Framingham Mailing Lists Frequently Asked Questions:Purpose

What are the different Framingham e-mail lists, and what is their purpose?

What are FRAMBORS and FRAMCOM?

There are three major lists that relate to Framingham, each with over 1000 subscribers.

Each list has a distinct purpose.

• FRAMBORS is for discussion of issues that in some way relate or could relate to Framingham town government. The purpose of FRAMBORS is to provide a public forum for discussing and debating local government and community issues in Framingham. If you're anyone with email in Framingham, you should be on FRAMBORS.

• TMM(Town Meeting Members) is exactly the same as the frambors list with the exception that while almost everyone is invited to subscribe, only elected or appointed officials are allowed to post messages. The is a way of hopefully increasing the signal to noise ratio. Qualified posters may range from our State Senator to the members of the Framingham Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Committee. If you're elected or appointed, then you're invited to be subscribed and to contribute your thoughts. Almoist everyone else is invited and encouraged to listen. The point is to provide a forum for Town Officials to help them do a better job by helping all to be better informed. Even if you're a member of some other Board or Commission or Committee, you're encouraged to subscribe because your input should be known to the rest of us. In short, if you're an elected or appointed official, you should be on TMM. And in addition, if you know someone who should be who isn't, then let that person know about it. If you are a Town Meeting Member and you want to be on frambors, then being on the tmm list is mandatory.

• The method of subscribing to TMM is the same as subscribing to all other lists, except for one administrative detail: We must know who you are. Before subscribing, you need to send <tmm DASH NO MAIL FROM ROBOTS owner AT syslang DOT net> with your name, address, phone number, email address and elected and appointed titles.

• FRAMCOM is for posts related to anything to do with Framingham that do not relate to town government, including recommendations for local services, items for sale, community announcements, and lost pets. This list is pretty much wide open to whatever does not fit into any of the other categories as long as it is Framingham-related. What plumber should I use? Anyone know who this dog belongs to? What's playing at the Framingham Common this Friday? Commercial postings are legal by an individual but not more than once a year. If you want to hear about non-government community events or anything of interest to your neighbors, you should be on FRAMCOM.

• We encourage you be be subscribed to ALL THREE.

Are there any tricks to keep from getting FRAMBORS and FRAMCOM lists confused?

If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, FRAMBORS might have been called "framgov" instead (for 'FRAM'ingham 'GOV'ernment). Despite that, the name of the list will not change for lots of technical reasons. It would also be extremely confusing, and the number of people who need help remembering is not that large. One suggestion is to look at your addressbook entry for 'FRAMBORS' and set its Nickname to 'framgov'. Then whenever you send to 'framgov', it will expand to 'FRAMBORS'

To help people to remember which list is which, if you get each message (as opposed to being in digest mode), the footer of each FRAMBORS message will say
Discussion is limited to matters related to Framingham town government
and the footer of each FRAMCOM message will say
Discussion is limited to non-government issues about Framingham.

If you feel that you need help remembering which list is which, you are always welcome to ask us. We are here to help. .

What other Framingham Mailing Lists are available?

In addition to FRAMBORS, TMM and FRAMCOM, there are currently four other Framingham-related lists. They are:

man-bytes-man

This list is open to all for the purpose of discussing anything. Civility is required but you are allowed to discuss any topic. It is unmoderated.

p1tmm

(Precinct 1 Town Meeting Members): 'Nuff said.

nobscot

This list is for neighbors to discuss matters in the Nobscot Village area.

crt

(Cochituate Rail Trail), for people who want to hear more about the progress on this project.

Can I post the same message on more than one list?

In a word, "No." The rules and the explanation for them are as follows:

• You may never send anything to more than one list (e.g., both frambors and framcom). Why you ask? Because the list owners would need to deal with the people who read the message on the first list who do a ReplytoAll and who are not subscribed to both lists. Since people are not allowed to post to a list that they are not subscribed to, then a ReplyToAll will cause a bounce to the list-owner of a message that the responder is not subscribed to. Make sense?

