Listserv Rules and Etiquette

Thanks for being a part of this community. In an effort to maintain the integrity of our email list and because we are growing by leaps and bounds [which is a good thing!] we have put together these rules for our members.

By joining the group and using our email listserv, you agree to read and follow the rules and abide by the guidelines we've set forth. Please take a moment to acquaint yourself with them and incorporate them immediately into your daily listserv habits. As part of this ever-expanding group, we strive to provide an atmosphere where everyone can have the best possible experience and we believe these rules facilitate that goal.

As always, we value your participation in this group. Therefore, in order to preserve a climate that encourages dialogue and stays on topic, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate membership for those who violate these rules. We thank you in advance for your cooperation.

If you have any questions about the rules or what is allowable on the list, please contact Claralyn Bollinger at 314-604-1570 for clarification BEFORE you post. You may also send her an email question.

THE RULES OUTLINED

1) Be respectful of others, this is a forum for discussion about living and rehabbing in the City of St. Louis. We can disagree without using defamatory language or making personal attacks.
2) Be clear and concise when asking a question. Re-read your post a couple of times before sending it to be certain you are understood.
3) State your subject clearly on the subject line. If the discussion changes, change the subject line. This allows others to identify a topic quickly and will make a future archive search infinitely easier.
4) Always sign your post with at least your first name, and then your neighborhood, if you like. Nothing else. See details below on specifics.
5) Never send off-topic posts. See details below.
6) Always recognize and respect this listserv and its rules. Not doing so is grounds for removal.
7) Only send a message to the whole list that everyone can benefit from. Please do not send personal messages to the list. Make sure private messages stay private by taking an extra second or two to check your "to" line before selecting "send".
8) Do not send spam.
9) Fundraising messages of any kind, in any circumstance and for any charity are strictly prohibited. Posting such messages is grounds for removal.
10) When going on vacation, please manage your Yahoo! account settings and suspend your participation temporarily.
11) Commercial/vendor messages are allowed once per month. See below for details.
12) Never reply to spam messages. Understand that we are managing these messages from behind the scenes and will deal with them as quickly as possible. Posting responses to these type of messages just adds to the number of emails received.
13) If you would you like to recommend a contractor to the listserv members, please visit the Contractors List page for details.

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WHAT SUBJECTS ARE ACCEPTABLE?:
Anything that is related to rehabbing, buying or selling a property within the city limits of St. Louis. This can be anything from insurance questions, information about neighborhoods, what to do about problem properties, to trash pick up, how-to questions -- really, just about anything, as long as it relates in some way to rehabbing or living in the city of St. Louis.

WHAT IS UNACCEPTABLE?
Any post that strays outside the rules stated above.

Language and tone that any reasonable person would view as defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening or offensive is strictly prohibited. Do not post anything in a listserv message that you would not want the world to see or that you would not want anyone to know came from you. return to top

ASKING A QUESTION:
Simply type a few words on the subject line that indicate the general area you are asking the question about. Then type your question with as much detail as possible and send it to the group at rehabbersclub@yahoogroups.com. We ask that you always sign your post with at least your first name.

Since the group has been around for a while, often there are answers to questions in the listserv's archives so you may want to do a search before you post your question. Directions on how to do this is provided further down on this page. return to top

SIGN YOUR POST:
Always sign your post with at least your first name. If you’d like to include your neighborhood too, that’s great – we'd love to know where you live. All other personal and business information is absolutely prohibited. This includes: phone numbers, cell and fax numbers; home, business and website addresses; personal mission statements and all other unnecessary verbiage. We allow special situations for vendors to appeal to potential clients [see the “Special Emails” section below]. return to top

DIGEST VERSION - RESPONDING TO A QUESTION:
Since the Digest Version is often quite long, please send only that part of the digest to which you are responding. To accomplish this, simply drag over just the part of the digest, click ”reply,” and type your answer, then “send.” return to top

KEEP PERSONAL RESPONSES PRIVATE:
In and effort to keep the number of emails we receive to an absolute minimum, if you are responding to someone personally through the list, take extra care to make sure your replys are being sent directly to that person and not the whole list. This only take a couple of seconds to check before sending and means you must hand type or cut and paste their email address into the “send to” box, not just hit “reply.” return to top

