Welcome

Welcome to the Mac-Access e-mail forum. This is the primary policy document which lays down some guidelines for list participation. You may wish to retain its contents for your future reference. At any rate, please read it CAREFULLY before posting to the list. When you join the Mac-Access mailing list, you will be sent a copy of this document automatically. It may also be updated from time to time; so you may wish to review it periodically if you remain a member of what is now a thriving community of Apple enthusiasm.

On Mac Access, although perhaps the name may suggest that only Mac OS is up for discussion, you may discourse upon anything and everything related to the Apple Mac OSX and iOS software range, as well as Apple and third-party hardware and software, with specific emphasis on, although not necessarily restricted to, accessibility issues. There is one important exception here. The discussion of Apple software products designed for use under Microsoft Windows is explicitly prohibited; as is any other application designed for Microsoft Windows or any other non-Apple environment, even if it does involve Apple's hardware or software platforms. There has to be a cut-off point and the reason it has been defined thus is because there are already many alternative forums, (including our sister group Techno Chat; part of the Techno Chat Dot Net Technology Network where this discussion is already covered in extensio.

List Policy

There aren't many rules which you must observe in this forum. But those few rules which do exist will be strictly implemented.

Warning, Please Read!

Until recently it has been our policy to issue "gentle reminders" on list where a member defies list policy, intentially or otherwise, regarding most of the below stipulations. This practice has, however, proven to be ineffective; and the warnings have begun, not unsurprisingly, to irritate those members whose policy compliance has been absolute. Therefore, it is now our practice to warn a member once, privately, to the effect that they have by their actions stepped over the line of what we consider acceptable behaviour. If as a result of that warning, which we always try to convey in a friendly and constructive manner the member continues to behave in an unacceptable fashion, a sequence of two actions will ensue:

1. The member will be placed into "Moderation" for a period of 7, (seven) days
. If, at the end of that period of seven days, the user has not re-offended, the "Moderation" flag will be removed; and the member will be free to post again as before.
2. If, however, the offence is repeated; or another similar offence is committed during that period of seven days, the member's subscription will be terminated, and they will be placed into a "banned" list of addresses in order to prevent them from re-subscribing
.

If the then former member attempts to re-subscribe under an alias or different E-Mail address and the list owners become aware of it, that address too will be automatically removed from the group. These measures have been introduced for what we believe to be the general good of the members of our group who have shown themselves willing to comply with what we do not believe are unreasonable list policies which we stipulate for the greater good.

On Mac Access, You may not

• YOU MAY NOT CC (carbon copy) messages intended for other groups to Mac-Access, or messages intended for Mac-Access to other groups. Implicit destinations are often used as a spam technique as a means of bulk distributing their E-Mail and Mac-Access is protected from implicit destinations. This is viewed as unacceptable behaviour and all such messages will be rejected by the list server without notice or consultation
• YOU MAY NOT Add Mac Access to the "To:" field of messages intended to be sent to other groups at the same time as sending to Mac Access. For the reasons outlined above, this also constitutes implicit destinations and such attempts will be rejected.
• YOU MAY NOT Use this formum to discuss any topic which is covered by any company's NDA, Beta Agreement or similar. Such topics could create issues for the group as a whole and we will not permit any membr to jeopardise what we all enjoy
• YOU MAY NOT use this forum to make offensive or defamatory comments towards any other individual or group, regardless of whether they are associated with the Mac-Accessibility Network, of which this forum is a part. Membership of this forum shall be deemed as association.
• YOU MAY NOT use this forum to send file attachments of any kind. Any such attempts will be blocked by the server, and brought to the attention of the list owners and assistant list controllers; who will take the appropriate action.
• YOU MAY NOT Use fowl, obscene or abusive language under any circumstances whatsoever. If you are requested by the list owners or assistant list controllers to refrain from using a specific expression on list, that request shall be deemed as formal, and further non-compliance will result in the actions outlined above

Note: We are aware that there are certain expressions used in various regions which, although perhaps locally acceptable, are not acceptable as part of what is considered polite conversation within the United Kingdom, where this group is hosted. The standards of behaviour which we expect from our members are defined by what are considered acceptable here, within the united Kingdom; regardless of other local practices.

• YOU MAY NOT Cross-post between this and other E-Mail groups whose content is similar
Note: With reference to cross-posting, there are a small number of exceptions; and at least one, specifically, the first of these exceptions must apply:
1. You have communicated directly with, and obtained the consent of, the list owners in advance
2. You are promoting an upcoming event which has a direct significance to one or more of Apple's platforms, websites or events
3. Your intention is to generate fresh interest in the Mac Access Dot Net project; in which case, please accept our thanks
• YOU MAY NOT Use inappropriate subject lines in your messages; this stipulation will be covered in greater detail later in this document, as it requires further clarification

A few things to keep in mind

• When quoting text from a previous message, please only quote what is relevant. In other words, please do not quote an entire chain of messages, only the most recent one to which you are replying. Note: there is a 50K size restriction on messages posted to the group. This includes all headers. We are constantly reviewing this limit and may adjust it as necessary as time goes by
• Please do not forward messages from other lists with similar content to this one. It is highly likely that other list members will already have seen the content you are sharing elsewhere. If you wish to quote text from such messages, that's fine, but please remove all message headers, and be selective with what you quote. That will help reduce extraneous traffic. Please see above for exceptionbs to this

Note: There are now certain header filters in place which may prohibit the practice of forwarding messages. if you attempt to do so and the server rejects your post, plese don't contact the list owners to find out why. Such queries will often go unanswered as they are already explained here and elsewhere.

