CAFCA-chat

Moderation policy | Subscribe/unsubscribe | Mailing protocol

CAFCA maintains an interactive, moderated e-discussion list (CAFCA-chat). Monthly CAFCA-chat emails are sent to members. The discussion list is also open to CAFCA stakeholders as a means of requesting and sharing information and resources. Through the CAFCA-chat medium, knowledge and practice learnings can be shared with others, so we encourage you to tell your colleagues about:

Your program activities and evaluation projects;
Conferences or seminars you run or attend;
Effective instruments, tools, resources you have found or created;
How your work is progressing;
What your preliminary data seem to be suggesting;
Emerging themes or trends;
Unanticipated consequences (both positive and negative);
Unexpected obstacles (and their solutions);
What has worked well (and what hasn’t).

or, ask your colleagues about:

Unexpected findings and how to explain them;
Where to find that really useful measure you heard about recently;
How they have dealt with issues or obstacles you are encountering;
Other general inquiries.

Moderation policy

CAFCA-chat is moderated. When you send a message to the list, it goes to the moderator who has the option to accept or discard it, or request you to post a revised message that conforms with the policy outlined below.

In general, messages are discarded if they:

Are not related to the field of early childhood and community development research, policy or practice
Pertain to individual cases
Are overly general requests for information and assistance
Are inflammatory or unprofessional messages
Are based on conjecture or do not make clear the evidence on which claims are based
Are requests for contacts from people seeking a job (however, the list does accept employment postings)
Do not conform to 'netiquette' standards (eg, polite, professional)
Breach copyright laws
Are intended for the List processor rather than the list
Concern subscriptions to the list
Are intended for an individual subscriber and are not of interest, or do not pertain to, the whole list
Are automatic replies
Contain attachments
Contain political material

To subscribe/unsubscribe

Important: All messages to CAFCA-chat (including when subscribing or unsubscribing) must be in plain-text format and not in HTML. The CAFCA-chat system does not support HTML format, because many people have email systems that only work in plain-text.

To join CAFCA-chat send the following e-mail in plain-text format:
To: majordomo@aifs.gov.au
Subject: (leave blank)
Message: subscribe CAFCA-chat

To remove your name from CAFCA-chat send the following e-mail in plain-text format:
To: majordomo@aifs.gov.au
Subject: (leave blank)
Message: unsubscribe CAFCA-chat

If your email has changed BUT you still wish to subscribe, do either of the following:

1. Unsubscribe from your OLD email address (follow above process "to remove your name...") and
Subscribe using your NEW email address (follow above process "to join CAFCA-chat...")

2. Send an email
To: aifs-cafca@aifs.gov.au
Subject: Change of email address CAFCA-chat
Message: My email address has changed from [insert old email] to [insert new email]

Mailing protocol

To submit a message for posting on CAFCA-chat:

Send mail to: CAFCA-chat@aifs.gov.au

To mail to list owner (problems etc):

Send mail to: owner-CAFCA-chat@aifs.gov.au

Subject line

As a courtesy to other subscribers, always fill in the Subject line when you post a message to CAFCA-chat

Default reply setting

This list is set up so that replies are sent to the entire list, not the author of the original message. Therefore, if you click 'Reply' to a message from the list, your message will be submitted to the Moderator for posting. It will not go to the author of the original posting.

Posting policy

Only subscribers may post to CAFCA-chat. Specifically, this means that only emails that contain a subscribed email address in the 'From: field' reach the Moderator. Messages from non-subscriber addresses are rejected (with notification to the sender) to protect list resources against spam. CAFCA-chat subscribers can subscribe under as many of their email addresses as desired if they want to post from different accounts. Of course, subscribing under multiple email addresses means that you receive CAFCA-chat postings at each of those addresses.

Message format

Messages in HTML format or those that have attachments will not be posted. Some subscribers do not have systems that support HTML format. Attachments present a virus risk to other list members, and can be extremely inconvenient for members with slower Internet connections. In the majority of cases, messages with attachments will be discarded by the CAFCA-chat moderator.

Auto-reply policy

Subscribers should refrain from using the auto-reply feature available in many email programs. Auto-replies are messages that are sent to people automatically when you are on vacation. When a subscriber selects this option, the CAFCA-chat Moderator receives an auto-reply for every post to the list. If you must use the auto-reply feature, please unsubscribe from the list while you are on vacation and re-subscribe upon your return.

List owner: Communities and Families Clearinghouse Australia. For any problems contact owner-CAFCA-chat@aifs.gov.au