MANAGE YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT:
If you're leaving on vacation or do not want to receive emails from the listserv temporarily, please manage your delivery options from the Yahoo! account. DO NOT include this list in your "out of office" auto reply! return to top

SPECIAL EMAILS:
Labeling the email subject appropriately is extremely helpful to all listserv members in identifying those emails they may want to read or skip over. Use these guidelines when posting special emails:

If you are a VENDOR, i.e., a real estate agent, a contractor or other commercial business that provides or seeks to provide services to the rehabbing community, we allow vendor posts within these rules:

• You may post once per month to let list members know of the services you provide.
• The subject line must start with VENDOR:
• Once you receive a reply from a potential customer. All emails after that should be kept PRIVATE.
• If, after your initial post, someone posts a question to you, you may answer to the group but you must REMOVE YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION FROM ALL SUBSEQUENT POSTS.

Posting as a vendor also applies to those posting for someone else, i.e., in the case of someone who knows about property in their neighborhood that is for sale or someone who has a friend that offers an applicable service they want the list to know about. If someone, somewhere, whether it's the poster or not, can potentially benefit monetarily from the post, then it is considered a VENDOR post. This excludes recommending a contractor.

TO CLARIFY: The "Vendor" subject applies to anyone posting a notice that a product or service is available for sale, whether the person posting is the actual vendor, is posting for someone else or is just sending a message to let the group know of the item[s]. Please use this subject, even if the object is free, though the subject can be adjusted to VENDOR: FREE. return to top

OTHER SPECIAL EMAIL SUBJECTS:
If you are aware of a meeting, symposium, exhibit or other get together that might be of interest to the St. Louis rehabbing community, you may post an email about it:
> The subject line must start with NOTICE:

From time to time, members will send out a post when they notice something of perfectly good quality sitting in an alley or near a dumpster, seemingly ready to be sent to the landfill.
> For these posts, we often use ALLEY SHOPPER or DUMPSTER DIVING: in the subject line.

PLEASE NOTE: OFF-TOPIC EMAILS ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED IN THIS GROUP AND POSTING SUCH AN EMAIL IS GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE REMOVAL. If, after reading all these guidelines, you still have a question about what is off-topic, please contact Claralyn Bollinger at 314-604-1570 before you post. You may also send her an email question. return to top

SEARCHING THE ARCHIVES:
You will need to have a Yahoo! account [it’s free] in order to do this search. Go to Yahoo! Groups page and put "rehabbersclub" in the search field. When it brings back the hit, click on that hyperlink & sign in under your member name. When it takes you to the rehabbersclub homepage, just look on the left hand side of the page for the subtopic of messages. Click on that link and at the top of the page you’re taken to, you’ll see another Search field with a button beside it that says “Search Archives.” return to top

GROUNDS FOR REMOVAL:
In an effort to protect the integrity of this group, any improper emails about any subject not related to rehabbing will result in the offending email address being immediately removed from the list. Also, if you are purposely rude, disrespectful, hateful, vengeful, use foul language, or if you consistently disregard these guidelines, you will be removed. return to top

TO UNSUBSCRIBE:
If your email address changes or you just want to unsubscribe, please send a blank email to rehabbersclub-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.

HOW TO SIGN UP:
You can subscribe to this listserve by sending a blank email to rehabbersclub-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

There are three ways to view or receive emails from the group -- Daily Digest, Traditional Emails, and Remote Viewing [viewing online]. Remote viewing can be accessed by logging into the Yahoo Groups Rehabbers Club account with your Yahoo! account info.

You can manage your delivery options [and many other Yahoo! features as well] from a free Yahoo account that you can set up yourself. Once your account is set up, to change options, login and click on "edit my membership" and there are all sorts of controls and features that you may access and change as often as you desire.

If you want to limit the number of emails you receive per day, then consider the option of a Daily Digest. If you opt for this version, each digest will hold as many as 25 messages, so if there are 60 messages in a given day, you would receive 3 emails that day. If you choose this option, please read how to respond to the list without including the whole digest content in your reply.

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St. Louis
Rehabbers Club
is a project of
ReVitalize St. Louis,
a non-profit corporation