• If an article you wish to reference or selectively quote from is, or contains copyright material, please respect the copyrights of the owner, and seek their permission before doing so
• Where possible, please forward links to articles, rather than quoting the full articles themselves. That gives fellow-members the option of whether or not to download the material

Note: The reason for this stipulation is user's bandwidth and the list archives. Many EU and Commonwealth users have capped Internet tariffs whose restrictions are absolute. Therefore, the preservation of bandwidth is essential and they will appreciate your consideration.

Also, the list archive pages are considerable in each monthly volume. Therefore, it often helps if information isn't replicated unnecessarily within its contents.

• If you wish to externally forward messages which are posted to this forum by other members, we would advise seeking the permission of the original author before doing so. We consider it the height of discurtasy to simply forward without first requesting such consent; and if the list owners or assistant list controllers receive complaints from other members regarding such behaviour, the appropriate action will be taken. Hopefully, any such issues can be resolved amicably, and further action will only be taken in extreme cases.
• The list owners and assistant list controllers reserve the absolute right to remove any member from the group, or suspend their membership where it is deemed necessary and appropriate to do so. Any decision made regarding the list, its membership or content by the list owners shall be considered final and binding. We would, of course, only consider removal under extreme circumstances. We're not running a dictatorship here; and we hope that all members are adult enough to behave in a civilised manner. In the event that a decision taken by one of the assistant list controllers is contested, you may contact the list owners to appeal it

Subject Lines

This is one issue which often creates confusion, and is often not helped by forgetfulness when posting messages. We're all guilty of that at times; we've all been there, done this. But the time has come now that Mac Access Dot Net is growing so rapidly which, I'm bound to say, we are happy to see, that we must start enforcing proper use of subject lines. So please read the below carefully; we haven't written it simply to waste valuable electrons, or for the benefit of the exercise to our fingers. ;-)

Your subject lines should be relevant to the topic of your message, or to the message to which you are replying. In other words, if the original topic of the message thread changes from something like "VoiceOver and Braille", then you start discussing VoiceOver and speech with no further discussion of Braille, then the onis is on you as the new sender to change "VoiceOver and Braille" to "VoiceOver And Speech", or something similarly relevant. This is simply an issue of user initiative; but it's something which we will enforce if need be. Please don't say "nobody told me", it's here, in black and white!

You may think that this is churlish; but consider. The list archives contain hundreds, possibly even thousands of messages in each monthlyu volume. Trying to carry out a search based on a specific subject is far easier if, as we propose, the subject lines are relevant. It's far more likely that something will be missed if otherwise and that "something missed" may be precisely the content that the searcher is looking for. Also now that traffic levels on the list are increasing so steadily, many people simply don't have the time to scroll through every single message which gets posted to the list. Thus, they use subject lines to filter the content which they read. It may be that something they could help you with is posted under an entirely inappropriate subject line and, consequently, they miss your message and you don't benefit by getting the help you require. So it is in everybody's interests to make the effort and keep subject lines current.

Whilst we do our best to make the archives as efficient as we possibly can, there are issues with VoiceOver, for example, which result in the frustrating and irritatingly repeticious verbalisation of "Safari, Busy"; "Safari, Busy;", Safari, Busy"; Safari, Busy"; Safari, Busy"; (get the point yet?) The more efficient the archive, the less likely this is to happen. The less likely it is to happen, the more likely it is that the seeker will opt to re-use the archives at a future time. That, in turn, produces a cascade effect by helping to avoid repeticious and often tediously often answered questions. Whilst there are no restrictions enforced on this point, (and never will be), it sometimes helps to further maximise users' enjoyment of participating in group discussions; which benefits all of us.

Until recently, we have tried to leave this to the member's discretion, in the hope that mutual cooperation would provide an adequate solution to what has alwasys been a universal problem with E-Mail everywhere. We don't particularly like the idea of "moderation", as it's often known; we see it as restrictive. Unfortunately, however, it now seems we're left with little option but to enforce this behaviour, as the problem is rising to such an extent that list traffic is in danger of becoming too random to control. Therefore, subject line consideration is now mandatory for this group, rather than a simple guideline. Thus, anybody who persistently refuses to conform, ignoring warnings or requests made to them directly by the list owners or list controllers will find that their postings to the list become moderated. In other words, they will require approval for each message they send to the group. If, after the previously defined period of moderation their behaviour improves, the restrictions will be removed and they will be free to post as before. If, however, moderation still does not produce conformity, they will be removed from the group, with regret.

If, after reading the above, you require still further clarification, please feel free to HREF="mailto:support@mac-access.net?subject=Mac Access Dot Net Policy Query" TITLE="contact the list owners">contact the list owners

If you can agree to these guidelines and rules, then welcome to the mac-Access forum. Should you have any questions or comments related to this mailing list, or any concerns regarding the content of this document, please contact us and we will be happy to discuss them with you.

If you wish to subscribe to, unsubscribe from or modify your subscription options for the Mac-Access forum, please send a message to the mac-access.net list server, including the appropriate command syntax in the subject line and body of your message. You can find help relevant to all of the functional commands relevant to 95% of all Internet-based E-Mail servers here Alternatively, you may modify your subscription preferences by visiting the mac-access E-Mail forum's web page

And finally, you may also visit the Mac-Access archives to view all previous messages to this group since 12 April, 2010. Mac-access moved to its new home on that date, so messages posted prior to that date are not available in the archive. In order to visit this resource, please click here to open the archives. Please note that as of January 2011 the Mac Access archive assumed monthly format which should make it easier to search for those using screen-readers or other accessibility tools.

Once again, welcome to the Mac-Access E-Mail forum; we hope that you find this resource of value, and a worthwhile place to discuss all of your Mac OSX and iOS issues.

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This document was last updated on Friday, 23 December 2011, at 15:36 (UTC).