<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
The Celiac Listowners are pleased to announce that the List now has 1100
subscribers from 24 countries.
 
You, the individual members, provide the spirit that allows us to
continue to grow and to spread knowledge about celiac disease,
dermatitis herpetiformis, wheat allergies, and associated diseases or
problems.
 
All of the List's reference files are designed to assist each person in
improving their quality of life.  These files were mentioned in the
welcome message and when updated or placed on the system, an
announcement like this will give details on their subject matter.  For
more details on these files and how to obtain them, send a message to:
[log in to unmask]
 
The message should contain this line:
 
INDEX CELIAC
 
Subscribers are asked to think about the destination of all replies.
The system is set up to return replies to all subscribers.  But
based upon the subject matter this may not be appropriate.  In those
cases it might be better to reply directly to the poster with a message
with the same subject.  When posters receive replies that are of general
interest, please summarize them back to the List for everyone's benefit.
 
When replying to the List, please use selected quoting to allow new
readers to follow a train of thought without reading the complete text
of the previous message.  Reposting a message with the header and
disclaimer notice is a waste of our collective time and the resources
provided to us so generously by St. Johns University.
 
The listserv software gives the listowners the ability to intercept any
particular subscriber's posts, and review them prior to their being
posted to the List.  Theoretically, we would like to stop all posts
which are obviously wrong (i.e. a command, a mistake, etc.), off-topic
(e.g about the weather, not about celiac), or on a very frequently
answered question (in which case the Listowner would provide the answer).
 
As a practical matter, the listowners do not have the time to review
every post.  Therefore, CELIAC is unmoderated.  However, there are
exceptions which we have chosen to make, solely in order to improve the
quality of our list.  They are discussed below:
 
The first post from each new subscriber is reviewed for the above
errors, because it has been our experience that new subscribers are more
likely to not fully understood how to use the listserv commands, and/or
may not have read the FAQ and Welcome Message.  Once a subscriber has
made a non-problematic post, that subscriber's status is generally
changed to NOREVIEW.  This means all future posts go straight through
to the List.
 
Very rarely, an individual will be placed on REVIEW status after they
make one or more posts which are clearly inappropriate for the List.
This is the principal way the Listowners can enforce the rules which
are outlined in the Welcome Message.  Fortunately, this has been an
extremely rare occurrence.
 
The Listowners' use of this authority has been, and will continue to be
strictly limited.  We intend to err on the side of not reviewing
subscribers.  If a post is reviewed, we intend to err on the side of not
requesting a change.  If a reviewed post is delayed, the author is
always given an  explanation, and requested to resubmit the post after
making the specified changes.
 
Finally, everyone should be reminded that because our list is
unmoderated, if you are intending to follow the advice of any particular
post, please be sure to verify it beforehand for you medical situtation!
 
For the Listowners
 
Michael Jones ([log in to unmask])