IACA Discussion List Guidelines, use and subscription management About the IACA Discussion List The IACA discussion list (IACA List) is a free resource for all active IACA members. This resource allows you to post questions to other members and receive information, feedback or assistance. Please read the information in this document and familiarize yourself with the guidelines and policies we use to manage the list. IACA Discussion List Guidelines, Use and Subscription Management
Instructions... 3 Posting Guidelines (General)... 3 Posting Guidelines (Vendors, Products and/or Advertising)... 3 Managing your Subscription... 4 Frequently Asked Questions... 5 I sent a request to iacalist@iaca.net but it didn t go out to the list. What happened?... 5 How do I search the archives?... 6 IACA Announce List... 6 Other Questions... 6 Rev: August 2017 Page 2 of 6
Instructions To post a message to the IACA List, please direct your email to: iacalist@iaca.net. The IACA List is moderated and posts will be promptly reviewed by our moderator team. You MUST send your email from the same email address you use to subscribe to the list. Posting Guidelines (General) 1. You may post messages about upcoming training (whether it be for-profit or non-profit) to the list, but please only one message for each training. 2. Please use a descriptive subject to help others understand the nature of your post. "Requesting Assistance with Gang Symbol Identification" is more effective than "Need Help" or I have a question. 3. It is acceptable to relay posts on behalf of non-iaca members so long as you accept any replies the post may generate. For example, you may post jobs or relevant event announcements (conferences); however you may not post a request for information where the replies are directed to a third party who is not an IACA member. If you post it and do not direct members to reply to someone else, it will be approved. 4. As a courtesy to your fellow international members, please identify yourself by including contact information and your affiliation (agency, school, company) in your email signature. 5. If you are soliciting input for a particular question, it is likely others will have the same question. Please take the time to summarize the responses you received and post them back to the list within a reasonable amount of time, or indicate in your initial post that members can contact you directly for responses (if you prefer). 6. Please do not submit messages where the sole content is a holiday greeting or similar general sentiment. Though well-intended and appreciated, these posts unnecessarily increase the list volume for thousands of recipients. See the FAQ section below for other common reasons why your post may not be rejected by the moderators. 7. Please do not post screen shots or include other information that may be considered proprietary or confidential. Examples include database structure, programming code, or administrative application features. If you are seeking help, please share that information directly with other users of the same program who responded to your request for help. Posting Guidelines (Vendors, Products and/or Advertising) 1. Members may post one message per month about a specific product, service, or business; this is considered advertising. This includes replies to previous message(s) in which the reply promotes a specific product. 2. We encourage our vendor partners and surrogates to participate in IACA List discussions; however such participation should not be used as a pretext to promote or advertise a vendor's fee-based products. Unless the member has specified otherwise (e.g. "No vendor replies" or from users only ), the vendor or representative is encouraged to relay specific and detailed fee-based product information off-list and directly to the member. If vendors choose instead to reply all to a post, the reply should be general in nature and minimal in content, e.g. 'Check out our product here', or 'We offer a similar product. Please visit our website for more information. Posts that do not comply will be rejected with a request to re-word and re-submit. Please keep in mind our listserv moderators do their best to review pending posts, however on occasion inappropriate posts may be approved accidentally. This is a reminder to all of our members that this is not a secure list and many of Rev: August 2017 Page 3 of 6
our members are not affiliated with law enforcement. Please do not share confidential or sensitive information through the IACA List. Posts to the IACA List may be subject to requests made through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552. If you need to disseminate such information, please use the member directory to identify recipients and contact them directly. Managing your Subscription You can change your listserv settings by logging into the IACA website and choosing My Account Discussion List Preferences from the menu. You can change the following settings: Your email address o You can use a different email address for listserv emails if you prefer to separate listserv emails from IACA correspondence. This means the email address you use for membership may be different than the one you use for the listserv. Consequently, you may need to change your email address in two places (My Account Change Email Address AND My Account Discussion List Preferences. Changing one does not automatically change the other so be sure to check both. Change your subscription type o Regular subscription - You will receive each post as an email as soon as they are posted to the list. The typical list volume is 15-30 emails per day. o Digest mode - You will receive one email per day (possibly two if there are many messages that day). The digest email contains a table of contents (Today's Topics) and the full text of each post. Subscription status o You can unsubscribe or re-subscribe yourself to the list at any time. The subscription list is updated once weekly (typically on Mondays) so changes may take up to a week to take effect, depending on when they are made. Regardless of which subscription type you choose, you can also use other tools to manage your emails. Many email applications allow you to create rules or filters to direct incoming mail to specific folders. For example, Microsoft Outlook users can use this tutorial as a guideline: http://bit.ly/12fuem8. There are many online resources to help you create rules and filters to manage your email. Rev: August 2017 Page 4 of 6
