VININGS MILL WEST

HOA Related Member-to-Member Emails: Acceptable Usage Guidelines

VININGS MILL WEST HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION

Listserve Acceptable Usage Guidelines

January 1, 2008

By subscribing to a Vinings Mill West Homeowners Association ("HOA") listserve, users agree to the terms and conditions contained in these guidelines. These guidelines may be modified from time to time and such modifications shall be effective upon their posting to the HOA's website at http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/cobbco/vmwhoa/.

1.         The HOA listserve shall not be used to advertise products or services unless such product or service is specifically sponsored by the HOA or otherwise approved by the HOA.  Any such announcement or advertisement, if made, should be made only by an authorized HOA board member after such item has been submitted for pre-distribution review.

2.         Messages posted to the HOA listserve should be limited to the issues and business of the HOA.  Do not make postings that are off-topic from the listserve's focus area. If another person posts a comment or question that is off the subject, do NOT reply to the list and keep the off- subject conversation going publicly.

3.         Do not send inflammatory messages or messages containing personal invective. No profanity, vulgarity, or derogatory, defamatory, abusive, threatening, offensive, or illegal remarks are appropriate.

4.         Do not post commercial messages including, but not limited to, messages offering or seeking any kind of business relationship, soliciting contributions or soliciting membership or subscription to any resource not offered by the HOA.  Further, the posting of materials, such as newsletters and related content generated by a company or other for-profit entity is strongly discouraged.

5.         Be extremely judicious in your use of the "reply to all" button. If you are replying with a message that just says "thanks for the information," a request to receive a copy of what someone has offered to share, or simply to agree with someone (such as "me, too"), do not reply to the entire group. Instead, send your response directly to the e-mail address of the person who posted the message.

6.         Use discretion when forwarding a long mail message to the HOA listserve. It's preferable to reference the source of a document and provide instructions on how to obtain a copy. If you must post a long message, warn the readers with a statement at the top of the mail message.

7.         Do not post an entire e-mail only to add a short response.

8.         Do not post personal email to the HOA listserve without the express permission of the original email's author.

11.       Do not post to the HOA listserve any message, data, information, text or other material ("Content") that is unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, harassing, harmful, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive or otherwise injurious to third parties.

12.       Do not distribute through the HOA listserve any Content that would constitute or encourage a criminal offense, create any liability or violate any local, state, national, or international law or regulation.

13.       Do not impersonate any person or entity or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity or interfere with other users of the listserve.

14.       Do not distribute through the HOA listserve any Content such as charity requests, petitions for signatures, other solicitations of listserve users, promotional materials, chain letters or letters relating to pyramid schemes, advertising or solicitations for funds, political campaigning, mass mailings, any form of unsolicited commercial or promotional email ("spam") or an offering of lawful or fraudulent goods, services, schemes or promotions.

15.       Do not disseminate through the HOA listserve harmful content including without limitation, viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, zombies, cancel bots, or any other computer programming routines that may damage, interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, program, data or personal information.

16.       Any requests regarding administrative tasks such as being added or removed from a list should be made to the appropriate area, not the list itself. Visit HOA homepage for information on how to address administrative tasks.

17.       Remember that all listserve exchanges are public domain.

18.       Users of the HOA listserve may be held individually liable for any communications they send through the listserve, including but not limited to defamatory, discriminatory, antitrust, anti-competitive, false or unauthorized information.

19.       Logos and tag lines used as part of a signature or otherwise included in an email posted to the HOA listserve should be discrete and of a size, placement, and description as normally used by the sender and should not be disproportionately large.

20.       "Out of office" messages on certain list configurations can cause mail loops between the listserve and your email server. This can lead to hundreds of messages being sent out. Refer to your email client's documentation on how to set up rules for Out of Office messages.

21.       Users of the HOA listserve also must comply with all state and federal copyright, trademark and patent laws and regulations. By posting material on the HOA listserve, the posting party warrants and represents that it owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. It is a violation of HOA policy to post information that is not original unless it meets the ‘fair use' guidelines of copyright law, or unless the user has received permission to reproduce such information from the original source. If there is any question as to whether a particular transmission contains information in violation of federal copyright law, the user should not post that information on the HOA listserve.

22.       By using the HOA listserve, users agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless, HOA and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, and parent from and against all loss, claims, demands, causes of action, liabilities, expenses, including reasonable attorney's fees and costs arising from any claim arising out of or resulting from in whole or part any breach of these guidelines by the user or any omission or act taken by the user. In no event will the HOA be responsible to the users for any indirect, consequential, special or punitive damages or losses users may incur in connection with the HOA listserve or any of the data or other materials transmitted through or residing on the HOA listserve, even if the HOA has been advised of the possibility of such damage or loss.

23.       THE HOA ACCEPTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE OPINIONS AND/OR INFORMATION POSTED ON OR THROUGH THE HOA LISTSERVE.

The HOA may, but does not assume the obligation to, monitor discussions taking place through any of its listserves. The HOA reserves the right, but does not assume the obligation, to investigate any violation of these guidelines. The HOA may remove any user from any or all HOA listserves for violation of these guidelines. Further, the HOA reserves the right, but does not assume the obligation, to temporarily suspend a listserve in circumstances where, inter alia, a "flame war" is emerging.

Thank you for your cooperation!  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact one of your board members.  Happy Emailing!