Access

Access to the DCA email list will be restricted to members of the DCA. Access is considered a benefit of membership and is subject to any pertinent DCA By-Laws or Ethics Guidelines that may apply. By subscribing to the DCA email list, each member agrees to read the list rules and directives in their entirety and abide with them completely. Access to the DCA email list may be denied or suspended in response to violations of the DCA email list policies and rules.

DCA Email List Policy

Above all other policies and rules, of primary importance is the requirement for civility and decorum, which will be mandatory. Personal attacks, insulting or snide remarks, aggravating argument, combative attitude and/or threats of any nature will not be tolerated. Such behavior will result in the immediate suspension of the offending member’s DCA email list privileges. The instance of an alleged violation will be reviewed for further action by the list administrators using reasonable and prudent evaluation. If a member is found to be in violation of civility and decorum, depending upon the nature of the violation, one (1) and only one warning may be issued by the administrators. Any further failure to follow DCA policy will in result in suspension from the list. Likewise, if the violation is found to be egregious, immediate suspension, without warning, will occur. Suspensions may be temporary, in rare instances, or, most likely, permanent. It is the express duty of the DCA member using the list to maintain civility and decorum, knowing full well the responsibilities and consequences of their postings to the list.

Courtesy guidelines

To facilitate the productive and ethical use of the DCA email list, participants are expected to follow these courtesy guidelines:

1. Mail sent through DCA Members List is copyrighted by the original author. Be courteous and ask permission before forwarding or redistributing in any manner.
   
2. Be relevant. Questions and comments should relate to the topics of the discussion list’s purpose.
   
3. Be concise. Keep paragraphs and messages short and to the point. Give your message a clear, concise subject line. Excessively long posts to the list should not be made and will be filtered.
   
4. Be civil. Do not post inflammatory messages. These discussions are public and they are meant for constructive exchanges. Emphasis, if required, should be conveyed by the use of underscoring a word. Capitalization of whole words that are not titles is considered SHOUTING! Capitalize words only to distinguish a title or heading.
   
5. No private discussions to or from list members should be made on the list. Personal communications should be conducted by private individual email.
   
6. The DCA Members List is for email communications of the DCA membership regarding Dalmatians and DCA business. First and last names are required when a participant subscribes to the DCA email list. First and last names are required on every post made to the DCA list.
   
7. Cross posting to and from other lists should be limited and is at the discretion of the moderators. The intention is that lists are not to be duplicates of each other. DCA members, acting as proxies, will not be permitted to post statements and opinions from non-DCA members relating to any issues.
   
8. Trim posts and remove excess information from replies.
   
9. Following the DCA policy on civility, individuals who have strong feelings about a subject should wait before posting to the list. When the poster is calm, the post should be re-read as if it was being read by another individual for the first time.
   
10. If a DCA list member is upset about a post please contact the List Admin and allow the administrators to handle the situation.
    
11. Do not email offensive, inflammatory remarks relating to list matters to individuals privately and do not respond to the list with inflammatory replies. These offenses will fall under the DCA policy on civility and will be adjudicated accordingly.