Overview
Listserves are an email service intended to provide a useful forum for the free and positive exchange of information between members. Users who post material on a University-administered listserve in violation of University policies or the law may have their listserve account suspended and/or may be referred for additional disciplinary or legal action as appropriate.
Details / Instructions
Lists must have a primary owner who is responsible for the maintenance of the list. The primary owner must be a faculty or staff member, or a member of a registered student organization (as verified through the Department of Student Activities and Student Organizations). In the event where the primary owner leaves the University or does not wish to continue as the owner of a list, he/she must appoint another faculty or staff member, or a member of a registered student organization, to be the new primary owner of the list. Otherwise, the list will be disabled. The primary owner of a list is responsible for day-to-day monitoring and operation of the list. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Serving as the initial point of contact for subscribers with questions or problems.
- Deleting subscribers whose addresses are no longer valid.
- Dealing with any social problems which may arise on the list.
- Ensuring that the list members abide by the conditions setup in the section "Inappropriate and disallowed uses of a Mailing List" above and to take appropriate action if members do not do so. This may simple involve a warning to a member who was unaware of these conditions or may involve the temporary or permanent removal of a member from the list.
- Ensuring that messages carried on the list are appropriate to the list's topic.
- Notifying the University Help Desk at helpdesk@richmond.edu when a list is no longer needed, so that the list is deleted. The primary owner may authorize other individuals to act as owners, editors, or moderators of the list. However, all owners, editors, and moderators must be faculty or staff members, or members of a registered student organization. In most cases, a list owner should not add a subscriber to a list without the subscriber's prior knowledge and consent; the owner should comply immediately with a request from a subscriber to be removed from a list.
Inappropriate and disallowed Uses of a Mailing List
Lists may not be used for:
- Unsolicited mass mailings (spamming).
- Non-University commercial or advertising purposes.
- Purposes which violate University policies, local ordinances, or state or federal laws.
- Posting obscene or otherwise offensive material (e.g., messages with sexual, discriminatory, racial, or derogatory connotations).
- Posting copyrighted materials, trade secrets, proprietary financial information, or similar materials without appropriate prior authorization from the owner of such information.
- Adversely affecting or jeopardizing the University services or those of its members.
- Forgery, or attempted forgery, of the "From:" line in an e-mail message. Masking the identity of an account and/or electronic identification address is prohibited.
- For-profit and/or supporting a for-profit organization.
- Purely personal reasons.
See Also