Version 1.6 30.08.1994

The Netiquette for the ZaMir Conferences

This is the net etiquette for the exchange of the ZaMir conferences between the ZaMir Transnational Net email systems and other email systems and networks. The netiquette is defined by the ZAMIR email systems. The ZaMir conferences originated in the ZaMir Transnational Net.

The Content of the Conferences

The ZaMir Transnational Net aims especially to serve people working for: the prevention of warfare; the elimination of militarism; protection of the environment; the advancement of human rights and the rights of peoples regardless of race, ethnic background, sex or religion or political convictions; the achievement of social and economic justice; women's rights; the elimination of poverty; the promotion of sustainable and equitable development; more and better democratic structures in society, especially the advancement of participatory democracy; nonviolent conflict resolution and to aid the communication between all people, especially for refugees. All groups and individuals who are in agreement with these aims will be actively encouraged to join and use the ZaMir Transnational Net.

The ZaMir conferences have been developed and are exchanged with the above goals in mind. Any email system and user that supports these goals is welcome to use these conferences.

We the originators of the ZaMir conferences kindly ask that the users of these conferences fulfill the following requests:

These conferences are mainly for the exchange of information, opinions and proposals for action. There are a few binary conferences which are only for programms that are necessary to access the email systems. These conferences are not to be used for the exchange of programms.
We must use a unique, common name for the conferences and therefore will use an English name -- to preclude a bias toward any one language form this region. This does NOT mean that English should be used in the messages lin the conferences!
The main languages to be used in these conferences are the languages of the people living in the Balkan region which includes the country formerly called Yugoslavia. This includes Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian, Hungarian, Serbian, Slovenian, and other languages of the region. Additionally, English may be used.

The purposes of the conferences for each conference (a short description) will be posted by the moderators in languages of the regions where ZAMIR email systems are located and additionally also in English.

Further notices for users

Each user is completely responsible for the text that s/he has written. Therefore, they should protect their password from use by others.
The subject description should be a clear. Avoid sending nonsense messages. Avoid using a large amount of graphics in the messages. Please do not use large "signatures" on your messages.
Unneccessary crossposting is to be avoided. It is sufficient to post a message in only one conference in each network. To call attention to important messages please use pointers in the ALERTS conference or if necessary in another subject conference.
Unneccessary quoting is to be avoided. Normally, the amount of text quoted from another message should not be proportionately large in relation to the text of the users message.
Please, do not quote out of context. It just causes misunderstandings.
The source of every quote should be clearly identified.
Personal messages that you receive may not be made public without the express permission of the author.
Complaints about others' errors shouldn't be posted in public conferences. Before sending an angry reply to someone, let the message cool overnight in your computer. Then read it again before sending it. This may help to prevent unnecessary "flames" against other users.
Insults, libellous statements, discriminatory statements against minorities, sexist and racist statements, and texts which call for the carrying out of illegal actions should not be tolerated. Users who disregard these rules of tolerance and respect to other person's identities will be politely but publically warned.
If the violations continue then the system administration should disconnect the user from the /ZAMIR conferences. If a system operator allows such users to continue ot use the /ZAMIR conferences, it will also be warned and if need be, disconnected from the network.
No advertisements (for buying and selling) should be placed in the /ZAMIR conferences.

Technical Requirements

The maximum legnth of messages/files in all conferences is 64 kilobytes. The splitting of binary files is prohibitted. A special agreement must be made for any exceptions in order to be certain that the transport of larger messages will function. (The only exception now is for the few binary conferences that will be used for the transport of programms necessary for the use of the email systems.)

The maximum length of personal messages that are routed (i.e. forwarded through other email systems) is 100 kilobytes, although users are encouraged to limit their messages to 10 KB since larger messages may get stuck in some networks and therefore may be delayed or lost.

As most of the messages in the ZaMir conferences are written in languages that include characters not found in the ASCII code (<127) it is necessary that systems carrying these conferences support these additional characters. The practical measures concerning this issue must still be clarified, but we would ask that the email systems carrying the ZAMIR conferences make translation information and software available for their users so that they also may easily read the special characters >127 ASCII.

We (ZTN) will help to provide keyboard and monitor drivers (that are used in our region) and a translation table for the character sets so that the messages can be readable on your email system software. We will also attempt to help the system operators with any information about character sets and available drivers in order to facilitate the reading and writing of messages in our languages. A translation file (fonts.mbx) for Zerberus v5.2 is also available.

For the System Operators

Some conferences are READ ONLY. That means only certain groups (for example a media organisation) may write in that conference. The sysop must set up his/her system to ensure that these conferences may only be written to by authorized users. The ZaMir conference coordination can supply this information.

Censorship of content must never take place. Only technical (for example, length of message) limitations are allowed.

All users of the ZaMir conferences must have an email address that is internationally reachable. This enables all users to also write private emails to any user of the conferences.

All users of the ZaMir conferences should be identifyable as real persons. Anoymous users are not to be allowed to write in the the ZaMir conferences. The system operator should know the name and address of all the users of these conferences.

Coordination

Requests for the ZaMir conferences should be sent from your system operator to the ZaMir conference coordination of the ZaMir Transnational Net. This is taking place in the conference /ZAMIR/NET/SYSOP@ (any of the ZaMir systems) We will help you find the closest server for the conferences. Any changes in routing of the ZaMir conferences must be agreed upon with the ZaMir conference coordination.

We will not provide the ZaMir conferences to systems that cannot fulfill the above requirements.

The Zamir Transnational Net