Frequently Asked Questions I sent a request to iacalist@iaca.net but it didn t go out to the list. What happened? There are several common reasons a post may be rejected: 1. You are sending from a different email address than the one you use for your list subscription. If your email address has changed recently (including name changes or organizational changes such as "myname@ci.state.us --> myname@mycity.org"), this will cause problems. Please verify your outgoing email address with your email system administrator. To change the email address you use for your list subscription, please see the Managing your Subscription section. Please note if you do this, you will not receive a response. It is automatically deleted and the moderators are not notified. The only way you will know this occurred is if you send it to the list but you don t receive an automated post acknowledgement or see it posted to the list. Always check to make sure you received a post acknowledgement or you receive a copy of your post. 2. Your membership may have lapsed. Only active IACA members can subscribe to the list. If you can log into the member's area, you are an active member. Please note if your membership has lapsed and you try to email the list, you will not receive a response. It is automatically deleted and the moderators are not notified. The only way you will know this occurred is if you send it to the list but you don t receive an automated post acknowledgement or see it posted to the list. Always check to make sure you received a post acknowledgement or you receive a copy of your post. 3. Your post was rejected by a moderator. If this is the case, your rejection will contain an explanation of why your post was rejected. Here are some common scenarios when posts are likely to be rejected: a. Saying "thank you for the responses!" or something similar to the whole membership. Please thank only the individual respondents, rather than the entire international membership. Or, you can include the solution to your problem in your message, which would allow for posting to the listserv. b. Echoing Replying with a me too response, whether you are agreeing with something someone else said ("I have that same problem here"), or saying you are also interested in the answers someone else is seeking (" I would like to receive your responses, too). If your reply is just an echo without adding value to the discussion, it will be rejected. If you are interested in responses to someone else s question, contact them directly. c. Geographically-specific queries - Asking "Can someone get me a driver s license photo from?" or Does anyone have a contact at in or something similar. To contact members in specific geographic areas or at specific agencies, please use the IACA member directory. (http://iaca.net/member_directory.asp) rather than sending an email to the entire international membership. d. Asking to be unsubscribed or to change listserv preferences, and sending that request to the listserv rather than changing your preferences from the IACA website (e.g., "Please remove me from this list," or "Please change my listserv email address to jsmith@whatever.gov."). Please see the Managing your Subscription section above for instructions on how to manage your preferences. Rev: August 2017 Page 5 of 6
e. Asking for information on something that was recently discussed, such as, "I know someone just asked about this, but now I can't find the email." Please see How do I search the archives? below. How do I search the archives? From the IACA members home page, click the 'Search Archives' button on the right side. If you are prompted to log in, enter only your email address (do not enter anything in the password field) then click the Remind button at the bottom. You will then receive an email containing your password. You can now return to this page and enter your email address and the password you received to log in. The password for this site is system-generated by the listserv software and is not associated with the IACA site or login. IACA Announce List In addition to the regular list, the IACA maintains a second list for announcements from the IACA Executive Board and Committees. This list is called IACA-Announce. As the name implies, it is an Announce list, not a Discussion list. While members can opt in or out of the regular IACA list at will, correspondence from IACA-Announce goes to all active members. The volume from IACA-Announce is very low, typically 2-3 emails per month. When you receive an email from IACA-Announce, please do not reply to the email. Because it is not a discussion list and is used only for announcements, all replies to this list are rejected. If you have any questions, concerns or need additional information pertaining to that correspondence, please contact the sender directly. Other Questions If you have any questions or problems that are not addressed in this document, please contact the IACA List Administrator at listadmin@iaca.net. Rev: August 2017 Page 6 of 6