The EEAC mailing lists are support group
forums for people who are interested in adopting
or have adopted children from Eastern European
countries. Others who are sympathetic to
the problems and issues that these families
are facing are also welcome.
EEAC, Inc. reserves the right to establish
or change subscription requirements and to
regulate behavior of subscribers to ensure
smooth operation and civil exchange of information
and opinions. Deliberate or persistently
negligent misuse of the list by a list subscriber
(or someone using that person's subscription)
may result in suspension of posting privileges
or permanent expulsion from the list.
In addition to these guidelines, please review
our Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy.
Our netiquette guidelines are by no means
exhaustive, but they do represent several
years' worth of list administration. We expect
subscribers of any of the EEAC lists to abide
by these our Terms of Service and netiquette
guidelines.
EEAC, Inc. wishes to emphasize the issue
of courtesy to others in preparing and sending
your postings. We urge you to print and keep
this for future reference and to consider
these netiquette guidelines in every message
you post to the list.
Solicitations of any kind are not permitted
unless approved by EEAC. Solicitations include
(but are not limited to) product advertisements,
notifications of waiting children, agency
advertisements (including price structure),
solicitations to join a group, or entreaties
for funds or goods. It does not matter whether
or not you are profiting from the solicitation.
If you do have a solicitation you would like
to post, you must first request permission
to post. Please send all such requests to
the special address
If permission
is granted, you will be provided a statement
that must accompany that posting so that
other subscribers understand that you have
been granted permission, but that the EEAC
permission does not constitute an endorsement.
This is a very sensitive area and we are
very serious about it.
Violations of this solicitations rule may
result in immediate and permanent expulsion
from the list.
When you receive a message from the list,
the author/sender/etc. is the mailer for
the individual message or digest, NOT the
person that submitted the message to the
mailing list.
Please review the sample below. First note
the "Reply-To:" line. If you use
any of your e-mail software's "Reply
to" options, you will send your message
to a special autoresponder address. This
sends you detailed instructions on how to
prepare a message reply. It also discards
your message, so, if you have not kept a
copy of it, your message text will be lost.
If you intend the message to go to just the
original poster, you will find her/his e-mail
address in the "From" line.
Sender: An EEAC List
From: Mary Adopter
Subject: [EEAC-RL] We accepted a referral!
This affects you when you intend to answer
only to the original poster (Dear So-And-So
posting). Unfortunately, hitting "Reply
to" in these cases will cause your message
to be discarded.
For a message that is personal, that is,
directed at one person, you should create
a NEW message and send it to the address
in the "From" line. This netiquette
guideline applies to all messages that have
a salutation starting with a person's name
(Hi Mary, Mary, Dear Mary, etc.) If you want
to reply to the whole list about something
an individual posted because you feel that
it is relevant to everyone, then you should
create a new message that has a brief cut-and-paste
from the previous message (Mary said. . .
. ).
If you need assistance in knowing how to
address personal messages, please seek help
from us
, or from a friend
who knows how to post.
We realize that many times you are responding
to previous messages. It is helpful in understanding
your response if you quote a brief part of
the original message. However, it is unnecessary
and aggravating to many to have to reread
the entire original message. (This goes along
with Guideline #1.)
Probably 95 percent of you are using some
version of Windows or M operating systems.
If you don't already know how, please learn
to use the Copy, Cut and Paste tools. If
you insist on using a "Reply to"
option, scroll through the original message
and delete all material that is not relevant
to your response, including the Instructions
banner (the header/footer information about
sign-off, etc.) which is included on each
message. You can insert your comments immediately
following the relevant portions of the original
message. If you prepare your response as
a "New Message", you can copy the
portions you want to address from the original
message and paste them into your message.
DO NOT repast anything from the list without
prior permission from the EEAC, Inc. and
the original poster. The same rule should
be applied to private correspondence from
one list subscriber to another; you should
not send that person's private posting to
you or to anyone else. While the Internet
is not secure and confidentiality is difficult
to maintain, we can use common courtesy (and
common sense) guidelines; when something
is sent privately, assume that it is meant
to be kept as such.
You should write a subject line that announces
the message content. Many list subscribers
prefer not to read every single individual
or digest message they receive. So they scan
the subject lines looking for messages in
which they are interested. When they see
a subject line that says "Re: [A-PARENT-RUSS]
Digest - 27 August-2005 - Special Issue",
they have no way to tell what that message
is about. If you have used this option, please
edit the Subject line changing it to reflect
its relevance to the original message, e.g.,
"Re: Family Picnics". If you are
preparing a new message, you have control
over what you enter in the Subject line.
Please use the same guideline. Also, if you
are receiving the list in digest form, you
can see in the Topics section how many messages
there are on a particular subject, e.g.,
Customs Question (3).
As noted previously, we consider the people
on our mailing lists to be part of a far-flung
community brought together through the Internet.
With that in mind, we ask that you remember,
in any community, differing values and perspectives
may coexist on a relatively peaceful plane.
Presumably, everyone on our lists is there
because of some involvement with Eastern
European adoption, and that means that they
must share some values to begin with. However,
with any group of people, sometimes misunderstandings
or disagreements can occur.
