Subscribe to the BPA email lists (Google Groups)

Index

• General Advice
• Email List Descriptions
  • BPA-News
  • BPA-Issues
  • BPA-Misc
  • BPA-Jobpostings
  • Strawberry Hill
  • BPA-Board
• Google Groups: Transition To
• Google Groups: A detailed recipe for adding yourself (circa January 2008)
• Terminology used in List Descriptions

General Advice / Etiquette

• Help us avoid having the address of these lists wind up on SPAMmers' lists. Google's SPAM filters are very good, but they still miss a lot. My experience is that we can expect roughly a message a day to be missed by Google's filters once the SPAMmers get this address. Because the list managers monitor messages from non-members, these should not actually get to the list, but they do create a workload for the list managers (For further description, see Semi-private Postings).
  • If you must forward a message from the list, please edit out the email address of the group. If you don't know how to do this in your mail program, please do not forward messages directly, but cut-and-paste the contents of the message on the group into an entirely new message.
  • Avoid cross-posting of messages ("Cross-posting" is when you send the same message to multiple lists).
    • Cross-posting suggests that the message may not have been specific enough to Barron Park to warrant posting to the list.
    • Cross-posted messages have a higher chance of winding up on a publicly accessible web site (and hence likely to be harvested by a SPAMmer's robot).
• Recognize that these are large lists, and demonstrate courtesy to the membership by taking the time to compose and review a message before sending it to the list. Please read advice on Etiquette.
• Note on moderated lists: The software used when the lists were hosted on bpaonline.org allowed the moderator to annotate and edit messages to fix omissions and various problems (for example, formating) without having to send it back to the original author for revision. However, the software provided on Google Groups essentially limits the moderator to being able to accept or reject a submission. Consequently, if you don't take adequate time to compose a message, expect significant delays because the moderator will need to describe to you what the problem was rather than simply fixing it.

See Terminology used in List Descriptions for an explanation of these items and for the full addresses of the lists.

BPA-News

• Group Name: bpa-news
• Formerly: bpa-news1
• Subject line prefix: [bpa-news: %d]
• Purpose: Announcements of public events, city meetings, BPA meetings, BPA announcements, alerts about vandalism and other crimes, alerts for lost/found pets, and alerts on other problems of general interest.
  This list is not for discussion of issues (the reason for it being moderated). Nor is it for generic announcements about the broader community that have adequate distribution channels (for example, the local newspapers).
• Subscription: Semi-open
  All residents of the BPA neighborhood are encouraged to subscribe to this list. There are also a range of other subscribers, including public officials, newspaper reporters, and residents of other neighborhoods who redistribute messages that are also appropriate for their neighborhoods.
• Posting: Moderated
• Volume: very low

BPA-Issues

• Group Name: bpa-issues
• Formerly: bpa1
• Subject line prefix: [bpa-issues: %d]
• Purpose: This list is only for Barron Park and Barron Park Association related issues. Announcements and news not carried on the bpa-news list is appropriate here, as is discussion of issues (within bounds: see Etiquette)

  This list includes some people from outside the neighborhood: some city officials (council and staff), leaders from other neighborhoods, and former residents. Recent membership has ranged between 150-220 addresses.

• Subscription: Semi-open
• Posting: Members-only (was Semi-private until it started getting too much SPAM).
• Volume: The number of postings on this list is low--often weeks go by without any postings. However, when there is a hot topic, there can be 5-10 posting per day for several days before it tapers off.

BPA-Misc

• Group Name: bpa-misc
• Formerly: bpa-misc1
• Subject line prefix: [bpa-misc: %d]
• Purpose: This list handles any other messages likely to be of interest to Barron Park residents. Examples: requests for house-sitters & nannies, house repair advice, houses or apartments for rent in Barron Park, etc.
  Note: This list is not for houses for sale, both those with an agent and those for sale by the owner. The reason: There are so many real estate agents that the list could easily be swamped with such mailings plus conventional advertising outlets provide needed visibility.
• Subscription: Semi-open
• Posting: Members-only (was Semi-private until it started getting too much SPAM).
• Volume: The number of postings on this list tends to be low. This list tends to also get messages that are more appropriate for the other two lists (bpa-news and bpa-issues) because various individuals send to whatever is "close enough."

BPA-Jobpostings

• Group Name: bpa-jobpostings
• Formerly: n/a - created Nov 2009
• Subject line prefix: [bpa-jobpostings: %d]
• Purpose: The objective is to match up people in Barron Park looking for short-term jobs with other people in Barron Park seeking someone to do work for them. The types of jobs include yard cleanup, house maintenance, pet walking or pet care, office support and filing, etc., either one time or on-going.
• Subscription: By Invitation. Membership open only to Members of Barron Park Association: They may go to the Group web page and request an invitation to join the Group
• Posting: Members-only. Unmoderated
• Volume: very low

Strawberry Hill

• Group Name: bpa-strawberryhill
• Formerly: strawberryhill
• Subject line prefix: [strawberryhill: %d]
• Purpose: Strawberry Hill is the triangular parcel behind the Gunn High School athletic fields. It is currently unused and covered with invasive grasses and other plants. A group of Barron Park residents and other interested people are trying to work with (and encourage) the School District to allow cleanup and revegetation with native plants. This group is used for communication between those volunteers.
• Subscription: Participants
• Posting: Members-only

