Dianic Study Circle Rules and Guidelines

DSC is a group of women who study and discuss the Woman-centred Modern Pagan Path of Dianic Wicca / Dianic Witchcraft, and also Goddess spirituality, Women's Spirituality, Feminist Spirituality, Wicca, Witchcraft, and Modern Paganism. Participation in our group requires active involvement and weekly or fortnightly contributions to at least one of our studies by all members. Members are free to post poems, lyrics, rants, prayers, stories, articles, pictures, invocations, readings, quotes, rituals, spells, questions, comments, personal reflection, social and political commentary, etc!

1. Participation - Posting.

This is primarily a study group. Studies all have one or more leaders. However we are a circle - that means we are not divided into two groups - teachers and students - or posters and readers. All members are expected to sign up for and take an active part in at least one study, with a regular sharing of researched information, ideas, or personal experiences, questions or insights based on that study. Members are asked to try to post to their study group or groups on a weekly basis, and are expected to do so, on a fortnightly (2-weekly) basis. If a member does not contribute to a study they have signed up for fortnightly, they are at risk of being removed from the study for non-participation. How long is allowed may vary slightly between studies, as appropriate to the study itself, and at the discretion of the study co-ordinator and / or leader(s). If a member is not current in any of the studies she has signed up for (has not posted within the following 2 weeks) she will be at risk of being unsubscribed from Dianic Study Circle. If that member has previously been a regular contributor, Moderators will give a warning by private email and a deadline of a week by which she is expected to post in order to avoid being unsubscribed – or to discuss whether a leave of absence is necessary. If however, there has been no participation check for a while, and the member has not posted to a study for over 2 months, or if a member has repeatedly failed to be a regular and active participant in studies, there need be no warnings.

We would appreciate it if you let us know if for some reason you will be unable to post for a week or two. This is fine. However, if you know you need to be silent for a month or longer, or have been silent for a month and do not know when you will next be able to join in, we suggest you contact the moderators to ask for a leave of absence. I.e. let us know you will be unsubscribing yourself and a date when you expect to once more be able to participate fully. This would normally be expected to be within 1-3 months. This is much like taking sabbatical in an established circle. As long as you were previously a contributing member, and you have not been absent for longer than 3 months we do not anticipate any problem in immediately welcoming you back to the group, whatever the reason for your absence. If it was longer than that you might have to wait until the group was next open to new members.

2. Group Studies, Projects and Topics, and Subject Header Abbreviations

Please always use the appropriate abbreviation (see separate file) as a header at the start of the subject line of your email. E.g. HBWM, PERS, GEN, OT.

Please always read messages posted by moderators under the MOD: header, and when you reply, change it to an appropriate header that does not include MOD so that this is only kept for moderator announcements

Please try to read all the emails in the studies you have signed up for, and be responsive to and supportive of the other women in your studies

3. Message delivery options

When you joined the group, you will have set your delivery options, as 'individual messages' or 'daily digests', both of which come to your email service) or to 'special announcements only', or 'no email' (so you just read messages on the web). You can change these options through going to 'My Groups' on Yahoo, then 'Edit my groups' and changing and saving the changes on the list of your groups. If you need any help, let a moderator know, any of us can change your settings. Please do not use the 'no mail' setting without speaking to a moderator first about your reasons. We only send out special announcements rarely and if it is important. Members who are set to 'no mail' without giving reasons may be changed to 'special notices.'

4. Copyright.

Do NOT forward any member's post to anyone, anywhere outside of this list, unless you first receive permission from the writer, unless it states "please forward," or is an obvious news item or public announcement.

We consider posting small sections of copyrighted works without permission to be fair use, considering that our group is private and for educational purposes. However, please avoid sharing large amounts of copyrighted work - whether text or images - without getting permission to do so.

We would mainly like our website to showcase original contributions from our members, for which you have or share the copyright (i.e. you wrote or made it). Other things can be included if they are genuinely anonymous, or if you have got permission from the copyright holder (i.e. the author or creator). In all cases please let us know how to give appropriate credit for the work. E.g. the name of the creator and details of any source it came from (e.g. book title or website URL).

5. What's Not Allowed?

No spam - e.g. blanket unsolicited advertising.

No porn.

Be honest, be yourself, AND be respectful. Controversial opinions are fine if expressed with sensitivity. Discriminatory attacks are not. Personal attacks are not. If moderators feel that a list-member's post is abusive, offensive or otherwise inappropriate, the Moderators will at their discretion put that member on moderated status and check that members emails before allowing them to be sent to the group. The member will be told what was unacceptable and warned to stop. If the unacceptable emails continue we will ban that member from the list. In extreme cases, members may be banned immediately, without warning.

6. Deleting when replying.

If you use 'reply' to send messages to the group, please do not leave the entire text of a previous post at the bottom of yours, delete all irrelevant portions; just leave a small section which helps the reader understand what you are replying to if you wish. It is very difficult to read the digests if they are full of the same post repeated several times. This cuts down on email size & space for members with email size limits.

7. Icons, Backgrounds, Pictures, Special Fonts etc in Emails

Background colours/wallpapers, special fonts, flashing icons, big pictures as a signature etc. are great fun, but may prevent some members from reading your emails, and may even crash some older systems, so if you wish to use them, please only use them occasionally. Please report it to us if any of the above are causing problems with your system, so that we can make sure that members stop using them. Some of our members in the TCW study have asked to post a picture of a tarot card in an email message. We have given permission for this. However, in respect towards the other people's slow computers which struggle with large files - it may only be one picture and it needs to be smaller than 50 KB. Otherwise, use the photo section, but please try and make it either small or put it in the temporary file for large images.

8. Putting Things in the File, Photo, Link, Calendar, Polls, and Database Sections:

All members are welcome to use these sections at our list home site
File section: Please use text or rich text format only. The files section is mostly for text. Photos, pictures, and images should usually go in the photo section. Small images may be included within a text file in the file section. If you have one or a few links to recommend, add it to the links section. If you have a large list, put it in the files.

Thank you for reading!