Freedom of speech
From: Ullman Garrett
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2018 14:33:45 EDT

Any recommendations dealing with unfriendly, unneighborly, rude and even hurtful language on a neighborhood group. We are a restricted membership, unmoderated, no Anonymous posts allowed. We just went to a moderated status for 24 hours in an attempt to cool things off. We should allow free speech, shouldn't we?

I have such a list and we do have problems. The list is described a conversation between neighbors — like a chat on the front porch or the back fence. No press releases except from the government. No business postings except in direct request from a member or for a new business in the neighborhood. No solicitations except for rare instances of fires or other emergencies to a household in the neighborhood. People posting information about where to donate things for temporary disasters like school supplies for the immigrant children in (unlawful) detention, hurricane relief, etc are fine.

I ask people not to characterize the comments or person but to factually discuss their comments. “Harry, you have no sense at all and your statements are racist on top of it.” Privately I would remind the person that this message is neither helpful or informative. Explain why you believe the statements are racist and avoid discussing Harry’s intelligence. The people usually apologize to me and to the list.

If the message is horrible enough, I put the person on moderated status immediately which means I read their messages before they are posted. Repeated offenses definitely mean moderated. Sometimes people argue or ask why a message was returned. One person who does that is a gallery owner who _sometimes_ shows local artists but wants to post announcements of all her exhibitions to the list. She has been on moderated status for over 10 years.

Only one person in 15 years has been banned from the list.

1. He was a person who ran for office every time a position was open with no possibility of getting more than 1 vote if he got on the ballot,
2. repeated attacked people for attacking him when they objected to having several _hundred_ signs posted in our neighborhood,
3. arguing with me about every message I rejected as much as 6 emails back and forth, and finally
4. posting messages on other neighborhood lists that would never be allowed on ours that members of both lists respond to and copied our list. His message would thus be copied to our list. (Members either eventually stopped or he did.)

We once had two men that we think started drinking after dinner and by 10:00 would start posting messages attacking other people on the list. During the day they posted intelligent and helpful messages. I have 2 co-moderators — we take 4 months at a time but I step in when there is trouble. One of my less inhibited moderators who emails people and says Cut it out! sent them both an email telling them to stop posting after dark “for reasons you well know.”

The list keeps growing — almost 3,000 members and ~900 messages a month. Sometimes people complain because we often get requests for plumbers and chimney sweeps every week, but that is usually why people join the list. They move to the neighborhood and need help. Sending them to a list isn’t a friendly way of responding, although we have one. First they ask for a plumber and then they stay for the conversation.

As a former college professor I insist that we can discuss hard issues like racism and development sensibly and productively. If necessary I put the whole list on moderated status. The worst was about a development that covered what some people considered a public park and believed they had been promised it would be a park forever—not about racism.

I took over the list which began when 12 neighbors were afraid in neighborhood crime spree. Now it is the place to go when you want to know about anything happening in the neighborhood. I even got a response when I asked why snow had an acoustical effect when the trains that border our neighborhood went by.

So I consider it invaluable and it works. Private “educational” reminders to members, temporary moderation, permanent moderation, no commercial messages, government announcements are okay.

A long message, sorry. I must say that moving to Groups.io has made the list much easier to manage.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
[email protected]
"Neighbors Talking to Neighbors”
Takoma Park DC and MD

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Hi, I'm new to , a moderator of a handful of Yahoo groups (largest is 2000+ subscribers), not technically savvy, and could use some help.?

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That would?be up to?every individual group owner. My groups do not allow any discussion about Politics and Religion (Preaching)?even when I was running a chat group. ? ? ? ? ?

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You should establish Guidelines for the group and then enforce them.? The owner is providing a forum and sets the rules for participation in that forum.? Members that do not play by the rules can be banned.? my 2? worth...
See?/g/GroupManagersForum/guidelines
Also see the groups.io terms of service which state, among other things, "... You agree to not use the Service to?email or otherwise upload any content that?is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, excessively violent, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable...."

