Guidelines for Everyone List Announcements

Guidelines for Everyone List Announcements

 * The everyone list is for announcements. Be sure that you're announcing something.


 * Logistics are important. If you're announcing an event, be sure to include the date, time, and place.  If you're looking for project volunteers, be sure to include points of contact.


 * When in doubt, shorter is better. Try to do a few rounds of editing/proof reading.  If you read your announcement to a group of people, it should feel like you're talking to them.  Think of a working group (or individual) announcement that you'd make at GA.


 * Solidarity announcements (i.e., announcements made on behalf of another organization) are okay. But please work with the other organization, and respect the goals they are trying to achieve. Solidarity announcements should be about movement building as much as they are about publicity.


 * The submitter must be identified in the body of the message. If necessary add "(Submitted by J. Q. Occupier)", or similar, at the bottom.  Of course, replace "J. Q. Occupier" with the submitter's actual name.  If the message was submitted by a working group, it's okay to use the working group name.

The Moderator How-To
Everyone List Submissions. Message submissions are usually sent to everyone-submit@lists.occupyboston.org. This is where you'll discuss the submission; traditionally, we include the submitter in the discussion process. If the submitter is not the original author (e.g., for a solidarity announcement), then try to include the original author as well. Original authors are often interested in providing input, and there have been cases where the original author asked us not to distribute their message.

Revising and Agreeing on Copy. Work with the submitter, to revise their message as necessary. It's not unusual for submissions to go through a few rounds of editing. For example, if there's not an obvious connection to Occupy Boston, to the Occupy movement, or to the 99%, then ask the submitter to explain how their posting ties in. It's not sufficient for moderators to make the connection; everyone list subscribers have to make the connection too. The everyone list is not act-ma.

Sending The Message. Once you've finalized the copy, send it to everyone@lists.people-link.net. What you send to everyone@ is exactly what will go out to everyone list subscribers. Be sure to remove any extraneous headers and footers.

All submissions to the everyone list are moderated. Expect to receive a notification to the effect of "Your message to Everyone awaits moderator approval"; this should arrive in a few minutes.

Moderate the message through.
 * Go to https://lists.people-link.net/mailman/listinfo/everyone
 * Click "Everyone administrative interface", which is located near the bottom of the page
 * Provide the list administrator password, and click "Let me in"
 * Click "Tend to pending moderator requests"
 * For the message in question, click "Accept", and "Submit All Data"

After doing so, you should see the message appear in http://lists.people-link.net/pipermail/everyone/.

Handling Replies. Occasionally, someone will "reply" or "reply-all" to an everyone list message. These replies are held for moderation; and you will be notified when these replies arrive. These should usually just be discarded. (As this is an announcement list, not a place for conversation...) Here's how to do that:
 * Go to https://lists.people-link.net/mailman/listinfo/everyone
 * Click "Everyone administrative interface", which is located near the bottom of the page
 * Provide the list administrator password, and click "Let me in"
 * Click "Tend to pending moderator requests"

For the reply in question:
 * Select "Discard"
 * Click "Submit all data"

Optionally, if you think the reply would be important to the submitter, you can forward the reply to them:
 * Select "Forward messages (individually) to:", and give the submitter's email as the forwarding address.
 * Click "Submit all data"

Have fun!