[Maine-birds] Re: Maine-birds Guidelines

On Sunday, October 28, 2012 7:56:09 PM UTC-4, Doug Hitchcox wrote:

Hello Maine-birders:

First I want to thank everyone for your participation on the listserv: this marks the 10,000th message to be posted since we switched servers in June 2010. Since then our membership continues to grow: now at 727 members and it was just November of last year that we crossed 600. Now as we continue through rarity season and approach winter, I want to recirculate the listserv guidelines. These are listed below but always available at: https://sites.google.com/site/birding207/home/guidelines

Things have been running smoothly with the listserv. Some of you may notice a lag in joining or posting to the listserv because I need to approve all new members and any messages flagged by Google as spam manually. There are a few other things of note that members should be aware of:

***Photos

I would like to ask that members post photos (or other media) through a host such as Picasa or flickr and provide a link within a message sent to the group. Hosting photos through an external site, rather than as an attachment, keeps the size of our emails small which can otherwise be an issue for members with slow dial-up connections and/or limited data plans on their phones. Also, many websites that collate messages from listservs (including the very popular http://birding.aba.org) do not save attachments and those photos will not show up there.

***eBird

I also want to strongly encourage members to use other resources, especially eBird, as a source of birding information. I do not want to discourage anyone from posting on the listserv but this can be a great place to answer questions about status and distribution. Viewing the Maine Bar Charts may be one of the best ways to learn if something is unusual at a certain time. 

For example, there have recently been a few posts about Hermit Thrush sightings. It is great to see them this late in the year but did you know they are the only Catharus thrush that overwinters in Maine: checking eBird again shows that by mid-November they are being reported on <1% of checkslists submitted to the database and by February it is around 0.1%. You can also look at the Range Maps for a species, area, and even date range to see where birds are or have been seen. 

There is a tremendous amount of information available through eBird, which only gets better with the more people who use it. eBird will keep track of all your lists for you as you submit your sightings and also provides beautiful checklists that you can share with the listserv. After completing a checklist, you can send the URL to the listserv as a sleek way to share sightings. As an example, here is a checklist from last fall: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S9132125. From that link you can see my entire list, photos of the birds, and even get a map of the location. Feel free to email me directly if you have any questions about using eBird.

***Participation

We are currently averaging about 14 messages per day. This is great but I want to encourage everyone to be mindful of your posts. Please include relevant information in your subject lines (species, location, date). If you are replying to someone on the list, make sure you are emailing just them and not the entire group. Stay on topic: what wild birds are you seeing that others should know about? And please contribute! 27% of the messages here are posted by one of 10 members. 

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Maine-birds is an email forum devoted to the discussion of birds and birding in the state of Maine.  The primary function of the list is to provide an efficient means of reporting wild bird sightings in the state.  Posts related to identification, behavior, conservation issues related to Maine birds are welcome.

The determination of what is and what is not appropriate to discuss on the list is ultimately at the discretion of the Moderator/Listowner. The Listowner may decide to terminate a discussion.


Subscription and Settings

You can modify aspects of your subscription or unsubscribe by pointing your browser to: http://groups.google.com/group/maine-birds/subscribe

The URL for our guidelines and listerv information is given at the bottom of every Maine-birds post.


List Rules

1) This list has lots of subscribers with varying interests and experience, so you should expect to see a variety of posts.  Some may be technical while others may simply express wonder at a particular observation.  Please give each post the respect you would expect from your own posts.

2) The daily traffic on the list is currently at a moderate level. Please carefully consider if a post will be of sufficient interest to justify putting it on the list.  In most cases, a list member should not post more than once a day.

3) Use the subject line to describe the nature of your post as clearly and succinctly as possible.  If you are reporting a sighting, list members would appreciate knowing the location where you made the observation either in the subject line or in the body of the message.

4) Commercial posts are not permitted on this list server. Posts that may be of interest to the community, and which the poster seeks no personal financial gain, may be allowed.  Please contact the Listowner (dhit...@mac.com) if you have questions on whether a post will violate the non-commercial requirement.

5) Posting messages with attachments is not recommended. A poster should use other hosts, such as picasa or flickr, to share photos, videos, or other media. 

6) Please maintain civility and respect in all postings.  Flaming and offensive comments will not be tolerated.  Violators will be suspended immediately and perhaps banned from the list permanently.

7) The list software is set so that a reply to that post will go only to the original poster, not the entire list.  Unless a response is of interest to the entire list, replies to posts should be sent only to the original poster.

8) Not all messages posted to the list will be of interest to a list member.  Please use your delete key liberally to avoid posts on particular topics.  If some posts continue to bother a subscriber, please contact the Listowner (dhit...@mac.com).

9) These rules are intended to be as minimal as possible.  The format of posts is up to the discretion of each subscriber.  Membership on this list is considered a privilege.  Failure to follow the rules may result in removal from the list.  In most cases, a subscriber will be given a warning first.

Thanks for your participation in the group and good birding,

Doug Hitchcox

Hollis, ME

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