BPA-Benches

• Group Name: bpa-benches
• Formerly: n/a
• Subject line prefix: [BPA-Benches: %d]
• Purpose: Improving the small unused plot of City-owned land between Matadero Avenue and Matadero Creek across from Josina. It is managed by City of Palo Alto Utilities because it is the location of an emergency well. Current hope is to restore the benches and perhaps do some minor landscaping.
• Subscription: Semi-open
• Posting: Members-only

BPA-Board

• Group Name: bpa-board
• Formerly: bpa-board1
• Purpose: To send information, questions or requests to the full BPA Board, or if you don't know which Board member to address your concerns to.
• Subscription: Closed
  Membership: the Board of Directors of the BPA
• Posting: Open

Google Groups: Transition to

• Hosting: In January 2008, the BPA email lists were transferred to Google Groups, having previously been hosted at bpaonline.org.
  Background info: Email to BPA-News1 of 2007-12-17
• Archives: Messages sent to these lists after the transition to Google Groups will be archived as part of that facility. Messages sent prior to the transition are archived at http:///lists-archive/ (not clickable to try to obscure from the robots used by SPAMmers).
• Directory Listing: Not listed. Having your group listed in the Directory is an option. However, doing so would seem to increase the probability/speed of the email address being discovered by SPAMmers: the group name is also its email address. Consequently, we chose not to be listed.
  Note: for further description, see Semi-private Postings.

Terminology used in List Descriptions

• Group Name: The email address of this list is GroupName@googlegroups.com If you use "whitelisting" (opposite of blacklisting) or you use the addresses in the headers of messages to redirect messages into email folders, messages from this email list have this address in the "To" header (the address in the "From" header is that of the person who sent the message).
  The home page for the group is http://groups.google.com/group/GroupName The web site for the group provides an archive of past messages and provides the simplest means for managing your subscription to the email list.
  However, to access the web pages, you will have to create an account within Google Groups using your email address.
• Formerly: This is the name of this email list when it was hosted at bpaonline.org, that is, the name just before the transition to Google Groups.
• Subject line prefix: This prefix is added to the subject line of each message sent to this list. People find it useful in visually scanning their incoming mail and for setting up automated filters.
  If this entry includes "%d", that is a placeholder for the sequence number of the message.
• Subscription/Membership:
  • Semi-open: There are virtually no restrictions on who can subscribe.
    Membership in the Barron Park Association is encouraged, but not required, in order to be on any of these lists. The lists are intended as neighborhood communication systems.
    We ask people to request being added to the list because:
    1. This setting causes new members to be prompted to supply additional information. We ask for basic contact information so that
       • If messages start bouncing from your email address, we can inform you of the problem.
       • Many members (households) have multiple email addresses and have supplied different ones over the years. When complications arise, this can help us resolve such ambiguities.
       • For people who are not residents (current, former or prospective) of the Barron Park neighborhood, we are curious about how many of you there are and what additional purposes this list is used.
    2. Fully open subscription would allow a miscreant to subscribe to the list and then send an email blast to the members. The minor additional step (and delay) of getting formal approval provides a "circuit breaker" should something appear to be wrong.
    Note: If you are a member of the group and want to replace your current email address (or include an additional one), you can issue an "invitation" for that new address from your current one (rather than submitting a request to the group's manager).
  • By Invitation: Typically when you become eligible to join the group, you will be sent an invitation, but you may request an invitation—a feature of the Group software—if you miss or misplace your invitation, or believe that you should have gotten one.
  • Participants: Appropriate only for the participants in the related activity. As a participant, you will typically be added when you become known to the leaders of the activity. If you are interested in becoming a participant, you may request that you be added to the list.
  • Closed: Membership restricted to the specified group.
• Posting/Submission:
  • Semi-private: The group is intended primarily for messages posted by members for other members. However, there are exceptions that we want to accommodate:
    1. Non-members occasionally have messages that are appropriate for the list, and allowing them to post directly saves the step of them either temporarily becoming a member (so they can post) or having a member post the message for them (undesirable because replies go to the member who did the posting rather than the true author).
    2. Many members have multiple email addresses (for example, home and work). The email list software determines whether or not a submitted message is from a member by comparing the sender's email address to the email addresses of the members. Consequently, if a person sends a message to the list from a different email address than the one under which they subscribed, the message gets labeled as coming from a non-member.
       Advice: If you find yourself submitting from multiple addresses, you can avoid having the messages held by either:
       • associating multiple email addresses with your Google account
       • subscribing to the list under each of those addresses. But you probably don't want each of those email addresses receiving their own copy of messages sent to the list. No problem: You can edit the settings of those additional email addresses to not receive mail from the group (Note: you have to login to the group under each of those email addresses).
    The current setting for the group is to have messages from non-members held until approved by one of the moderators (managers) of the group. If the group starts getting hit by so much SPAM that this become onerous for the moderators, we may change the setting - with no advance notice - to simply reject submissions from non-members.
  • Members-only: Only members of the group can post messages. Recognize that the software determines membership based upon your email address. If you have multiple email addresses and submit a message from one that is not a member of the list, that message will be rejected as coming from a non-member. See description of Semi-private posting (above) for information on how to associate multiple email addresses with a single Google account.
  • Open: Anyone may post an appropriate message to the list. Messages are automatically forwarded to members of the list.
  • Moderated Messages are distributed to the members of the list only after approval by a moderator. The moderator may edit messages, or reject them on basis of appropriateness, content, ... Different lists can have very different levels of moderation.