ZApoly mailing list

Zapoly is the umbrella mailing list for polyamory in South Africa - it serves as a national polyamory interest and discussion group for polyamorous and poly-curious South Africans. The mailing list is currently hosted at groups.io

Goals of ZAPoly

to establish, cultivate and expand a self-sustaining friendly community of polyamorous and polyamory-friendly South Africans
to establish, maintain and promote sources of good quality, easily findable information on polyamory
to assist polyamory to become a well known and accepted relationship orientation
to create safe social and discussion spaces for polyamorous people, where they feel comfortable expressing their hopes, fears, joys and issues
to share knowledge about polyamory and provide support for people in polyamorous relationships and their friends and family

Join with simply an email address

1. Send blank email to zapoly+subscribe@groups.io from the email address you want to use for receiving polyamory discussion emails.

2. You will be then automatically be sent an email with subject "Confirm Your Groups.io Subscription".
Reply to this email. If the confirmation email does not appear to arrive, then check your spam/junk folder.

3. You will then automatically be sent an email with subject "Your pending membership in the main@zapoly.groups.io group".
Reply to the questions posed in this email.

4. If you reply satisfactorily to the emailed questions the moderators will approve your join request. If you do not reply, your join request will be rejected automatically after 14 days.

5. Once you have been approved by the moderators, you will receive an email with subject "Welcome to main@zapoly.groups.io".

6. Read this email, and then make your first post to the mailing list by sending email to zapoly@groups.io introducing yourself, optionally including your answers to the questions in step 3.
If you want to rsvp to a particular event, specify which event on which day you wish to attend (there are up to 3 events across different cities each month)

When you send (also known as posting) an email message to the mailing list, it goes to every subscriber (about 500 odd at the moment). Replies "on list" go to everyone too. this way, everyone gets to participate in the discussion.

Rules

Our forum may headline as a polyamory support group, but under that headline are several important bylines to keep in mind - we support LGBTQI equality, equality of the sexes, racial equality, and reject ableism, slutshaming, body shaming, homophobia, transphobia, bi-erasure, unexamined white privilege, casual racism and sexism and other forms of social injustice. We consider this group/mailing list a safe space and aim to protect it. We define a safe space as an area or forum where a marginalised group are not supposed to face standard mainstream stereotypes and marginalisation. Our shared social viewpoint is is that polyamory is a viable and ethical relationship option and that social justice is a good thing.

We have a team of moderators.
Your initial messages may be moderated. This is just to ensure that you are not a spammer/other undesirable. If you are under initial moderation, once acceptable messages have been received, moderated status of your account will be discontinued.
Moderation (and similar tools) may be employed for people who violate our rules and don't support our goals. We reserve the right to quell flame wars. If you strongly object to a moderation decision, please feel free to mail the moderators, and we will caucus and reply to you off-list. Moderation discussions are done off-list.

These are our rules and guidelines:

Feel free to share your experiences, questions, and advice that relate to polyamory
Feel free to post links to polyamory-related articles and websites you have found with an explanation of why you think it is noteworthy
No trolling, whether intentional or unintentional
No solicitation of goods or services (Announcements about local polyamory-related events are allowed)
No harassment
No personal attacks on people either in-group or out-group
Be clear and concise
Don't be overly familiar with people you don’t know. (No pet names without explicit consent)
Attempt to practise nonviolent communication (also known as compassionate communication).
Obligatory Polyamory content (ObPoly) - Conversations do drift - most vaguely relevant polite discussion is fine as long as there is some poly content linking your thought process back to polyamory somewhere in the post and makes an attempt at practising non-violent communication.
Change the subject line - When the main points of your post become different to the subject line of the post you are responding to - change it appropriately.
Be sensitive with the information you disclose on the list - some people are not "out" to everyone about their interest in polyamory and may not wish their names or other details to be revealed in public. If necessary, use pseudonyms to refer to people instead of their real names.
No forwarding/reproducing emails. It is extremely bad form to forward/reproduce emails from a support mailing list without the author's explicit consent, so don't do it.
Don't employ logical fallacies in discussions.
No posting of quiz results or non-poly-related mass-forwarded email
No using the mailing list to convert people to your religion, ideology or political beliefs.
This is NOT a dating site NOR a venue to find random sexual encounters - people making such posts will be removed.
No personal ads on the mailing list.
Support a consent culture

Please read these informative links about safe spaces, consent culture, trolling, non violent communication and logical fallacies:

Safe Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-space
Consent Culture http://pervocracy.blogspot.co.za/2012/01/consent-culture.html
Trolling http://www.osnews.com/story/25540
Non violent communication tutorial http://www.listeningway.com/cctutorial-1.html
Logical fallacies : https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

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