How to use the Safeguard email discussion forum

October 2008

The earlier part of this document deals with the mechanics of joining and leaving the forum.
The later part deals with how the forum is intended to be used.

If you have any queries by all means contact the forum administrator, Peter Bateman, whose email address is peter.bateman@thomsonreuters.com

Where Is The Forum Located?

At www.safeguard.co.nz

Select ‘forum’ and you will be given options to ‘Join now’, ‘Enter the forum’, and ‘Browse’.

Use ‘Join now’ only to become a member.
Use ‘Browse’ to read and search messages posted to the forum (but you can’t send one)
Use ‘Enter the forum’ for all other purposes except replying to postings (see later note).

How Do I Become A Member?

The steps are as follows:

1. Visit www.safeguard.co.nz
2. Click on ‘Forum’
3. Click on ‘Join now’
4. Fill in the fields and click on ‘subscribe’
5. Read your email and look for the confirmation message.
6. Reply to the confirmation message
7. You may now post messages to the forum.

How Do I Remove Myself From The Forum?

If you are going to be away from your email for a period, you may wish to alter your membership type so that you no longer receive emails for the duration of your absence – but still remain a member.
This is described below in How Do I Reduce The Volume Of Emails?

If you wish to remove yourself as a member of the forum:

1. Click ‘Enter the forum’
2. Enter your email address and password.
3. Click on ‘unsubscribe’ at the right hand side of the screen.

What If I Have Forgotten My Password?

Key in any old sequence of letters and hit Enter. You will be told your password is invalid and will be presented with two options: try again, or ‘email password’. Select the latter option, and your password will shortly be emailed to your email address.

How Do I Reduce The Volume Of Emails?

1. Enter the forum
2. Click on Safeguard
3. Click on ‘My Account’
4. Click on ‘Membership Type’
5. Select from the drop-down menu one of the following options:
   Normal – receive postings as they are sent
   Digest – one email from the forum per day, with full content
   Index – same as Digest, but contains only the subject lines.
   No mail – suspend receiving emails (useful when you are going to be away from your e-mail for an extended period)

How Do I Search Among The Messages Already Sent?

If you would like to browse through the messages that have been sent to the forum:

1. Enter the forum
2. Click on the Messages tab

If you would like to search the content of the messages for specific words and phrases:

1. Enter the forum
2. Click on the Search tab
3. Type a word, words or phrase in the “Search for” box, then press the [Enter] key.

Important Note About Replying To Postings

As a forum member, all postings to the forum will appear in your normal email unless you have changed your membership type to Nomail or one of the digest options.

To reply to a posting, simply use your usual email Reply function – there’s no need to enter the forum via the Safeguard website.

However, please note that your reply will go to all members of the forum UNLESS you change the Reply-To address before sending it.

You should change the Reply-To address to that of a specific individual when:

• your reply is so specific that it is probably of interest only to that person;
• your reply contains information which you would not wish to put in the public domain;
• you are saying “Me too!” to an offer of assistance, eg: when a member offers to supply a document of interest to anyone who requests it;
• responding to a job vacancy.

How The Forum Should Be Used

The rules and suggestions which follow are intended to clarify how members can best use the forum so that it remains fair to all participants. They have been adapted with kind permission from the guidelines used by the HS-Canada list hosted by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety (www.ccohs.ca).

Your participation in this forum indicates your acceptance of the following rules and suggestions. Safeguard reserves the right to terminate the membership of anyone who persistently fails to comply with them, or whose participation is otherwise deemed inappropriate.

Who Hosts The Forum?

The forum is hosted and administered by Safeguard. As a public forum, Safeguard takes no responsibility for the nature or accuracy of information exchanged between forum members.

What Is The Purpose Of The Forum?

The forum is a means of distributing messages to a group of individuals with interests in occupational health and safety in a New Zealand context. Although the list is intended primarily for New Zealanders, anyone with an interest in New Zealand occupational health and safety issues is welcome to subscribe.

The forum is a closed list, which means only members may post messages.

The forum is not moderated, which means messages are sent immediately to all members.

What Kind Of Message Is Appropriate?

The forum exists to facilitate the exchange of ideas, queries and information related to occupational and environmental health and safety in a New Zealand context.

The forum is not intended as a soapbox for promoting causes, nor is it meant for airing personal complaints against individuals and organizations. If you want information or advice about a specific situation, please describe the situation in a non-judgmental way. If you cannot do so without using defamatory statements about individuals or organizations, do not post the message to this forum.

If you send an off-topic message, a message containing defamatory statements, or a message deemed by the forum administrator to be inappropriate, he/she will send you private e-mail informing you that your message is inappropriate and asking you not to send such messages in the future. If you persist in sending such messages, your membership of the forum is likely to be terminated.

If you are unsure whether a message is appropriate or not, please send it privately to the forum administrator identified earlier.

Identifying Yourself

As a courtesy to forum members, please include your name, organisational affiliation, location and email address at the end of any message or reply send to the forum.

Your e-mail address alone may not identify you clearly, and may not be visible to some recipients. Members are more likely to take your requests for information and your statements seriously if they know who you are. Most e-mail software allows you to create "signature files" for this purpose.

Job Vacancies

New Zealand organisations with health and safety-related job vacancies are welcome to post brief details about them. Please include an e-mail address and/or phone number where interested individuals can contact you privately.

If you are replying to an advertisement, please do not send your reply to the forum.

Instead, please alter the Reply-To address to that of the organisation which posted the vacancy.

The forum is not intended as a means for individuals to advise they are looking for a position or for consultants to advertise their availability to carry out work.

Events

You are welcome to post details of upcoming New Zealand health & safety events, conferences, meetings etc, provided the event is free or hosted by a non-profit-making body (eg government agency or professional membership body). And please – only one posting per event.

Advertising

This is a non-commercial forum for the simple reason that if everyone with a product or service to sell into the health & safety market was allowed to post advertisements, no one would remain a member for long. Advertisements have their place, but this forum isn’t it.

However, while advertising is not acceptable, information about commercial health and safety-related products and services may be. If you provide or know about a product or service that you feel might be of interest to list subscribers, and has relevance to a discussion taking place, then provide a brief description of the product or service, and brief details about where interested parties can get more information.

If you are unsure whether your commercial message is appropriate, send it to the forum administrator (see beginning of document) for comment before posting it publicly.

If you post this kind of message, please type COMMERCIAL: at the beginning of the subject line as a courtesy to members who do not wish to receive any kind of message about commercial products or services.

Abbreviations

When your message includes abbreviations or acronyms, please indicate what those abbreviations or acronyms stand for. What is obvious to you may be a complete mystery to someone reading your message.

When You Are Going To Be Away

If you are going to be away from your e-mail for a period, and if your e-mail software has an autoreply function (ie the ability to automatically generate messages to the effect of "I'm going to be out of the office until such and such a date"), please change your membership type to “Do not receive email” until you return. This will prevent members who post to the forum from receiving an autoreply from all members with that facility switched on.

Quoting URLs

When pointing people to a web site, please enter the address in the form http://www.something.com rather than www.something.com. If the first format is used, many e-mail packages will allow the message recipient to click on the address. The recipient's web browser will load and access the referenced site directly.

Any Other Questions?

Questions about the list should be directed to the forum administrator referred to at the beginning.