Minnesota Politics Discuss - Minnesota E-Democracy ================================================== http://www.e-democracy.org/mn-politics MN-POLITICS-DISCUSS@EGROUPS.COM * All participants are responsible for understanding the forum's purpose, rules, and guidelines. Purpose MN-POLITICS-DISCUSS (MPD) is an online forum for substantive discussion of Minnesota public policy issues and politics. MPD, established in 1994, is a citizen-based online interactive public commons - a virtual citizen assembly. You can express your views and deliberate on important public issues in Minnesota. This agenda-setting online public space reaches directly into the heart of real Minnesota politics. You will gain insight on diverse perspectives and may share your knowledge and information via e-mail with hundreds of subscribers. In some cases you may reach thousands via informal message forwarding, the web archive, or media coverage. Who reads your message is as important as what you have to say. General announcement posts should be submitted to the MN-POLITICS-ANNOUNCE e-mail announcement list, however, comments on announcements should be sent to MPD. This forum is sponsored by Minnesota E-Democracy, a non-partisan, non-profit, volunteer-based organization whose mission is to improve participation in democracy in Minnesota through information networks. Minnesota E-Democracy encourages a self-governing forum within its basic rule and guideline structure that is informative, useful, educational, inclusive, and participatory. When you subscribe to the forum you are agreeing to abide by the core rules and spirit of the guidelines. Please read them below. To SUBSCRIBE, send an e-mail to: mn-politics-discuss-subscribe@egroups.com Be sure to complete the confirmation process. Past postings to MPD are available on the web from: http://www.e-democracy.org/mn-politics Rules and Guidelines Participants are responsible for reading and understanding these rules and guidelines. They provide a mix of essential rules and advice based on the experience of the first five years of the forum. Discussion participants come from a wide range of backgrounds and have diverse political perspectives and communication styles. By embracing the clash of ideas this forum strives for respectful issue- based discussions that avoid personal arguments and attacks. This is a radically different political experience than you get from other media because the value of the forum is completely in the hands of the participants. There are practical limits to facilitating an open unmoderated online political discussion. Therefore MPD has simple and essential rules that can be more easily enforced by a Discussion Rule Manager (DRM) designated by the Minnesota E-Democracy Board. The Board will appoint other volunteers to assist with list management as required. All participants in discussions act as individuals, including volunteers, and not agents of Minnesota E-Democracy. Guidelines on the other hand, provide a set of standards for self- regulation of the forum by you the participants. By subscribing to this forum you agree to abide by the rules, and the spirit of the MPD's purpose and guidelines. If you do not accept or agree with these parameters, do not join or participate in this forum. Only those who subscribe may post and messages sent to the list from non- subscriber addresses will not be forwarded. Rules Violation of these rules will result in removal from the forum for six months upon receipt of a second official warning from the Discussion Rule Manager (DRM). Warnings are sent when a subscriber complaint to the DRM is investigated and it is determined by the DRM that a rule has been broken. First warnings last for six months and will be recorded. The DRM will respond to complaints in a uniform fashion. In the absence of a complaint the DRM may send informal notices to encourage rule compliance. The list management team may also use the features of EGroups to temporarily moderate posts of specific members while dealing with rule or guideline compliance problems. The full process for removal is at the end of this charter. Do not post a rule violation complaint publicly. 1. Sign Posts - All MPD posts must be signed at the bottom of every message by the author with at least their real full name, e-mail address and city. Use of pseudonyms, anonymous postings or using other people's identities is forbidden. 2. Two Posts a Day - Participants may post no more than twice a day. The MN-POLITICS day runs from 3:30 a.m. to 3:29 a.m. Central Time. Intentional violation of the two posts per day rule will result in immediate removal from the discussion forum for six months without a warning. (Providing others an opportunity to discuss a thread before your second message on that topic is encouraged.) 3. Private Stays Private - Forwarding private messages to the online forum is NOT allowed without the permission of the original author. This includes private replies you may receive based on your public posts to the forum. 4. No Attacks or Threats - Personal attacks or publicly threatening the safety or security of participants in a post to the forum is not allowed. If you receive private e- mail from another participant that causes serious concern, you may inform the DRM. If you feel you have received an illegal threat via e-mail, we ask you to contact to appropriate legal authorities. The DRM may only issue warnings or remove participants based on their public posts to the public forums legally owned by Minnesota E- Democracy. The DRM will inform the Minnesota E-Democracy Board of cumulative concerns in this area. 5. Items Not Allowed - No attached files, virus warnings, or chain letters may be sent to MPD. Guidelines These guidelines provide further direction in the use of the Internet for useful online political deliberation. They provide a framework for MPD participants to hold each other accountable to the forum's purpose and goals. These guidelines are more subjective and more difficult to enforce than our rules. The Discussion Rule Manager