Every time you submit a message to the list,
you are sending it to an audience of hundreds
and possibly thousands people. Every one
has the capability not only to read your
message but to forward it to any number of
other people. Language tone and style are
difficult to interpret over the Internet.
While you may think you are being clever,
someone else may take your words to be an
insult. Please state your ideas simply and
clearly, rather than in an abstract fashion.
Always consider your audience and your goals
as you compose your message. Are you trying
to pass on information? Are you attempting
to gather information? Are you seeking advice
or a virtual "shoulder to lean on?"
Quite often, unnecessary confusion or difficulties
occur because of a "simple" misunderstanding
of the tone being used. A check of your language
before you post might point up ideas that
could be put in a clearer fashion.
Of course, "flaming" (or acting
in an uncivil fashion) is NEVER an approved
mode of communication, either on a public
list or in a private message. We cannot regulate
what people say to each other privately,
but we CAN and WILL stop anyone who abuses
others on our list. Flaming might include
(but not be limited to) name calling, derision
of others' ideas or messages, questioning
administrator's actions, and the like. Should
the administrators believe that a message
sent is a flame, the originator will immediately
be subject to sanctions until the situation
has been resolved.
Don't include in your message anything you
don't want repeated. We are aware of situations
where agencies who monitor a list have copied
list subscribers' postings and/or threatened
the subscribers from posting. Hopefully,
most of us have cordial and cooperative relationships
with our agencies. However, this is not always
the case. We suggest that anyone who is aware
of this type of problem should contact the
EEAC list administrators at
Please carefully consider what you are writing.
You are not sitting across the table from
one person, or talking on the phone. You
are addressing that figurative auditorium
full of people. Compose your messages on
that basis.
By re-reading your message before you send
it, you will avoid many of the problems addressed
by the guidelines discussed above.
First, check the Subject Line. Is it relevant
to the subject in your message?
Second, read the body of your message. Does
it make sense? Does it say what you want
it to? Check your spelling and punctuation.
While there probably are a few English teachers
out there who would like to grade your message,
they aren't really going to. It should look
at least comparable to anything you would
submit to a newspaper or magazine as a letter
to the editor.
Third, consider again whether you want to
send this message to over hundreds to thousands
of people, or to only one person.
Fourth, if your email program has spell check,
consider using it. A properly spelled message
is one which receives more appropriate attention.
Fifth, make sure you are sending the message
you wish to send. Does the tone convey the
content in the way you want? Have you considered
the vast, diverse, multinational audience
which subscribes to this list?
Finally, scroll through the entire message.
If you do this, it should be obvious where
you have quoted entire digests or messages
that you didn't intend to. You can use this
as an opportunity to delete everything that
is not relevant.
Don't post administrative requests (sign-off,
change list modes, change email addresses)
- instead send the question to
or one of the list administrators. Especially
don't post sign-off (unsubscribe) requests
to the list.
Don't use lengthy signatures. Avoid repetitively
posting a lengthy list of the sequence of
events and dates in the progress of your
adoption. Please limit your signature to
* 5 * lines or less. Don't include business
titles or similar information unless it is
relevant to the list theme of adoption.
Stick to the list theme of Eastern European
adoption! Avoid off-topic postings and especially
don't republish Internet jokes, rumors, chain
letters, or similar documents. Very likely
everyone has already seen them a dozen times!
Such postings will get you a warning.
Don't post virus alerts or similar messages.
Most of these are hoaxes. In the unlikely
event that there is a genuine computer virus
threat that needs to be disseminated to list
subscribers, one of the list administrators
will post it.
Don't post attachments or encoded messages.
Many people's software is not automatically
set up to receive them.
Keep your content in good taste. Remember
that what may be funny or interesting to
one person may be extremely offensive to
another.
Tolerate the viewpoints of others.
Try not to be offended by what others may
post.
Don't post to the list asking if the list
is working, or why you're not receiving messages
from the list. Instead, send administrative
requests to the administrators or to
.
Avoid posting copyrighted material unless
the copyright owner has given permission.
(And remember that the list may not be redistributed
in any form without prior permission from
the administrator!)
If you do not follow these guidelines, we
will contact you individually. We don't want
to offend nor discourage you from posting
messages. We do, however, want to make this
list the best and most useful tool that it
can be.
As a subscriber of our list, we expect all
to comply with these netiquette guidelines.
In the unlikely event that you are contacted
by a list administrator, please cooperate
and comply with his/her directions. Any communication
from one of the list administrators is considered
private and may not be redistributed---even
in paraphrased form.
Failure to follow this guideline or a request
from an administrator will result in immediate
suspension of privileges. The administrators
do not enjoy reducing someone's posting privileges
(and have had to do it on extremely few occasions),
but that option is necessary given the size
and focus of this list.
FINALLY: ENJOY YOURSELF!! You will be making
some close friends with whom you will laugh,
cry, complain, worry, and hope. We welcome
your input, your joys and sorrows, and your
successes and setbacks. We hope that you
find the list to be a place of information
sharing, friendship making, and community
building.
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