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MN-POLITICS
Description and
Participation
Guidelines
 
Purpose

MN-POLITICS is an Internet electronic-mail list sponsored by Minnesota E-Democracy for the sharing of information on and discussion of Minnesota politics and public policy. Members of this forum are encouraged to contribute campaign and election information, announcements from Minnesota-focused political and civic organizations, public policy and legislative information, and presentations on issues of public interest.

The list encourages discussion from diverse political perspectives that is respectful in nature.  This forum is more about the presentation of ideas and information than being right with one's ideology.  E-mail-based
forums are special in nature.  They offer a significant opportunity for broad participation, but require members to appreciate the limits and strengths of text-only e-mail communication.

Minnesota E-Democracy seeks to build a forum that is informative, useful, and participatory.  It is stressed that other forms of electronic communication, like Newsgroups and WWW-based conferencing, offer
alternative forums for free-wheeling debate.

All postings to MN-POLITICS are archived from: 

    http://www.e-democracy.org/mn-politics

While authors of list messages implicitly agree to share their intellectual property through the list and its archive, the writers retain all the copyright privileges of their messages.
Rules and
Guidelines
 

MN-POLITICS is an unmoderated "on-line civic space" where members have the rights and responsibilities associated with open discussion and highly public exchange.  The limitations of e-mail-based forums require the following rules and guidelines to ensure that the success of the forum.  The goal of MN-POLITICS is to bring as many people into this civic space as possible and balance that with efforts to ensure that most members find value in the information exchange.


Rules

1.      No more than two postings per member within a 24 hour period.  The MN-POLITICS day runs from 3:30 AM to 3:29 AM Central Time.

2.      Messages to the list must include sender's real name and e-mail address as all or part of the author's signature.

3.      No forwarding private messages to the list without permission of the author.

4.      No insults, threats, and inflamed speech for the sake of personal argument are allowed.

5.      One-on-one arguments, disagreements, and disputes of a personal nature must be taken off list.

6.      Messages to the list by non-members of MN-POLITICS are bounced to the listowner. The listowner reserves the right to review, rename, clean headers, post and/or ignore non-member messages.


Guidelines

1.      Postings must be within the scope of the list's purpose. (i.e. Minnesota politics.  There are thousands of other Internet forums that cover other topics .)

2.      Because this is an unmoderated list, the responsibility to define what is within MN-POLITICS' scope lies with the person posting the message.

3.      Complaints about a list member's behavior should be directed to the list member or the list owner
(mnpol@e-democracy.org).  These complaints should not be posted to the list.


Removal From List

1.      A subscriber may be removed by the list owner for breaking a list rule after one warning.   The list owner may remove a subscriber for violating the list's guidelines upon consulting the Minnesota E-Democracy Board of Directors.

2.      The list owner is not responsible for monitoring every posting and will only review whether a subscriber has broken the rules upon receiving a complaint to mnpol@e-democracy.org.  The WWW archive contains all the posting and information needed to review whether the rules have been broken.

3.      Members who feel that an individual is posting items that fall outside of MN-POLITICS' purpose should send a note directly to the person stating their concerns.  This will help new members understand the culture of the list and e-mail in general.

4.      If an individual on a regular basis posts messages that fall outside of MN-POLITICS' purpose, a determination on removal will be taken up upon request by the steering committee.

5.      The Board of Directors reserves the right to remove any subscriber upon careful consideration for the preservation of the list as a Minnesota E-Democracy initiative.

6.      Any member removed from the list for the above reasons may not return for one year.  They may read the postings from the WWW archive, but not post to the list.

7.      The technical maintenance may cause a subscriber to be temporarily removed by the list owner.  In these cases, the member may rejoin the list at anytime.

Adopted 2/12/96, revised 4/01/97
List Managers  
Please comments or rule violation complaints to:  mnpol@e-democracy.org

Minnesota E-Democracy
2718 East 24th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55406
612.729.4328
info@e-democracy.org