CUB Mailing List Guidelines
CUB (Concerned United Birthparents, Inc) has been around since 1976. It has branches in several US cities that hold in-person support group meetings. It also publishes the CUB Communicator, a quarterly newsletter, and the CUB Chat, a more frequent and informal newsletter. We hold an annual retreat each fall. CUB also has a toll free hotline (1-800-822-2777), and a network of members throughout the nation who are available to be a support resource to anyone who seeks help. CUB is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. More information on CUB is available at our website: http://www.cubirthparents.org
Membership in CUB is $40/year. Newsletters are only sent to members. Members may receive a discount to our retreat. Membership is required to coordinate a CUB support group or hold an office on the board of directors. But more importantly, membership keeps CUB alive. It is our primary source of income. Without it and the donations we receive (we are a non-profit org, so contributions may be tax-deductible) we would cease to exist. To become a member, visit our website at <http://www.cubirthparents.org/member.html> and send in your payment with the form.
CUB has never made membership a condition for attending support group meetings, joining this list, or receiving help in some other way, but we strongly encourage those who have found CUB to be beneficial to them to give back by joining CUB.
The terms "birthmother" or "birthparent" were coined by CUB founders, including Lee Campbell, who wrote an article in a 2005 issue of the CUB Communicator describing its origin. It is a term that honors the connection between parent and child, and has never been intended as a degrading or perjorative term.
We are Concerned United Birthparents. We welcome those with adoption experiences to share with, inform and support each other. Whatever terminology you wish to use will be respected here. We ask that you do the same for others, and exercise tolerance when others do not use the words you like.
The #1 search query that leads people to CUB is "birth parents." That's what people are typing into the search engines.
From time to time, arguments will occur on the list over the terms "birthmother" or "birthparent." Others may suggest the use of "first mother" "natural mother" or just plain "mother" with no prefix whatsoever. We respect the use of the terminology you feel comfortable with, and do not impose any particular terminology on anyone. At the same time, we request you extend the same respect and courtesy to anyone who does not use the terminology you prefer.
We now require that you identify yourself to the moderator before we approve your request to join the list. Simply send an email to cub-all-owner@cubirthparents.org with your full name, address, telephone number and email address. We may call you on the telephone to verify your information.
We all have some level of hurt, grief and shame. We are each dealing with it in the way that we can. Please let this be a place of support and camraderie - and not a place of condemnation or accusation. Mutual respect and support is undermined by judgment.
This means giving one another the courtesy of the benefit of the doubt at times, and accepting ambiguity or errors in grammar, facts or language at face value.
Unlike an in-person support group, where we have not only our words but our body language, voice, and facial expressions to supplement our meaning, in this forum there are only words. It is easy to misinterpret, so you must make a conscious effort not to find unintended meaning in what others say.
Do not make comments that denigrate, invalidate, or intimidate others. Let this be an environment free from harassment.
If you disagree with someone, feel free to say so, but please refrain from putting others in a position where they must vigorously defend their opinion or feelings. Please do not attack another's judgment, choices, or feelings.
When an opinion is challenged, it is not a personal attack, but an opportunity for that opinion to either be strengthened or weakened by the discussion that follows.
If someone posts something you find hurtful or offensive, it is not your duty to publicly flog or reprimand the offender. It is your duty to file a complaint by forwarding the post to cub-all-complaint@cubirthparents.org.
Please trust the group moderation process for the list, and do not take it upon yourself to strike back publicly on the list.
No one can or should speak for another here. Each of us is an expert on our own experience. There is no contest to see who hurt the most, as truly no one can win that contest.
Do not forward, publish, or reproduce any post from the email list without the author's permission. Do not publish any private conversation to the list without the other party's permission.
I would also remind members that this is a semi-public forum. Act like you would act in public. Be mindful that your messages are being stored in the list archives for anyone who joins the list to see. Imagine you are stepping up to speak in front of a microphone with hundreds of people listening and act accordingly.
