Listserv Participation and Acceptable Use Policies

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Listserv Participation Policy

• While the HMN Listserv is private, messages posted to it are not HIPAA compliant. Do not include information that could identify any patient or potential patient.

• Honor copyrighted material. Please do not copy and paste articles in your message. Instead, include a link to them. If the article is not available online, refer to it with typical reference citations and provide a brief quote.

• Be polite and courteous. Before hitting the send button, consider how you would feel if your message was the headline story in your hometown newspaper. We call this the New York Times test.

• Leave politics at the door. Listserv exchanges must avoid electioneering or endorsing a candidate for federal, state, or local political office. That said, advocacy on substantive issues is separate from electioneering for candidates. Electioneering is absolutely prohibited. Advocacy on legislative issues is allowed.

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Listserv Acceptable Use Policy

HMN established its listserv to foster connection, collaboration, and communication within the HMN Community.

• The User agrees not to send:

  • Unsolicited Commercial Email (spam). This includes requests for political solicitations, funding, or other time and resources of HMN participants.

  • Requests for preceptors. HMN is not an appropriate venue in creating preceptor relationships. It is not an acceptable use of the listserv to post messages requesting preceptors or clinical sites.

  • Requests for participation in surveys or educational projects. 

• The User agrees to only use email addresses that he or she owns and controls for sending and receiving messages to and from the listserv.

• The User agrees to follow the participation policy and etiquette of the HMN Listserv.

• The User agrees to respect the privacy of other users. 

• All electronic mailing lists are to be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any United States Federal, State or City law is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, copyrighted material, material we judge to be inappropriate, threatening, obscene, or protected by trade secret and other statutes.

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Etiquette: The Dos and Don'ts

• State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line.

• Only send a message to the entire list when it contains information that benefits everyone.

• When referring to locations, please be specific; our network covers four counties and beyond.

• When posting messages, such as “thanks for the information” or “me too,” to the listserv, they are sent to the entire listserv.

• Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list,” through the listserv. You can unsubscribe through your profile settings.

• Do not use the listserv to invite the entire list to join your social network (Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc.).

• Warn other list subscribers of lengthy messages either in the subject line or at the beginning of the message body with a line that says “Long Message.”

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Misuse of the Listserv

The HMN office will notify any member who posts a message which violates HMN policies or is counter to HMN’s mission.

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Any member who posts a second inappropriate message will be temporarily removed from the listserv. The member may have their listserv privileges reinstated by providing in writing that they will follow all HMN policies.

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Any member who posts a third inappropriate message will permanently lose their listserv privileges.