• “Flaming,” challenging or attacking others is prohibited. The discussions on the lists are meant to stimulate conversation, not to create contention. Flaming includes the making of derogatory comments, provoking negative response (baiting), ridicule, shaming, correcting grammar or spelling in order to question the validity of posts, excessive sarcasm and innuendo. For a comprehensive guide to flaming see Wikipedia entry on the subject here.
• When engaging in a discussion where more than one opinion is being debated, please consider taking the discussion off the Buzz to continue the debate. While you are free to invite others to private discussion and engage offline, continued debate on a particular subject, and in particular that which has frequently been the subject of flame wars, may be grounds for being banned from posting again.
• Solicitations from political or non-profit groups to participate in campaigns, petitions or fundraising events, even when they are bee related are prohibited. We can sign up for those types of emails on our own and don’t want them in our inboxes otherwise.
• Advertisements and solicitations for products or services are prohibited.
• Those who do not comply with the rules set forth will have their postings monitored and may, at any time, be banned from posting to the Buzz for a period of time..

Buzz Etiquette Guidelines

• When starting a new discussion thread, try to avoid replying to an existing message to get the correct email address. Instead, begin a new thread by changing the subject line to your new topic before sending in order to activate the indexing by topic system.
• Include a signature tag on all messages. Include your name, affiliation, location, and e-mail address.
• Keep to the subject. Keep your posts to information about bees, beekeeping, honey, and pollination.
• State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
• When sharing articles please include a brief synopsis of article and include links only to those articles free to the general public.
• Include only the relevant portions of the original message in your reply. Delete any header information, and put your response before the original posting.
• When quoting a statistic, study, or fact please state clearly the source of this information and wherever possible include direct links to this information.
• Only send a message to the entire list when it contains information that benefits everyone.
• Send messages such as “thanks for the information” or “me, too” to individuals–not to the entire list. Do this by using your e-mail application’s forwarding option and typing in or cutting and pasting in the e-mail address of the individual to whom you want to respond.
• Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list”, through the listserv. To unsubscribe from the list, follow the directions at the bottom of the listserv email message.
• Warn other list subscribers of lengthy messages either in the subject line or at the beginning of the message body with a line that says “Long Message.”
• When using an Auto Reply message for times you are out of the office, please be sure to “Create a Rule” (this is easily done with Microsoft Outlook’s Out of Office Assistant) that would prohibit sending the message to the list.
• When quoting messages, do not quote the entire message. Just quote the parts that are needed to make the appropriate references.
• While the participants of this list are happy to answer questions and help solve problems, it is greatly appreciated if you do some of your own research beforehand. It is encouraged that people responding to questions cc the Buzz so that answered questions are archived and the group in general can learn from answers.