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Table of Contents:


PURPOSE:

 The LPUS mailing list is dedicated to discussion of Libertarian Party business at the national level. It is expected that the content will primarily be of interest to committee members, officers, staff, and contractors of the national LP and its state affiliates, but any LP activist, member, or even non-member is welcome to participate as long as comments are constructive and on-topic.

LP "business" means matters pertaining to the LP as an organization. Messages about political theory, about libertarian approaches to public policy questions, about other libertarian organizations, or about activities of interest to libertarians in general belong elsewhere. Please do not post newspaper articles or messages copied from other lists unless they relate specifically and directly to a matter that is itself on-topic.

"National level" means that messages should pertain to the national LP, to the relationship between the national LP and its affiliates, or to matters that would be of interest to LP organizations anywhere in the U.S.; messages about topics of purely local concern (i.e., within one state) should not be posted here.

CATEGORY SYSTEM:

In order to facilitate the selection of messages by users who may not be interested in following all of the discussion on all topics, each LPUS message is assigned to a "category" as follows.

  
LPUS   news and announcements of overall interest
LPUS-CAMPcampaigns for public office (other than presidential)
LPUS-PRESpresidential campaigns
LPUS-DATA+databases / mailing lists
LPUS-DROP+Ds, Rs, and other parties
LPUS-PLAN+strategic planning
LPUS-PLAT+the Platform
LPUS-PROG+the Program
LPUS-PUBS+newsletters and other publications
LPUS-TV+television/video
LPUS-WWW+World Wide Web sites
LPUS-MISCdiscussion that does not fit into specialty categories

Categories are assigned primarily on the recommendation of the user posting the message; however the list owner reserves the option to change the category of any message. For a detailed description of each category, see the "Category Descriptions" section below.

Subscribers may specify which categories are included in their subscriptions, except that the main "LPUS" news and announcements category will be sent to all subscribers. By default, subscriptions will additionally include LPUS-CAMP, LPUS-PRES, and LPUS-MISC. Categories marked with "+" in the list above will only be sent upon request.

Each message is posted under one category only, i.e., no "cross-posting" across categories. All subscribers receive the basic "LPUS" distribution of news and announcements, so there is no need to post those items again under another category in order for them to be discussed. If you have information that everybody really needs to see, it probably belongs in the "LPUS" category. Otherwise, if you have something to say about more than one topic please post separate messages focused on each topic, to allow subscribers to concentrate on the aspects which interest them.

RELATED LISTS:

The Libertarian Party operates a list for official announcements intended for wide distribution. LPUS subscribers should subscribe to or otherwise arrange access to these messages, so they don't need to be cross-posted to LPUS. To subscribe, send a message to "announce-request@lp.org".

Many states now have mailing lists for discussion of LP business at the state or local level. For further information, see the list at http://www.dehnbase.org/liberml/ or check with your state party.

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

LPUS is available via the Internet as a mailing list. Mailing list subscribers may elect to receive their messages one at a time (i.e., as soon as available) or in "digests". (A digest contains several LPUS messages sent as one e-mail message.)

Users may additionally specify which categories they wish to receive. Users may request any combination of categories except that the main "LPUS" category is always included.

To subscribe, to change your category selection, or to cancel your subscription, send a message to the request address:

LPUS-request@dehnbase.org

To post a message, send to:

category@dehnbase.org

where "category" is the category you believe best fits your message. For example, to post a general announcement, send your message to "LPUS@dehnbase.org"; to post a comment about a presidential campaign, send to "LPUS-PRES@dehnbase.org".

If your e-mail address changes, or you are going to be unable to receive e-mail for an extended period, please send a message to LPUS-request@dehnbase.org requesting a change or cancellation of your subscription. Please be aware of limits your Internet provider may put on your mailbox size and read your messages frequently enough to avoid "mailbox full" conditions.

If your e-mail address appears to have become invalid, your subscription will be cancelled. If messages cannot be delivered to you due to a persistent "mailbox full" condition, your subscription may be reduced to the news and announcements category only. In either case, to request resumption of regular delivery when the situation has been corrected, simply send a message to the request address.

NETIQUETTE

Please apply the commonly-accepted standards of courtesy when making use of LPUS. Do your best to express your ideas without being offensive to other users. At the same time, please be tolerant of the behavior of others, and not be too easily offended.

If you are new to LPUS or to e-mail discussion in general, please review the following points:

  • Remember to limit your messages to matters that relate to LP business.
  • Try to avoid personal attacks -- if you have a disagreement with what somebody else has written, comment on the idea not the author.
  • If somebody posts in a way that you find offensive, let him or her know how you feel via a private message, rather than making a fuss about it to everybody.
  • When somebody doesn't understand what you have said, try to explain it in a different way -- don't just repeat what you said before.
  • If only one person really needs to see your message, send it privately rather than to the list.
  • Read your messages over before sending them and try to correct errors (facts, spelling, grammar) before they trigger an avoidable extra thread of corrections/comments.
  • Keep in mind that it is not necessary to reply to every post.
  • Put a little more time and thought into coming up with a comment that can turn the discussion in a useful direction, rather than just replying with a "me too" or an insult.
  • If somebody says something that seems pointless, ignore it.
  • If you find yourself stuck in a loop arguing with a particular person, stop.

