[return me to Links for Portland Area TAG parents]
WELCOME to the XL-PDX Mailing List
Last Updated: [27 October, 2020]
*********************************************************
Before you do anything else BEFORE YOUR EYES START TO GLAZE -- please create
a file on your computer for listserv information and save a copy of this
message there. Print a copy to hang on your bulletin board or moulder on
your desk until it disintegrates. . Sooner or later you're going to need to
refer back to EVERY SINGLE PARAGRAPH in this message. This message tells
you how to subscribe and unsubscribe, whom to write if you have trouble, and
how to share your thoughts with other subscribers.
*********************************************************
Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list for parents of Portland area
Talented and Gifted (TAG) students. We hope that you will find information,
friendship, and support for yourself and your family here. You may also
wish to subscribe to OATAG@groups.io, the state discussion list sponsored by the
Oregon Association for Talented and Gifted, or to one of the large national
groups for TAG parents. More information and links to these is available at
a website, "Links for Portland TAG parents" at
http://www.tagpdx.org
Before you start, be sure to read our posting guidelines, below. Our goals are:
1. To EDUCATE parents, teachers, administrators and all other interested
persons about all aspects of TAG education.
2. To IDENTIFY parenting issues.
3. To ADVISE the school board, administration, staff and teachers of the
Portland Public Schools regarding TAG issues.
This listserv was established to help us reach those goals.
*********************************************************
REMINDERS and USEFUL TIPS
*********************************************************
Please remember the mission of the list when posting messages. There are
many other opportunities online to discuss world events, the last elections,
religion, leaf removal, and other "large" issues--please do not use this
list for such discussions unless they are directly related to TAG issues or
the goals listed above. Please stick to TAG issues, PPS issues that
directly affect our TAG students. or topics you honestly believe are of
interest to TAG families.
Please keep all your messages polite, supportive and helpful. Personal
criticism or "flaming" of any sort is not welcome. It can get out of hand
very quickly online. Please also remember that humor can be misunderstood.
We urge you to keep in mind that the people most affected by what you say are
often your own children. Be very careful about sharing ANY personal
information about your children.
Even though this message is quite long, we ask that you keep your own
messages short. Don't copy the whole of a previous message but try just to
indicate the subject and/or the most important sentence or two. Please
respect the copyright laws and send links to websites and newspaper articles
instead of copying the entire article.
Please remember to indicate the subject of your message in the "subject"
line. Sometimes people receive messages in "digest" form. The subject
heading for the collection of messages just gives the digest number, and so
when they reply, their own subject heading will read "digest" unless they
add a subject. Similarly, when you "reply" to someone else's message, you
will avoid confusion if you make sure that the person whose name is given as
the author of the message really wrote it.
It is better to seek advice in general terms than in specific terms.
Remember that sometimes people make mistakes and anything you say online
might be forwarded accidentally or on purpose to any neighbor, teacher,
parent, or school that you identify. For example, "what steps could I
take to handle harassment?" or "what is the PPS policy concerning
harassment?" are fine, but "My daughter Miranda is a seventh-grade student
at Tempest-Tossed Middle School and is being harassed by a strange-looking
and odious student named John Caliban" might lead to anger--or worse--from
Caliban's family.
When you first sign on, it is helpful to provide a brief introduction about
yourself and your TAG interests. Other helpful ideas include bringing your
sense of humor, posting thank-you's and updates to the list, signing every
message, and sharing freely.
Before leaving town and especially before setting up any "autorespond"
service on your computer, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you unsubscribe from the
list or set the list to "NOMAIL" . This will prevent your autorespond from
notifying all our subscribers that you are out of the office over and over
and over and over..... Failure to do this will incur immediate removal from
the list, and on your return you will have to grovel before the
administrator. Even if your trip involved a country without extradition,
we will track you down and expostulate.
SUMMARY: Here's how to communicate with us and other subscribers:
Post message: send your mail to
xl-pdx+subscribe@groups.io
Unsubscribe:
List owner:
xl-pdx+owner@groups.io
MORE EXPLANATION:
There are four important addresses associated with this list. First, there
is a secretary who maintains the mailing list. In this case the secretary
is a machine--the "list" address. You write to the secretary whenever
you want to subscribe, unsubscribe, or otherwise execute some mindless
command. That is the address you wrote to when you subscribed in the first
place. It is
xl-pdx+subscribe@groups.io
Second, there is an audience, consisting of all the list subscribers. To
communicate with -all- of them send your thoughts to
xl-pdx@groups.io
Third, there is automated information. To obtain information about how these
lists work go to
xl-pdx+help@groups.io
Finally, there is the friendly list owner.
