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Mail.Liberal-Judaism

(Liberal Judaism Mailing List)

Editorial Policy

Reasons for Article Rejection

Material will be returned to the author for rework for the following conditions:

Personal attacks.
It is against list policy to include written attacks on a list member.
Material from non-Jewish movements.
This list is not the place for Messianic Judaism, Christianity or any other non-Jewish movement.
Attacks on the validity of Jewish movements.
It is a given on this list that the spectrum of Judaism from Humanistic Judaism to Charedi (so-called "ultra" Orthodox) are all valid expressions of Judaism.
Excessive length.
Submissions should be short and succinct, making a clear statement. The general rule followed is that a single submission cannot be more than 6,000 characters. Further, to avoid a single individual dominating a given digest, a single individual cannot have more than 7,000 characters in a single digest.
Cross-submission.
In general, submissions to this list should be original for the list. Exceptions may be made in the case of announcements, but cross-submissions of position statements to multiple lists is inappropriate.
Material unrelated to Judaism.
This is a Jewish list. Your post should have some connection to Judaism. Discussions of political action not based in Jewish beliefs belongs on a political list, not here. If you want to discuss politics, you should discuss how a particular political course of action is driven by Jewish belief.
Excessive back and forth.
Excessive use of the quote/response style leads to a personal discussion in which the entire list is excluded. Use previously posted articles as a starting point to state your position; don't rebut point by point.
Excessive Fundraising.
MLJ is primarily a discussion list. Submissions should be something that will result in a discussion. Fundraising appeals, at their heart, are commercials. Although a short (and I mean short) pointer to a longer appeal for funds for a Jewish cause is permitted, lengthy submissions or regular submissions whose primary purpose is to raise money will be returned for rework.
Dead Discussions.
On occasion, I'll return material when a discussion has gone on too long, and has degenerated into a back-and-forth between a limited number of individuals. In such cases, I'll request the discussion to move to private Email, with a summary postings for the list when the discussion concludes.

The following guidelines apply to Commercial Discussions:

Short, one-time announcements of lists and publications are permitted. The list/publication must relate to Judaism and be of interest to the readership. The moderator will be the final determinant of acceptable length.
It is permissible to initiate discussions about articles in commercial publications. However, the entire readership should be able to access the article without having to pay to subscribe to the publication (i.e., the initiation of the discussion should not be for the purpose of obtaining paying subscribers). As articles are long, it is acceptable to indicate that the article is available upon request, or to provide the article at a website. If need be, and if the article is of lasting interest, I can make the article available as an MLJ information file.
In general, ads for commercial services are not permitted, even those that relate to Judaism. 4.
With respect to appeals for donations: I'm cautious about these, as the list is not a fundraising media. The shorter and less obtrusive, the better (i.e., one line in your signature telling people about a website is one thing; a 35-line coupon to cut out and return is something else).

Submissions not meeting these guidelines will result in discussions between the moderator and the author to reword the inflammatory or offensive material, or possibly, outright rejection of the article.

Remember, it is acceptable to criticize the position taken by a given movement, as long as you word your submission in such as way as to not question the validity of that movement as a part of Judaism.

When you submit an article, review what you write before they submit it. If there is a lot of back and forth (quote, response, quote, response), consider using Email and not posting. That format can be perceived as an argument, whether or not it was your intent. I prefer to see a summarization of the "jumping off point" at the top of an article, followed by your response. Look at the tone of your posting. Is it bullying, insisting between the lines that there is only one way (usually your way)? How are you treating the reader? Are you talking down to them? Treating them as an equal? On this list, we are all equal, and should be treated as such. I trust in the intelligence and common sense of the folks on this list, and hope that you will demonstrate it to me.

Occasionally, I slip up and let an article thorough that I should not have. When this happens, I may let a few responses through, and then throttle responses back down. Remember to give any reader the benefit of the doubt (and to give the moderator a little too).

There Is No Right of Rebuttal

Although you may discover an error in an article, or feel you have been slighted, or feel you have to make some correction to an article, I must remind you that there is no right of rebuttal. I often let such rebuttals through, but that depends on the tone of the response. I reserve the right to rework the rebuttal into a Moderator's Comment, or to just let the issue die off without rebuttal, if in my editor's opinion I feel that is best for the list.

Editing Performed by Moderator

When I receive an article, I may perform the following edits without consulting the author:

Adjusting the subject line to track a previous submission (this allows article chaining).
Insertion of appropriate keywords into the subject line.
Reformatting text to use fewer lines.
Reformatting to eliminate any lines beginning with "--".
Trimming quoted material and signatures to that which is relevant.
Correction of identified spelling errors.
Addition of moderator comments when appropriate.

Announcements

In general, my policy is to allow through announcements that in my opinion will be of interest to the list readership. I require that such announcements concern Judaism, Jewish thought, or Israel. Acceptable announcements are short and to the point, and are subject to editing to make them that way if not submitted in that form. Announcements will be categorized in the subject line, and will be sorted to the end of the digest. Current announcement categories, in the order they will appear in the digest, are:

Conference
Information Request
Action Announcement
Event Announcement
Action Update
New List
New Resource
Web Site
Now Online
Publication Announcement
Course Announcement
Classified
Appeal
Request For Participation

Cross-Posting

Cross posting between soc.culture.jewish newsgroups and mail.liberal-judaism is discouraged. [For those not on Usenet, soc.culture.jewish refers to a set of newsgroups on Usenet, and this mailing list was started by members of those newsgroups. The moderator does scan many of the soc.culture.jewish newsgroups, and will forward to this list any posted article of interest.] Similarly, cross-posting between mail.liberal-judaism and other moderated lists is also discouraged (except for announcements). Multiple lists rarely have the same focus, and submitted articles should be focused to the editorial areas of mail.liberal-judaism.

Redistribution

Publishing any of the mail.liberal-judaism digests or portions thereof on any other medium including s.c.j without asking me or the originator of the article represents a breach of trust as many of the people who write in wish their privacy preserved.

A Final Note: The Moderator Has The Last Word

I maintain this list on my own time. I try to be fair as a moderator, and I accept and even request criticism from the list members. In return, I reserve the right to remove a subscriber from the list if they are a continuing problem, or discontinue a topic if it is destroying the unity of the list. It boils down to conservation of my volunteer time. Those who disagree with this policy are welcome to form competing lists: multiple opinions are a hallmark of Judaism. :-) I'll even be glad to post the announcement for your new list!

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