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Keep yourself regularly informed and up to date with what’s happening – and what’s about to happen – with folk music and dancing in Tasmania.

To subscribe to the list, send an email to
folktas+subscribe@googlegroups.com

To unsubscribe, send an email to
folktas+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

For help from a human, send an email to the list administrator at
list@folktas.org

To post a message to all the members of the list (once you have subscribed) send it to
folktas@googlegroups.com.  Please allow enough time for our volunteer moderators to review the email and approve it for sending to the list.  Please note that Google will not send you a copy of the message, so if you really need to know whether it has gone out, ask another list member to check, or look online at the web view of the list.

Managing your subscription:
You can unsubscribe or change your  preferences to receive digest or summary emails (many emails in one) or even view messages only on the web.  Change these settings yourself at the web address for the list:
http://groups.google.com/group/folktas?pli=1
(Click on ‘My membership’)


Guidelines/Terms of Use for the FolkTas Email List

[Updated 21/2/24]

Summary

Purpose of the list

The list is for publicising folk music and dance events in Tasmania or of interest to Tasmanians, whoever they’re run by.  It is not a discussion list.

The list is provided to the Tasmanian folk community as a service by the Folk Federation of Tasmania Inc.  All members of the list are welcome to post messages to the list as long as the messages are carefully checked to ensure that they are appropriate for broadcast to hundreds of people who only want messages about folk music and dance events. 

The events are not run by the FFT unless specified.  If you have questions about an event, contact the event organiser.

The views expressed within messages sent to the list are not necessarily those of the FFT.

 

Is my message appropriate?

Your message is appropriate only if it meets the following common sense guidelines:

  1. It is publicising a folk music or dance event in Tasmania or of interest to Tasmanians.    Messages about other things, no matter how worthy or interesting, are strictly not allowed.
  2. It is polite
  3. It is concise and ideally has no attachments, or at most one small attachment
  4. You have checked it to ensure that it contains all the relevant and correct details including date, time, place, nature of event, cost if there is one and contact details for further information.  It is annoying and adds to our email overload if people post a message, then realise that they’ve left something out or made a mistake and have to send another one.  If in doubt, write your message, save it, come back to it later and reread it or get someone else to check it.
  5. It is clearly written and preferably spellchecked.

The same guidelines apply to replies (which should be very rare on this list).

How do I send my message to the list?

As a member, you can post a message to the list by sending it as an email to
folktas@googlegroups.com.  Your email, exactly as you have sent it, will go out to the list within minutes, or when a moderator reviews it (as some messages are moderated), so please edit it to remove extraneous information and check it carefully against the guidelines below.

Details

This is not a discussion list

This is not a discussion list.  It is only for announcements about events.  If you wish to discuss anything contact people individually (and politely), or contact the administrator if you have any concerns about the use or operation of the list.  If you do not approve of someone else’s post to the list, contact the list administrator to discuss your concerns.  Please do not take it upon yourself to police the use of the list.  If you really feel the need, consider volunteering to be a list administrator.

If you have any concerns or questions about the usage of the list, please contact the list administrator at list@folktas.org or raise them with the Folk Federation Committee.  Definitely do not post such concerns or questions to the whole list as hundreds of other people will then have to read them and there is no surer way to cause people to unsubscribe from the list than to have negative comments or apparently irrelevant items posted to the list.

How do I unsubscribe from the list?

To unsubscribe, send email to folktas+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.  If that doesn’t work for you, contact a list administrator.  Definitely do not send your unsubscribe request to the whole list where hundreds of people will see it.  Don’t laugh – this has been done.

How do I contact the list administrators?

Send an email to list@folktas.org or check http://folktas.org/contact-us/ for other contact details.

Subject line and details

Please include in the title of your message the location or an easily understood identifier for the event, e.g., “(Devonport)” or “at Brookfield”.  Most people decide whether to read the message body by the subject line alone, so make it concise and appealing.

Please also ensure that you give full details of where events are and don’t assume too much local knowledge!  So, give street addresses and contact details as well please.  Remember that the list includes people from around the state.

Keeping it small – attachments and HTML/rich text formatting

In order to keep your message short and ensure that it can be read on all systems, please limit the use of special formatting, and preferably send your message in plain text format.

Many users have limited download speed or quota, particularly those with mobile phone internet.  Please do not attach large files to your message.  Ideally, don’t attach files at all, but rather include a link to the file on a band web site, the FFT’s web site or a social media site, or include in your message something like “If you would like an A4 poster publicising this event, please reply to me personally at marysmith@dobblydook.com (not to the list)”.

Another alternative is to host the file on the web somewhere and post a link to the file so that people can choose whether to download it.  (Search for “free file hosting” – I use Dropbox.)

If you really need to include an attachment, please limit it to under 200kB in size (don’t send it if you’re not sure about this), and please ensure that it’s in a standard format such as JPG or PDF, not a Publisher file or some other format which many people won’t be able to open.  To convert some other format to PDF, download cutepdf from www.cutepdf.com.

Multiple postings

Please don’t send several messages about the same event within a short timeframe.  Acceptable practice is to advertise an event roughly between one and two months in advance followed by a single reminder a week or so before the event.  Larger events may need more notice and may attract interest and corresponding posting from other list members on related promotion.  So there is no benefit in your posting appearing as spam to members.  Events run by the Folk Federation itself are ok to publicise a little more.

Checking messages

Please check your email before you send it out, to ensure that you have included the relevant details and checked that they are correct:

  1. Day and date (including month)
  2. Time
  3. Place
  4. Nature of event
  5. Cost if there is one
  6. Contact details for further information

We are all overloaded with email already so it is frustrating if people post a message, then realise that they’ve left something out or made a mistake and have to send another one.  If in doubt, write your message, save it, come back to it later and reread it or get someone else to check it.

Replies

When replying to a message on the list, please reply to the author of the email not the whole list, unless what you are writing is another message appropriate to the whole list (i.e., an event announcement which meets all the guidelines above).

CC lists

Please do not add messages to folktas to CC (or BCC) lists or other lists. As a matter of privacy many people understandably do not want their name and email address sent to hundreds of people they do not know. If you include a list of people on a CC list as well as the folktas list, all these names and addresses are sent to all our hundreds of members. Also, if anyone replies, their reply might go to the whole list.

So please, send messages to folktas as single separate postings, and do not include the Folktas email address on CC lists or any other lists. As a general practice circular emails should always be sent BCC to preserve privacy.

List moderation

Posts to this list from most members are moderated, so they may take some time to be sent out. For some members, your message will be sent to the list within minutes, automatically. Everyone, please check before sending, as we don’t want irrelevant messages to go out, or more work for our voluntary administrators.  We ask that messages be restricted to event announcements about folk music, dance and other folk arts in Tasmania.  We take a broad definition of the F word “folk”.

Conclusion

The list is a valuable source of information for people wishing to attend events and a valuable way for event organisers, mostly volunteers, to publicise folk events which usually don’t have large advertising budgets.  Please help keep the list useful by minimising unnecessary or irrelevant traffic.

The onus is on you, the user, to respect the other list members and adhere to the guidelines! Thanks for your understanding.