The ‘official’ group is a channel for PEG committee members to post notices to all members. All information about conferences, fees, training and job opportunities will reach you via this list, as well as your electronic PEGboard and updates on the membership grades and other PEG developments. You cannot post or reply to this group. Replies must be sent directly to the sender. If you wish to have a job opportunity posted, please send it to peg@editors.org.za or kathy.gibbs@worldonline.co.za to post it for you.
The ’chat’ group offers the opportunity to interact with like-minded people without leaving your office. The interaction is public, though, and for that reason we ask that you bear the rules below in mind. Moreover please do not post job opportunities on this group, as people are tempted to click reply. Please send them for posting on the official group, as described above. Membership of this group is optional.
There follow guidelines for appropriate use of this group.
Keep it professional:The e-group is a professional forum. As a general rule it should be used for professional matters only.We welcome help requests for terminology and word usage, discussions of language-related issues, press releases or information about upcoming training or events, and tips and tricks (including computer-related information) directly related to editing and proofreading. Please refrain from posting any offensive material, virus warnings, pyramid schemes, non-editing related adverts, jokes, photographs, chain emails, etc.
Use appropriate subject lines or tags:Try to make the list easy to use for people who are very busy and/or who may receive a lot of other mail. Use a descriptive subject line.
Be considerate: Ensure that unnecessary lines (including signatures and disclaimers) are removed. Cut and paste the appropriate extract you wish to respond to and indicate who sent it. If the message is intended for a single person (such as a thank-you note), email that person privately and not on the group. If a private response is required, include your e-mail address in the message.
Avoid sending attachments: Be aware that not all members are on broadband. Check the size of attachments and do not send large attachments to the group. You can speak to the group moderators about uploading large files onto the PEG Website or simply put a link in your email if it is not possible to reduce the size of the original document or summarise its content.
Be courteous to and about both colleagues and clients: Remember that writing does not ‘sound’ the same as speaking. Your irony or tongue-in-cheek tone may not come across on paper. Debate, but do not attack anyone personally. Don’t over-react to others’ messages. If you cannot engage courteously, rather remain silent.
Avoid defamatory remarks: Remember that the e-group is a public forum. Do not say or do anything you would not want to go out into the public domain. You can be sued on the basis of an email the same as other documents. Avoid racist, ethnic, religious and sexist comments that could cause offence.
To manage your own settings: Go to http://groups.google.co.za/group/peg-sa and sign in by registering a Google group account using the email address that appears on the PEG membership list. Any other address will be rejected unless you ask the moderator to change your address. If you set an out-of-office autoreply on your email, please set your subscription to Web view, so that your autoreply does not reply to every message to the group. To avoid clogging up your mailbox, make use of the ‘Digest’ setting so that you only receive one email per day.
Members who consistently contravene the rules will have their right to post messages on the group suspended for a certain period, at the discretion of the committee.
PEG Committee, November 2009
"An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better." (TS Elliot)