may forward ongoing guideline violation concerns to the Minnesota E- Democracy Board for possible removal. This forum is more about the presentation of ideas and information than being right with one's ideology. This discussion forum is NOT designed for debating abstract political philosophy, winning an online argument, or condemning others for their beliefs or backgrounds. The best way for a participant to add value is to introduce a new topic and not dwell on how much they dislike a current thread or the direction of the forum. Recruiting additional participants is also a good way to introduce new and refreshing perspectives. Specific guidelines: 1. Stay Focused - Discussion posts are to remain within the scope of the MPD purpose and guidelines. Messages forwarded to MN-POLITICS- ANNOUNCE should not be double posted MPD. This forum is about Minnesota political issues and NOT Minnesotans broadly talking politics. As a virtual citizen assembly, as with legislative assemblies, it is important that you address your comments to the issue at hand and avoid personalization of the discussion. 2. Introduce Yourself - Participants are asked to post an introduction to the forum within one week of their first post and again yearly during the month of their birthday. The introduction need not be extensive, but please share some of your background and issue interests. Full time "lurkers" are encouraged to introduce themselves as well. Please use the subject line: Intro: Name - New Member or X Year Member 3. Be Civil - E-mail unto others as you would have them e- mail unto you. Respect each other's right to express themselves. Personal one- on-one arguments, disagreements, and personality conflicts must be taken from the public discussion forum and dealt with in private. Please avoid personal insults, name calling, and inflamed speech for the sake of argument. If you cannot respond to the issues raised, do not take the easy path of attacking the messenger. Again, discussions should focus on the public policy issues raised and NOT on the participants themselves. Avoid posting when you are generally angry or upset. 4. Reply Carefully - Clearly identified and correctly attributed quotations from previous posts should be limited to a few paragraphs or phrases whenever possible. Do not enclose the full text of a previous message that does not have your comments contained within it. Quick reactions of less than a sentence in length should be sent privately to author and not the entire group. 5. Guide Others - Members need to help others get used to the culture, guidelines, and rules of the discussion forum. Direct your concerns about a list member's behavior privately to the list member in order to encourage direct accountability to other participants. Posting complaints or pet peeves (like spelling errors) publicly is highly discouraged. 6. Issue Corrections - All posts should be as accurate as possible and never intentionally false. Minnesota E- Democracy is not responsible or liable for the content of any MPD post. Please issue corrections to your statements or claims should they not be publicly corrected in ongoing discussions. When making a specific issue or political claims related to the activities of a public official or list participant, please share the source of your claim. 7. Copyright and Reuse - By submitting an original message to MN- POLITICS-DISCUSS, authors agree to distribute their intellectual property via e-mail and inclusion in a permanent web archive. While excerpts and URLs are appropriate, do not post the full text of material where a copyright notice has been posted by an individual or commercial entity. All original authors retain their copyright. These messages may be quoted or forwarded online to others as long as the author's name and the "Minnesota Politics Discussion Forum" name or address and the full web address are cited or linked. To ensure appropriate credits and promote public access to this community service, no media outlet may quote original postings first made available on this discussion list without giving the full citation. 8. No Unrelated Ads - Commercial advertising by MPD members not related to Minnesota politics and public policy is not appropriate. Short e-mail signatures providing basic links to the work or projects of an individual are acceptable, but the display of specific products for sale is inappropriate. Text placed automatically at the bottom of messages from those using free e-mail services are exempt from this guideline. Removal from MN-POLITICS-DISCUSS 1. The Discussion Rule Manager (DRM) is not responsible for monitoring every post and will only officially review whether a subscriber has broken a rule upon receiving a formal complaint to . The web archive contains all the posts and information needed to review whether the rules have been broken. 2. The DRM upon sending a subscriber an official warning will keep track of each warning for six months. The DRM may send informal notices based on rule violations that come to their attention without having received a formal complaint from another list participant. 3. A subscriber will be removed from the forum by the DRM upon sending an official second rule violation warning. Any subscriber removed from the list for a rule violation may not post to MPD for six months. They may read the postings from the web archive, but not post to the forum. 4. Technical maintenance by Minnesota E-Democracy or EGroups may cause a subscriber to be temporarily removed from the forum or result in delayed distribution of posts. In these cases, the member may rejoin the list at anytime. We apologize in advance for any such problems that may occur. 5. It is the responsibility of the Minnesota E-Democracy Board to develop and protect MPD as an organizational initiative. The Minnesota E-Democracy Board reserves the right to remove any participant upon careful consideration. This includes removal for serious and ongoing violations of the spirit of the guidelines. Adopted 2/12/96, revised 4/01/97, major revision 7/28/99