CATEGORY DESCRIPTIONS:

LPUS [included in all subscriptions]

News and announcements relating to the Libertarian Party overall. Discussion of items posted here should be conducted under one of the other categories.

Examples of appropriate messages:

  • announcements and reports from national officers and committees
  • news from the national office
  • announcements of candidacy for internal party offices
  • news about legislation that would affect party business (e.g. ballot access, campaign finance)
  • corrections to previous messages in this category

LPUS-CAMP [included by default]

News and discussion relating to Libertarian campaigns for public office other than president/vice-president. As this is a national forum, messages should relate to the interests of a national readership, in one or more of the following ways:
  • messages about campaign techniques and procedures of general applicability nationwide
  • messages about campaigns of national prominence
  • messages which illustrate a question or problem that is likely to be of interest to people working on other campaigns

The following types of messages should NOT be posted:

  • announcements of local campaign meetings or appearances
  • internal discussion of plans or problems of a specific campaign

LPUS-PRES [included by default]

News and discussion relating to Libertarian presidential and vice-presidential campaigns.

LPUS-DATA [included only on request]

Discussion of databases and mailing lists for LP organizations.

Examples of appropriate topics:

  • software suitable for state and local LP organizations
  • the national office database
  • techniques for sharing data among LP organizations
  • policies relating to member data privacy and list sharing

Note: As LPUS is a public list, care should be taken to avoid posting messages containing data that may be considered personal or confidential. For example, in discussions of database problems, names of actual members or contributors should not be included in any sample transactions or reports.

LPUS-DROP [included only on request]

Democrats, Republicans, and other parties in relation to the LP. Appropriate topics include:
  • cooperation with other parties on issues or strategy
  • opportunities for recruiting members from other parties
  • comparisons between the LP and other parties

LPUS-PLAN [included only on request]

Strategic planning. Appropriate topics include:
  • actual proposed plans
  • major elements of long-range planning, including possible strategies and goals
  • planning methodology
  • communication/integration of plans between the national organization and the state affiliates
  • measurement/evaluation of plans

Discussion of future activities inevitably involves reference to past activities. However, the purpose of LPUS-PLAN is to discuss future plans, and overall plans rather than details of individual projects. Mention of past results in the context of what can and cannot be expected to work in the future is appropriate. However, detailed discussion of specific projects (past, present, or future) should be done using one of the other categories.

Messages posted to LPUS-PLAN should emphasize strategy rather than tactics, long-term rather than short-term, general approaches rather than detail of implementation, and how projects fit together for the success of the LP as a whole rather than the projects as separate activities.

LPUS-PLAT [included only on request]

Discussion relating to the national Platform. In order to allow extended discussions of several topics to go on simultaneously without requiring all subscribers to follow all of them, messages may be assigned to sub-categories according to plank. To post a message to a sub-category send it to:

lpus-plat-XXX@dehnbase.org
where "XXX" is a code for the plank. (Codes are currently the same as the filenames of the planks in the online archive of the Platform at http://archive.lp.org/platform/, e.g., "foc" for "Freedom of Communication", "agr" for "Agriculture".)

The special sub-category LPUS-PLAT-FORMAT is reserved for discussion of changing the format of the planks, without intention of changing the Party's position on the issues. For debate about the positions themselves, use the plank-specific sub-categories.

LPUS-PROG [included only on request]

Development of the national Program, including selection of issues and drafting of planks.

LPUS-PUBS [included only on request]

Discussion of newsletters and other publications.

Examples of appropriate topics:

  • desktop publishing software and techniques
  • policies concerning editorial content and advertising
  • how to find suitable material, writers, reporters, etc.

LPUS-TV [included only on request]

Discussion of production and distribution of television/video programming for LP organizations.

LPUS-WWW [included only on request]

Discussion of WWW sites for LP organizations -- issues of site construction and maintenance, helping people to establish new sites, ideas and tools for improving existing sites.

LPUS-MISC [included by default]

Discussion of any topic relating to the national LP organization or to LP organizations nationwide other than those for which there is a separate specialty category.

Examples of appropriate topics:

  • matters relating to the LNC or the national office
  • techniques for state and local party organization
  • campaigns for internal party offices

Discussion of Libertarian Party business necessarily involves consideration of many topics which are also covered by other mailing lists. The emphasis of messages posted here should always be on how these topics relate to what Libertarian Party organizations are doing. For example: LPUS-CAMP is for discussion of LP campaigns, not all the issues of public policy that may happen to come up in campaigns. LPUS-DATA is for messages about LP organizations making use of databases, not for discussions of computer science or the software industry.

And although LPUS-MISC is "MISC", remember that it too is still "LPUS". This category is not intended as a general libertarian discussion forum. All messages in all categories should still meet the basic LPUS criteria of "LP business" and "national".

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