LOPSA Policies/Board electronic mail lists

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Board electronic mail lists

Policy approved by the Board on 8 August 2005.

Policy amended on 5 August 2007.

The Secretary-Treasurer shall provide for the maintenance of electronic mail lists from time to time as directed by the President or the Board. This policy shall apply only to lists whose primary purpose is Board-level communication.

Standing lists

At a minimum, the following lists shall be maintained:

Board Working List

The Board Working List shall be the ordinary venue for electronic communication amongst the Board. Its address shall be board@, lopsa-board@, or similar.

Subscription to this list shall consist of:

  • the currently seated Directors of the Association;
  • the Executive Director of the Association;
  • Directors-elect who will take office at the next Annual Directors' Meeting; and
  • such other volunteers or staff as are directed by the President or the Board.

All subscribers shall be allowed to post messages to the list. The Secretary-Treasurer shall ensure that prudent techniques are employed with regard to attempted postings of non-subscribers, in order to reduce spam and other off-topic traffic while ensuring members, staff, and volunteers have a communication path with the Board.

The Secretary-Treasurer shall ensure that private archives of the list be maintained for a period of at least 2 years. All subscribers shall have access to the archives.

Board Private List

The Board Private List shall be the venue for electronic communication of a sensitive nature such as would take place under executive session. Its address shall be board-directors@, board-private@, or similar.

Subscription to this list shall consist only of the currently seated Directors of the Association.

All Directors shall be allowed to post messages to the list. The Secretary-Treasurer shall ensure that prudent techniques are employed with regard to attempted postings of non-subscribers, in order to reduce spam and other off-topic traffic while ensuring the Board can include others in sensitive discussions when necessary.

No archives of the list shall be maintained.

Ad-hoc lists

The Board may from time to time establish or dissolve other electronic mail lists. Unless otherwise stated by resolution, such lists shall be subject to the same terms of this Policy as the Board Working List.

Confidentiality and privacy

Messages to the Board Working List and Board Private List are considered board working papers that are confidential in nature. Subscribers shall not forward or otherwise disseminate any other subscriber's messages, in whole or in part, to any non-subscriber, without the permission of the Board.

Subscribers shall not forward or otherwise disseminate their own messages, in whole or in part, to any non-subscriber without permission of the Board unless:

  • the words within are entirely their own or have already been disseminated in accordance with this Policy;
  • the message includes no private, sensitive, or confidential information; and
  • recipient(s) are made aware that the message does not represent Board or Association policy or opinion.

Subscribers must limit discussion to public matters when recipients not bound by this Policy are present on a message's recipients list.

No subscriber shall forward a message from elsewhere to a Board mail list without the permission of the original author, with the following exceptions:

  1. A message whose intent is to inform the Board sent from a non-subscriber to a subscriber may be forwarded to the appropriate list.
  2. Messages sent to mail lists with open subscription or open access to archives may be forwarded to the appropriate list.

Notification of subscription changes

The Secretary-Treasurer shall ensure that notification of every change to the subscription list is given, via a message to the list, prior to the change.

Responsibility of subscribers

Subscribers have a responsibility to keep up with traffic on Board mailing lists to which they are subscribed, and to keep other subscribers informed of issues concerning them. In particular, subscribers must:

  1. Ensure that their subscriptions are kept up to date with a valid email address;
  2. Ensure that their subscription address is kept in good working order;
  3. Read such messages as are posted to the Board mailing lists in a timely manner;
  4. Respond to messages as appropriate; and
  5. Have a bias for responding to the entire recipients list (not removing recipients, particularly the mailing list, except when necessary).

Because the Board mailing lists are the primary mechanism of inter-Board communication between meetings, and may be used for urgent communiqués, Directors must notify the Board Working List or the Secretary-Treasurer if they know they will be unable to read Board mailing lists for a period of more than 72 hours.

Identification of Lists

All Board mailing lists will use a consistant identification method or methods so that list messages can be easily identified by recipients and automatically identified by software if so desired. Examples include list names in Subject: lines or List-Id: headers. Mechanisms relying on the To: or Cc: line are not acceptable.

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