LOPSA Policies/Sponsored mailing lists

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Policy approved by the Board on 29 May 2006.

Purpose and scope

To advance the mission of the Association, LOPSA shall sponsor a number of mailing lists for general topics of interest and for specific project purposes. Such lists will serve to

  • provide a forum for specific topical discussions;
  • further LOPSA's mission to serve the public;
  • advance the state of the profession of system administration;
  • increase LOPSA's visibility in the system administration community.

This policy applies to officially sponsored mailing lists created under the guidelines of this policy. This policy does not apply to hosted mailing lists or Board mailing lists.

Any project requiring a sponsored mail list should include notification of such in the project proposal. Due to the distinct nature of projects, the project proposal may also include a request to override any specific item within this policy. For instance, a project that deals wiht organizational confidential information may request that archives remain closed.

List creation

Sponsored mail lists will be created by the technical team by direction of a Board action, by request of an Officer or the Executive Director, or by any individual invested by the Board with the power to request a sponsored list (such as a postmaster).

Address

Each sponsored mail list will be named as requested at the time of proposal and will be within the main @lopsa.org domain. Names should be descriptive of the purpose of the list, such as tech for the mail list devoted to technical discussions, profession for discussions related to the profession and professionalism, or ethics-review for the Code of Ethics review project list.

As these lists are officially sponsored by the organization, they may include lopsa- as a prefix if such inclusion will serve to diminish confusion with hosted lists.

Subscription policy

Sponsored lists may be of one of the following subscription policies:

Open
The mailing list is visible in the directory, and anyone can subscribe. These lists may be gatewayed into an online forum system for use by subscribers and non-subscribers.
Members-only
The mailing list is visible in the directory to LOPSA members, and only LOPSA members can subscribe. These lists may be gatewayed into an online forum system, but may only be used by LOPSA members.
Private
The mailing list is not visible in the directory, and requires moderator approval of subscriptions. These lists may not be gatewayed into an online forum system without specific requirement.

Discussion sponsored mail lists should generally be Open subscription lists. In cases where the membership benefit outweighs the mission objective of community service, members-only lists may be created as specified in List creation. Private lists will generally only be for project specific lists.

An Open or Members-only subscription policy shall not be construed to deny the organization or a project the right to ban subscribers who abuse list policy.

Moderation policy

In general, sponsored mail lists will allow open-posting by all subscribers. Mail lists which are gatewayed into an online forum may allow open posting through the forum or may moderate incoming forum posts.

The open-posting policy shall not be construed to deny the organization the right to moderate posts from non-subscribers, or to moderate posts from subscribers who have abused list policy.

Archival policy

To further the organizations mission of public service, open and members-only sponsored mail lists should maintain archives and those archives should be publicly available. Private lists should also maintain archives but may request limited access to those archives. Gatewayed forums will, by nature, include archives and the availability will be determined by the online subscription policy.

Sponsored mail list archives should not be expired.

Oversight

LOPSA is in no way responsible for the content of sponsored mailing lists. LOPSA reserves the right to take action if made aware of improper conduct on sponsored lists.

Termination

A sponsored list may be terminated under any of the following circumstances:

  • The list ceases to serve a useful function;
  • Traffic to the list ceases for an extended period as approved by the Board;
  • The project completes;
  • The Board, Officers, Executive Director, or other individual empowered by the Board requests it.

Mailings from LOPSA

From time to time, LOPSA may send mail about LOPSA activities to sponsored mailing list subscribers. Such mail may be sent via the mailing lists, or directly to list subscribers.

LOPSA may from time to time send mail to sponsored mailing list subscribers on behalf of third parties. Such mail will be sent directly to list subscribers, and subscribers will be provided with a means of opting out of such third-party mailings.

Footers

Posts to sponsored mailing lists may have a LOPSA-approved footer appended of no more than four 77-character lines. This footer shall only be used to publicize LOPSA and LOPSA activities.

Privacy

LOPSA or its members shall not share the subscriber list of any sponsored mailing list or any addresses contained therein with any third party. The subscriber list of a sponsored mailing list shall not be made available to the public; the subscriber list may be made available to other subscribers or to LOPSA members. LOPSA will make every reasonable attempt to obfuscate addresses within the public archives or gatewayed discussion forums.

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