this, you have to login to bozone-orgs.com and clikc the 'update your Profile' link ( in the upper right of all pages). You may need to login first, and to do that, you may need to reset your password.
Bulk Email services (Constant Contact, Emma, Mailchimp, etc)
Please do not forward the email that you get from your groups Constant Contact or similar service. It contains that pre-coded "unsubscribe" link at the bottom, and somebody else could unsubscribe you from your own email list!
Instead, cut and paste the body of the email into a fresh email message, and address that to bozone-orgs@npogroups.org
If you are a new group in town, of course, please send us your new email newsletter! And encourage interested list members to join your list directly.
Please do not subscribe a bozone-orgs list address to your groups email distribution list (like Constant Contact or Emma or MailChimp ). I call that "Double Bulk" email messages. The bozone-orgs email address will be unsubscribed from any bulk email list that it is subscribed to (anyone on the list can do this, just look for the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any bulk message).
These guidelines are intended to keep the list focused and not become a hodgepodge.
I should emphasize here the difference between subscribers and email messages. Many organizations and companies (which might have little to do with environmental health) have staff who are subscribed to this list, and they are welcome here.
I hope that this helps clarify what is a good email message to the bozone-orgs, and what is not. The bozone-orgs began as a list of staff, board, and supporters from environmental orgs, and I think it is important to maintain that focus. While it is tempting to expand the tent to include ALL non-profits in the area, I feel it is wisest to stick with the original focus of the subject: environment; and region: SW Montana.