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DRAFT to guide discussion of

CEESP LISTSERVE ETiQUETTE GUIDELINES

Background: In the past few months, there was an unfortunate case of miscomunications related to forwarding a confidential email among colleagues onto the CEESP listserve members email list. If you have read those email exchanges, you will recall that it triggered internal conflicts and further misunderstandings, and led to an offer to resign coming from our Chair, whose confidential email was forwarded onto the SEAPRISE list and then sent to the head of IUCN, making public an internal debate and disagreement within IUCN related to a Shell/IUCN agreement in Nigeria. The President of IUCN accepted our Chair's apology and refused her offer to resign. There was a related listserve flurry of emails forwarded from SEAPRISE into TGER fanning conflict. That activity led several CEESP members to request to be removed from the lists/membership.

The CEESP Chair subsequently requested a draft netiquette for CEESP Lists to be discussed at the Steering Committee meeting in New Delhi.

DRAFT CEESP emailcommunication ethics

General Advice

  • The basic ethics of email among respected colleagues should be used. Read a message three times before sending it.
  • If you are forwarding something, read it carefully because you are responsible if you forward something that is damaging to others.
  • Despite "rules" to the contrary, anything you write can be forwarded, so keep that in mind when you write something in any email.
  • Take continuing discussions off into separate side groups whenever possible, as we have always done in the past, as a a courtesy to all members who do not want their inboxes filled with CEESP list messages. Please do not copy other CEESP lists on a regular basis.
  • BElow are some standard netiquette rules drawn from:

Email Etiquette

It is a good idea not to irritate or offend the recipient unless you deliberately intend to do just that.

As a general rule, netiquette involves the same principles as plain old etiquette -- basic courtesy, respect and ethics.

By following the principles outlined below, the recipient of your email will be more likely to read and act, if not be favourably impressed by your message:

  1. Subject line to summarise the message. Make the Subject line summarise the body of the e-mail. Ask yourself, 'will the recipient(s) know what this e-mail is about' when they read the subject line in their inbox.
  2. Don't assume the recipient knows the background. Include enough contextual information at the beginning of the e-mail for the recipient to know what the matter is about. If in doubt, put background information in.
  3. Keep it concise. Keep messages brief and to the point, but not so brief that it causes the problem outlined in the previous point.
  4. Reply within 24 hours. Try to reply within 24 hours, less if possible. In fact, get in the habit of replying immediately -- it is the polite thing to do, and the recipient will appreciate a prompt reply.
  5. Allow time for a reply. E-mail messages are not usually required to be answered immediately, though it is good practice if you do. Before sending a reminder, allow some time for a response, some times even a few days. Not everyone is online 24 hours a day.
  6. Don't shout at people or threaten them. Don't use all capital letters, (UPPERCASE), or oversized fonts. The reader will likely feel they are being shouted at, or even threatened.
  7. Avoid angry outbursts.. Don't send or reply to email when you are angry. Wait until you have calmed down, then compose the email. Once written and sent, it can't be recalled. Angry or intemperate email has a way of rebounding on the sender. As a guide, ask yourself, 'would I say this to the person's face?'
  8. Keep the thread. When replying to an e-mail, use the reply option on the sidebar in your mail. This will keep the message in the "thread", and make it easier for the recipient to follow.
  9. Don't Reply to All unless necessary. Think twice about sending a reply to everyone. Perhaps only selected people need to see this email. Sending it to everyone may simply be contributing to an already cluttered In-Tray.
  10. Don't be over-familiar with the recipient.. Many people are offended by strangers being over-familiar. As a rule, use the title or form of address that you would use in verbal communication.
  11. Email is not confidential. It is almost laughably easy for the contents of your email to be read by others without your knowledge. So its wise to avoid saying anything you wouldn't write on the back of a postcard.. Postings to listservesshould be written with the awareness that these messages are very likely to be shared with others. The power of our listserves is their intent to tap & strengthen our volunteer experts who share information to and from their other respective networks.

That said, it seems that it may be necessary to discuss the need to add an internal rule to not forward messages without consulting the authors of those messages that you are forwarding (sometimes a long list of exchanges- please consult all those whose messages are included in that list).

This could help each of us to check our own judgement about the appropriateness of forwarding a message, as well as protect the authors of those messages from circulating their messages meant for the person to whom it was originally sent.

Also it has been proposed that forwarding messages between lists should be limited to those that are clearly of interest to the other list.

We have enjoyed colleageal exchanges on the lists for over a decade without having to institute "rules". Ideally we couldself-regulate the list, as we have always done without rules up until the problem in August 2011 (see background above).

An alternative single rule -- When credible complaints are received from list members about the list behavior of another member, the offending member will be informed of the issue and removed from the list if they do not desist from the behavior that was offensive to other members.