Toby

On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 03:33 PM, Ullman Garrett wrote:

Any recommendations dealing with unfriendly, unneighborly, rude and even hurtful language on a neighborhood group. We are a restricted membership, unmoderated, no Anonymous posts allowed. We just went to a moderated status for 24 hours in an attempt to cool things off. We should allow free speech, shouldn't we??

Ullmang

?Ullmang,

If you need to ask, you already know that there is a limit to "free speech".

In fact, as a group owner, it is your obligation to not permit certain language per the Groups.io Terms and Conditions. In particular, note section 1.6 (vi) below. Going to a Moderated status is an excellent step towards resolving the issue.

/static/tos

User Conduct

You are solely responsible for all code, video, images, information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, messages or other materials (“content”) that you upload, post, publish or display (hereinafter, “upload”) or email or otherwise use via the Service. The following are examples of the kind of content and/or use that is illegal or prohibited by Groups.io. Groups.io reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in Groups.io’s sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, removing the offending content from the Service, suspending or terminating the account of such violators and reporting you to the law enforcement authorities. You agree to not use the Service to:

1. email or otherwise upload any content that
   1. (i) infringes any intellectual property or other proprietary rights of any party;
   2. (ii) you do not have a right to upload under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships;
   3. (iii) contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
   4. (iv) poses or creates a privacy or security risk to any person;
   5. (v) constitutes unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, commercial activities and/or sales, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” “contests,” “sweepstakes,” or any other form of solicitation;
   6. (vi) is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, excessively violent, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; or
   7. (vii) in the sole judgment of Groups.io, is objectionable or which restricts or inhibits any other person from using or enjoying the Service, or which may expose Groups.io or its users to any harm or liability of any type;
2. interfere with or disrupt the Service or servers or networks connected to the Service, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the Service; or
3. violate any applicable local, state, national or international law, or any regulations having the force of law;
4. impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
5. solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 18;
6. harvest or collect email addresses or other contact information of other users from the Service by electronic or other means for the purposes of sending unsolicited emails or other unsolicited communications;
7. advertise or offer to sell or buy any goods or services for any business purpose that is not specifically authorized;
8. further or promote any criminal activity or enterprise or provide instructional information about illegal activities; or
9. obtain or attempt to access or otherwise obtain any materials or information through any means not intentionally made available or provided for through the Service.

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Gerald

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Hi,

I tried to find this topic because I thought I remembered reading something about but couldn't find it.? So, when you have a main group with a subgroup, I know the emails "officially" become:

Main Group XXX:??? ? ? [email protected]

Subgroup YYY of XXX:[email protected]

My questions are:

1) Can the address? [email protected]? also be used for the main group?

2) Can the address? [email protected]? ?also be used for the sub group?

Just curious in case people mess up the posting addys.

Barb B

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Thank you Shal,
I see now I have reached that point - though I wasted a few days in the confusion zone :-(

On 7/12/2018 12:31 AM, Jim Higgins wrote:

When I set up the groups I admin I selected settings to reply to group or reply to poster (the latter to me meaning an email address owned by the original poster) and those settings can now be overridden by individual posters. I call that a bug of the same magnitude as the one that was fixed.

Mark's proposal on beta was:

"...by not stripping the incoming Reply-To for groups set to Reply To Sender Only (or tagged appropriately)"

If (as you say above) your group is set as "Reply To -> Group and Sender", I read this as saying the change will have no effect.

Perhaps Shal could comment.

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Bill

Our club has an "executive session" group on yahoo, and I am not the owner of that group. ?Some discussion has occurred in our Groups.io discussion group that needs to be removed from our Groups.io discussion group and transferred back to our Yahoo executive session group for legal reasons. ?Does anyone have a clue if that's possible and how I would accomplish it? ?TIA for any help you can provide. ??