Milton Chat Organisation and Etiquette

Milton Chat aims to be a friendly and useful resource for the community. Before becoming a member of Milton Chat, please read this document which describes how the group is organised, what it is for, and etiquette we expect members to adopt.

The Purpose of Milton Chat

Milton Chat is for discussion about Milton not in Milton.

What do we mean by that? We mean that the topics of conversation should concern events and issues in the village itself, rather than more general topics being discussed by people who happen to live in Milton.

Publicity

If you represent a business, club or other organisation in the village, it is acceptable to promote your events on the list. However, please do so with consideration.

  • Do not repeatedly post about the same event
  • Do not write negatively about competitor organisations
Use of personal names

We strongly prefer that people use their real names for posting to Milton Chat.

We recognise that some people need to use pseudonyms for reasons such as personal security. Nevertheless, behaviour on the list which does not meet the standards described here will be treated more seriously if the individual is using a pseudonym.

Digest mode

You may opt to receive messages batched as daily digests.

If you opt for digests, please take care when replying to a message within the digest:

  • Don't quote the entire digest; quote only what you're replying to. There's quite a small limit on the size of a post, so if you quote everything it's fairly likely the post will be rejected by the list software anyway.
  • Adjust the Subject of your message back to the Subject of the discussion you're replying to, so that people know what it's about. Posts which still contain the digest subject line will be automatically rejected.

Archival of posts

We do keep copies of posts to the mailing list. These are in a “private archive” which can only be searched and read by logging into the mailing list web server. They are not available to non-subscribers.

Public nature of the list

Please remember that even though the archival of posts is private, and available only to list members, you should treat what you say as though it were public, since any member of the public can subscribe, and this includes local journalists, for example.

Organisation

Milton Chat is run by an organisation of volunteers, Milton Online. The group is completely independent of the Parish Council, so please do not approach them regarding services run by Milton Online.

The Milton Online group can be contacted at milton-online@lists.milton.org.uk, and the chairman in particular at chair@milton.org.uk.

Moderation

New users will be moderated initially, and removed from moderation after a few posts.

There is a group who monitor and occasionally moderate the content of the mailing list.

Generally speaking, the touch is so light as to be non-existent, and posts are unmoderated. However the moderators reserve the right to:

  • Enable moderation for individuals who repeatedly breach the guidelines in this document.
  • Temporarily enable emergency moderation of the entire list if discussions are getting too heated and personal
  • If moderation is in place, either personally or for the whole list, you will get an automated response saying that your mail is waiting for moderation. You can choose to withdraw the post at that point. One of the moderation team will read your message, and choose to either accept or reject it.

The list moderators can be reached at chat-moderators@milton.org.uk

Behaviour standards
  • Be respectful
  • Do not swear or use other offensive language
  • Personal attacks are not acceptable
  • Nothing illegal, or promotion of illegal activities
  • No pornographic material
  • No material infringing copyright
Breach of etiquette

Severe breaches, such as illegal actions, will result in an immediate ban.

Repeated minor breaches of etiquette will result in one of two actions:

  • Moderation. In most cases, the individual’s posts will be made subject to moderation for a period of time.
  • Ban. In severe cases the individual will be unsubscribed, and banned from re-subscribing
Appeals

If you have been moderated or banned from the list, and you believe it is unreasonable, you can contact the Milton Online committee. Their decision will be final.