OHALAH EMAIL LIST GUIDELINES, REVISED MARCH 2009
LOGISTICS
1. To subscribe or our list, contact Jeff Schulman at jeffrey.schulman@gmail.com.
2. To post, send your email to ohalah@shamash.org.
3. Please describe your post in the subject line so recipients know what to expect.
4. Please sign the email with your full name so we know who is writing.
5. You are also welcome to include a tag consisting of your title, name, work address or home address, email and phone numbers. However, please do not include anything else. Specifically please DO NOT include in the tag:
a. Prayers, poems or sayings,
b. A list of programs you offer or classes you teach, or your travel schedule, or
c. A tear off to request information or donate.
6. Please remove old verbage before posting: When responding to a post, please clear your screen first so you do not include the email to which you are responding. Instead, refer to it in a few words.
7. Receiving email:
a. You may receive email in digest form, i.e. all postings arrive in one email each day, or you may receive each email individually. Individual emails show [OHALAH] at the beginning of the subject line as well as the person who is sending the email.
b. We recommend receiving individual emails, so you can delete topics you don't want to follow and so you do not have to scan, and potentially lose track, of postings that interest you.
c. To request a change from digest to individual emails or visa versa, contact Pam at pbfrydman@yahoo.com.
8. Maximum Length per email: 750 words.
9. Maximum of 3 emails per week per person.
CONTENT
10. OHALAH's email list is maintained for the benefit of OHALAH members and Rabbinic Pastors Association subscribers to build and sustain our community of scholarship, support, activism, faith and spirituality. It is the goal of our list to treat one another with menschlichkeit, to respect our diversity and to give one another the benefit of the doubt.
11. We welcome announcements about relevant books, CD's, DVD's, speaking engagements, retreats and workshops, etc. whether created by you or others.
12. We especially welcome announcements about appropriate job opportunities.
13. We welcome your original writing as well as your occasional postings that contain teachings and views of others, especially when it is embedded in what you would like to tell us.
14. The thread of dialogue on our list gets lost when web-active authors post items from their work in the world to our list. If you are a web-active writer and have email distribution lists of your own to which our members may subscribe, please do not post the writing from your own list to our list. Instead, we invite you to post a few salient sentences or teasers and the link or email address at which our readers can obtain the full piece. The same goes for any of your writing that is posted elsewhere on the internet.
15. Know your audience: OHALAH members have a very wide variety of political views. Please be respectful of our diversity when crafting your emails to the list.
16. V'ahavta lereyacha kamocha – In Baba Metzia, it states, better to throw oneself into a fiery furnace…than to cause halbanat panim. There is to be no halbanat panim, lashon harah or rechilut on our list.
a. Please demonstrate respect for all life in your postings to our list. There is to be no slander, no shaming, no putting others down, no name calling and no "flaming" of others, including those on our list, other Jews and other human beings.
b. This email list is not a venue for discipline, calling people to task or spreading rumors. If you have information you believe to be true, but that you would not want someone to say about you, please do not write it about someone else. This includes eulogizing or otherwise writing about people who have died.
c. In addition, there is to be no pejorative characterizations of anyone on or off the list regardless of whether you know, or believe, the characterization to be true.
17. Within these parameters, we welcome postings of tochachah regarding social issues so long as the posting confronts issues and not individuals. Postings should challenge deeds (or the lack of deeds), and not people. Please discuss issues with mesnchlichkeit, and with no labeling, no name-calling, no expletives– just clear diplomatically put discourse. Let’s make this a modeling of the middot to which we aspire. One way to accomplish this may be to express our views with “I” statements, such as “I think …” or “I feel that…”
18. The Email List Committee is working on a guideline that will be placed here, and will allow criticism during discussion of political and tikkun olam issues while providing the protections set forth in paragraph 16 for members of OHALAH, the RPA and ALEPH.
19. No use of red ink for the purpose of screaming or shouting.
20. Please use CAPS carefully. When CAPS emphasize your writing, it works well, but when it is used to SCREAM or to put someone down, it negates the effectiveness of the medium. If you are intending to use CAPS to admonish or yell, that is forbidden.
21. Please use one consistent size font in each of your postings. If you have a title that is a bit larger than the body or if you want some sections to be smaller than the main text, that's fine, but please do not bombard us with titles, phrases or sections that are considerably larger than the rest of your post.
22. Fundraising – It is fine to fundraise for the family of members who are ill or who have died. It is also fine to tell us about an event or campaign such as planting trees, selling CD's, etc., and it is fine to tell us about fundraisers for crises and catastrophes. Other than that, there is no fundraising or solicitation of funds on our list.
23. New Confidentiality Policy – You must obtain written permission from the writer in order to forward someone's post, unless the post contains a statement such as, "please share this with others beyond the OHALAH list," or "you may forward this email beyond the OHALAH list" or something similar. When forwarding posts from the OHALAH list, please state in your forward that you have permission of the writer to forward it.
ENFORCEMENT
24. Participation in our email list is a privilege. List guidelines are crafted to protect subscribers from overwhelm and harassment. If you violate a guideline, you will receive a courtesy reminder. If you violate that guideline or any other guideline again, the Board will put you on probation. If you violate a third time, you will be unsubscribed for a month.
25. Ethics Referral – If a person is unsubscribed three times, s/he shall be referred to the Ethics Committee, which shall prescribe appropriate rehabilitative measures that the member shall be expected to undertake. It shall be determined by the Ethics Committee whether the member may be permitted to participate in the list during or after prescribed rehabilitative measures.
26. Email List Beit Din – If you object to a policy in the Email List Guidelines or if you believe that you were unfairly suspended or placed on probation, you may request a telephone meeting with our Email List Beit Din. Rabbi David Jonathan Cooper of Berkeley is our Av Beit Din. To consult with David or to make an appointment to meet by telephone with the Beit Din, please contact David at DavidJCoop@aol.com.
27. If you read a post that makes you feel intimidated or uncomfortable, we invite you to please forward the email to our President, Rabbi Yocheved Mintz at gkmintz@aol.com. Please do not reprimand another subscriber yourself because doing so either on or off the list may cause you to be in violation of these guidelines.