Civility

The Arlington list is a private forum managed and paid for by a volunteer. The mission of the list is to further civil online discussion in our town, and the purpose of these guidelines is to support that mission. Submitting postings to the Arlington list is a privilege granted to everyone without condition. However, posting freely and having your messages delivered immediately is a privilege earned by following these guidelines.

  1. Do not make personal attacks on other list members. See Personal Attacks for more details on what constitutes a personal attack.
  2. Do not repost to the list an e-mail you received privately, whether signed or unsigned, unless you have the author's permission to do so, or unless the message was obviously written with the intention of unlimited distribution. For the purpose of this guideline, "private" means "not posted to the Arlington list."
  3. Sign your posts with your real, full name. See Anonymous Posting for more details on what this means.
  4. Stick to the topic of Arlington. This is especially important if you are posting about something controversial. See On Topic for more details about what's on topic for the list.
  5. Take the long, heated arguments with one or two other people to private email.
  6. When posting on a controversial topic, take responsibility for guiding the discussion back towards civility, even if you don't think that others are doing the same.
  7. Remember, that just as you have the right to state your opinion on the matter, so does the other person.


Normally, everyone on the Arlington list is allowed to post anything they want, and their messages are delivered immediately without a chance for the list manager to see the messages first. However, if your postings violate these guidelines, then the list manager may contact you to discuss it. If, in the list manager's judgment, your postings continue to violate the guidelines repeatedly and with a lack of good-faith effort to improve, the list manager may choose to make your subscription moderated. The list manager will notify you in this case. Please also note that a new list member's subscription is moderated for the first few postings.


Having a moderated subscription means that when you post a message, it is not delivered to the list until the list manager approves the message (normally within 24 hours). If the list manager does not approve the message, you will be notified.


If you have been put on moderation and you want to be allowed to post freely again, write to the list manager.