As a LAST RESORT if you are
having trouble managing your subscription yourself you can send a message
to: xl-pdx+owner@groups.io
and beg the owner to rescue you. HOWEVER.....Please try managing your own
subscription first by using the first address. It's easy! Our list owner
is donating her time, equipment and services--so please try not to take up too
much of her time with stuff you can do yourself. If you do write with list
issues, please be sure to let the list owner know which list is having the
problem. It doesn't help the listowner to get a message that says something
like: "please unsubscribe me" unless you also tell her what you want to be
unsubscribed from.
*********************************************************
POSTING GUIDELINES
*********************************************************
As not every e-mail program automatically
includes this information, please sign every message you post.
Please speak courteously and respectfully of and to all individuals and
groups and remember that every child and every family is different. Racism,
pornography and obscenity are always unacceptable.
Please do NOT send in commercial announcements or advertising of any sort.
Also, do not share any individual's private information including phone
number or address without permission from that person.
Those who abuse these terms are subject to immediate unsubscription without
notice.
Portland is a very small place. Please do NOT forward ANYTHING *from* this
list without specific permission from the author of the message unless it is
clearly impersonal and intended to be shared. Impersonal messages include
links to public websites, official announcements, links to published
articles, or announcements of public events.
Please, please DO NOT send any attachments EVER. This list will scrub
attachments as they often carry viruses and other "bad" programs. Similarly,
send your messages as "plain vanilla" e-mail without fancy graphics, characters,
colors, formatting etc. These really confuse many e-mail programs. Please don't
send photos, gif or jpeg files, data files, MIME attachments, or any message
that will take a creaky
old computer with a terrible modem and slow connection too long to
download. Remember that many of us are using equipment that our third
graders put together with Legos and old toasters. If your e-mail gives you
a choice, send your messages as plain unformatted text without HTML or
special characters. Do not send it as "both" or many recipients will see
two copies of every message, one in strange characters. We have enough
strange characters among our relatives already.
Please avoid chain letters, virus warnings, or any mail forwarded from any
source you do not know and trust. To head off REAL viruses, we advise visiting
the website of a reputable anti-virus software company.
*************************************************************
PROHIBITED CONTENT
*************************************************************
The following content is prohibited by groups.io:
************************************************************
SPAM
************************************************************
Please add xl-pdx@groups.io to your address book. Some email providers notify groups.io when our group messages land in someone's spam folder. We never want that to happen. It can lead to further emails landing in spam, it can cause us to be blocked by email providers, and it is a bad user experience when someone doesn't think they receive all the messages from their groups. Adding to this, unfortunately some people use the spam button instead of trying to unsubscribe from a group.
If your provider marks your email as spam and notifies groups.io, you will automatically be removed. You will receive an email with a link for resubscribing. If you receive this, PLEASE check your spam folder and mark any messages from xl-pdx as "not SPAM." This will produce fewer mistakes and missing mail. If you wish to unsubscribe, please follow the instructions for unsubscribing.
*********************************************************
MODERATION
*********************************************************
The listserv is "unmoderated." That means that there is no editor who
screens the messages that you send to the list. However, we do have a
process for removing subscribers who use the list inappropriately.
*********************************************************
BOUNCE MESSAGES
*********************************************************
If group messages sent to your email address are returned to as
undeliverable ("bouncing"), your account may be temporarily
disabled.
Messages can be returned for several reasons:
* Your mailbox may be full -- try deleting messages from your Inbox.
* Your ISP may have a backlog of email to process -- contact your ISP.
* Your ISP may be blocking email from this group -- contact your ISP.
In many cases, Groups.io can automatically reactivate your account once the
delivery problem is solved. However, in some cases you will need to manually
reactivate your account.
When an account is Bouncing or Bounced, Users themselves are notified that they are Bouncing or Bounced, and are given a chance to unbounce their account, via a banner that we display at the top of the groups.io site whenever they are logged on.
To prevent this problem from occurring please
UNSUBSCRIBE before you change your e-mail address and then RESUBSCRIBE from
your new address. Maximum message length is currently 200 lines and each
member is allocated up to 5 messages per day. You can also use your account to set your list preferences including Digest and temporary mail
hold.
For more information go to
https://groups.io/static/help
*************************************************************
EMAIL SHORTCUTS
*************************************************************
Groups.io supports several email commands. With the exception of the +help and +owner commands, using these commands is a two-step process:
You can send a blank email to the following email addresses (substituting your group name for GROUPNAME):
This list was created for you! Please join and share your thoughts. Encourage
your friends and neighbors to join too.
Thanks,
Margaret
[return me to Links for Portland Area TAG parents]