STO Yahoo! Group Rules

Greetings to new and current short-tailed opossum fans! There aren't a lot of STO-lovers and STO-owners out there, so we have to stick together! Feel free to post, joke and have fun!

Group Philosophy

The Short Version

Enjoy talking about STO, be nice to each other, and die spammers die!

Group Philosophy

The Long Version

General

Please keep posts on the general subject of short-tailed opossums or related topics. No spam, offensive language, chain letters, virus warnings, etc. Please respect people's copyrights, trademark and personal/property rights.

Be aware there will be discussions on this list about feeding live animals to short-tailed opossums (such as feeder mice, rodents, crickets, etc). If this offends you, please either don't join the list, or stay quiet about your objections.

Any solicitations (if any) for contributions to causes, people, efforts, etc. should be directly short-tailed opossum related, and ask for prior approval from a moderator.

Staying On-Topic

Since this is one of the only short-tailed opossum specific resources available, discussions usually stay focused on STO. But we're a friendly group so many of us like to mention things going on in our lives, families or pets which is cool! Here are a few guidelines for not going too far off-topic:

Put "OT" in the topic to warn us, like "OT: Weather". That way people who aren't interested can skip over the message.
If you have specific questions about specific animals please consider finding a more appropriate Yahoo! group to ask. 500+ hamster owners will answer "How do I breed my hamster?" better than 100+ opossum owners.
Feel free to ask off-topic questions and ask people to answer you via email!

Please do not bring up the no-no subjects of religion, politics, "animal rights" groups and anti-exotic-pet groups. These discussions just get people upset. We've had particularly nasty discussions about PETA that only result in people getting angry and leaving the list. Let's share cute stories about our STO instead!

If anything gets too seriously off-topic, moderators or members irritated by OT posts usually nicely ask people to take it to email or suggest other resources to consult. If that doesn't help, moderator(s) reserve the right to halt a thread that has taken on a life of its own.

Be Nice

Respect our members! We expect and encourage debates, just keep them civil. No abuse, flaming, slandering or insulting people! If you have a problem with another member please keep it off the list. Ignoring is usually the best policy for avoiding flame wars, but feel free to notify the moderator(s) if you feel a discussion is getting out of hand.

Spammers are the most frequent problems. They are banned and reported to Yahoo! at the first moment possible.

For anything else, usually people are just asked nicely to take discussions private or reminded gently to be nice. But, if any abuse is posted, the moderator(s) reserve the right to delete the thread and put the offending member on moderation for a short time until we can see future posts and okay them. Banning may occur through extreme circumstances - in 1.5+ years we've only banned one non-spamming member and that was for repeated abusive and offensive language.

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Good Ideas

These aren't exactly rules, just sensible ideas!

For your safety, keep your personal contact information private. Arrange specifics for selling/trading transactions (shipping times, arrivals, contact info, etc) through private e-mail.

People really appreciate specific, descriptive email subjects. I can't count the number of times people have posted emails like "STO Wanted" and asked if there are any breeders near them...but never mention where they are!

Good Subjects: "STO For Sale in San Antonio TX", "Diet Question"
Bad Subjects: "STO For Sale", "Question"

Remove other people's prior posts from the bottom of messages. When replying to emails or other posts, please remove the prior messages that are at the bottom and have > in front of them. This keeps the message size minimal and doesn't force people to scroll through the same message over and over.

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Conclusion

These rules are guidelines and they are flexible! If you feel a new rule should be included or old one changed, send your thoughts to the group moderator(s). Feel free to contact the group owner if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

Molly Kalafut - short-tailed-opossum-owner@yahoogroups.com

Rules Version 1.02