From time to time, the moderator may step in and request that conversations be taken off the list and continued in private. Or the moderator may suggest that a thread has run its course and request that it be concluded. Please follow the moderator's instructions.
The environment on this list is a function of the people who participate on it. If you want it to be a loving and safe place for sharing, then BE LOVING, SHARE, and do not attack others so they will feel SAFE.
This list is unique in that it is moderated by you the members. The community as a whole sets the standards for what is and is not acceptable. If you see someone violate the rules for participation, it is your duty to report it to the moderator by forwarding the post to cub-all-complaint@cubirthparents.org and state the rule that has been violated.
When sufficient complaints have been filed against a list member, they are notified that they have a "strike" against them. The identities of those who have registered complaints will be kept confidential.
If a list member gets three strikes, they are banned from the list for three months. After three months have passed, they can join the list again with a clean slate, but if they end up getting banned again, it will be permanent.
Complaints must be filed individually. If there are patterns of list members complaining together, suggesting recruitment, these complaints as a group will be counted as one complaint.
When replying to a message, please quote only the parts necessary to make sense of your message. Otherwise, the folks who receive this list in digest mode have to scroll through the whole history of messages to find the few sentences you added.
This is especially important for those who receive the list in digest format, if you reply and quote the entirety of the digest, your message will be automatically rejected because it is too big.
If you are replying to a digest message, or change the subject, please change the subject line of the message. It is usually not possible to read all messages, so most list members will decide whether or not to read your message based on the subject. If someone else forgot to change the subject of the message, please do so when you respond.
Also, pay attention to the recipients of your reply. By default, your reply will go back to the list (i.e. all list members) and not just the author of the message to which you are responding. Many times, messages intended to be sent privately to the author are instead broadcast to the whole list. Don't let this happen to you.
As the membership on this list grows, and as the volume of messages grows, it is not only likely but nearly certain that there will be conflicting points of view. It is not necessary for you to reply to or even read every message sent to the list. That's why we ask folks to put a meaningful subject on their message (esp when they change the subject). If you don't like certain people on the list, don't be afraid to set up a filter to delete all emails from that person. No one will know, and you will have much less stress.
For high volume lists, it can also be very helpful to use the features of modern email clients, such as filtering and grouping. Many email clients will sort messages by subject, thus grouping conversations together. This makes it easier to follow the threads that interest you, and ignore those that don't. Also, you may find it helpful to use your email client to filter all message from the list to a separate folder so that it doesn't get mixed with your regular mail. For your convenience, all messages to the list will have the pattern "[cub all]" in the subject line and this is a reliable way to filter the messages.
If you find messages in the archives which you have not received in your mailbox, please provide the date, sender, and subject line for a few of the messages to cub-all-owner@cubirthparents.org. We will dig into it further. We do not need the info for all the messages you didn't receive, just a few of them.
Please make sure that there's nothing on your end preventing the messages getting through... i.e. your mailbox is full, your spam filters block the message, etc.
Also keep in mind that email is not a real-time communication medium. Sometimes email servers get clogged up and temporarily reject new traffic, resulting in a delay of several hours. This is normal for internet traffic, so don't get alarmed unless messages are not showing up at all.
The email list server will automatically drop you if messages to you consistently bounce back. This is an email problem on your end. Often the problem is that your mailbox is too full, and your email provider stops accepting new mail when you are over the limit.
Groups of posts are called "digests" in Mailman (the software that runs our list). Rather than get messages one at a time, you can get messages grouped together. On a moderately busy list, this typically means you get one email per day, although it may be more or less frequent depending upon the list.
To turn digest mode on or off using the web interface,
To turn digest mode on or off using the email interface,
Yes, 50kb is the maximum size of any message. If you are including images in your messages, you may exceed this limit.
These guidelines have been approved the the CUB Board of Directors.
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