• Never post anything to frambors and tmm. This is consistent with the previous rule, but further, all people who are Elected Town Meeting Members of the Town of Framingham who are subscribed to frambors are required to also be on the tmm list. If you are a TMM and want to only be on the tmm list, that's ok. But if you want to be on frambors, then you are required to also be on tmm.

• The moderators are allowed to violate these two previous rules. It is expected that when he does, people will not ReplytoAll.

Can you create a new list for me?

We certainly can. Here are a few valid purposes that we have in mind, but please don't be shy about getting creative:

• Lists for the different Precinct TMMs.
• Lists for the Standing Committees.
• Lists for people to hear about results of those committees.
• Lists for individual neighborhoods.
• Lists for individual projects in the Town (e.g, the PUD).

What are the common posting requirements of FRAMBORS, FRAMCOM, and TMM?

The general rule is that people are neither encouraged nor discouraged from posting to a list. Here are the ground rules for all lists:

1. Sign your first and last name in the body of the message. It is mandatory. Your message may have your full name in your From line, but not everyone can see it unless it is in the body of the message. In addition to making your identity known, we also ask that you identify your title as it is relevant to the discussion. For example, you might hold multiple positions, but one of those might be more relevant to what you are discussing. In such a case, please state at least the most relevant position.

2. Delete the footer with unsubscribe instructions at the bottom from the message you are replying to, and save only as much of the previous poster's message as you need to preserve the context of your message.

3. Post on the correct mailing list.

   1. If you have information that helps Town Meeting do its job that is of less interest to residents and you are an official, please post it to TMM.
   2. Anything that concerns residents of a Framingham government nature should go to FRAMBORS.
   3. Anything that is not Framingham government related or less political should go onto FRAMCOM.

4. Keep posts related to Framingham All the lists are only concerned with Framingham-related issues. If you have an issue that involves Framingham because of a more global nature, then it probably does not belong on these lists.

5. Please post thoughtfully and substantively. With a large number of subscribers, we strongly encourage postings that are announcements of events as well as discussion and questions about substantive issues. However, we do not allow what we refer to as "Chat", which includes personal replies, thank you's, and things that most people would prefer not getting in their mail as being too trivial or not contributing to substantive discussion. FRAMBORS and FRAMCOM each have a subscription list of over 1000. Please respect the time of subscribers.

6. Do not post links to a web page without explanation of what it is, how it relates to issues in Framingham and why you are sharing it with the list.

7. Be civil. Issues, not people, are to be the subject of the debate. Personal attacks, including insults, name-calling and unfounded accusations (especially with respect to legal and ethical violations), are not allowed on the list about anybody at any time. Posts should not attack or question the unstated motivations or character of another person. Insulting characterizations of groups of people, (such as immigrants, opponents of illegal immigration, social service clients, those who oppose social service expansion, legislators, members of a town board...) are not permitted.

8. Personal attacks are also not allowed off-list (a.k.a flames) in response to a post. Contacting someone off-list about a post after they have made a personal request that you not contact them anymore, or contacting someone anonymously off-list is also prohibited. LET US KNOW IF THIS HAPPENS TO YOU. WE CAN ONLY HELP IF YOU TELL US.

9. Avoid complaints about the civility of posts and commentary about list operation and/or policies. These issues should either go to the list operators <frambors DASH owner AT syslang DOT net>. (AT=@ and DOT =. in the e-mail address. Formatting it this way helps prevent the address from being harvested by automated spambots for spammers).

10. Do not include individuals in the To:, Cc: or Bcc: lines. It causes list members to get duplicate copies and causes confusion for those people about whether a particular post came from an individual or the list. Posts copied to individuals is the number one reason for private e-mails being inadvertently forwarded to the list.

Why do we need these mailing lists?

This is a crucial question. This system of mailing lists is designed to be a great big flashlight to shed light on what's happening in Town government and in our community. Framingham government didn't used to be as good as it is today. As a matter of fact, some of the events that transpired were regrettable. I've only been here since '95 so I never saw how bad or good it was. But the point is that people tend to do better when everyone is better informed.

In addition, Framcom has been a vital source of community information, advice and recommendations on a wide variety of topics. You'll soon learn to appreciate the wide range of knowledge in our community.