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JewishGen, Inc. is the leading multi-faceted program on the Internet dedicated to helping people research their Jewish ancestry. Staffed by primarily volunteers, JewishGen offers discussion groups, InfoFiles, interactive databases, search engines, and ongoing projects and programs — the common purpose of which is to provide as many avenues as possible to assist Jewish genealogists, or anyone else interested in finding Jewish family connections. For more information, see JewishGen's home page at www.jewishgen.org.
JewishGen, Inc. is a non-profit corporation with 501(c)(3) status, which means that all donations are tax deductible for United States citizens and in some cases for Canadians as well.
Important among JewishGen's programs is the JewishGen Discussion Group, the primary goal of which is to facilitate communication among researchers worldwide. The JewishGen Discussion Group assists beginner and experienced genealogists alike through the free exchange of information. It facilitates establishing contact with researchers working on the same families or geographical areas as well as learning about research methods and materials and the social history of the Jewish people. While all components of JewishGen Inc. store and make information freely accessible, it is the JewishGen Discussion Group which functions as one of the primary links by which daily communication between people sharing a common interest takes place.
The JewishGen Discussion Group is accessible in two forms:
Because we are a world-wide means of connecting thousands of participants, we must ensure orderly, courteous, efficient, and legally permissible communication. We must also protect JewishGen's status as a nonprofit organization. To this end, some rules and guidelines are necessary, and have been established by an international committee of Discussion Group users. Adherence to these rules will make using the JewishGen Discussion Group more productive and pleasant for all.
The JewishGen Discussion Group is "moderated", which means that all messages are subject to review before being posted to the entire group. In certain cases, messages may be rejected by a computer program on the basis of the subject line ("auto-moderation"); primarily however, a member of the moderation team may decide not to post a message because of its content. Some examples of messages that will be rejected include those containing:
If someone quotes extensively from a publication either in print or on the Internet, the moderator will first request clarification as to copyright and assurance that the person posting has permission of the copyright holder.
Members of the moderation team are also empowered to direct users to more suitable resources instead of posting their messages to the entire group. Should any participant disagree with the decision of the team member on duty, rule 5.3 describes how to handle this difference of opinion. It is never appropriate to attempt to discuss differences with the moderator through the discussion group. Messages of this type will not be posted, and will be sent to the support desk for response.
Click on the link to the "JewishGen Discussion Group". This takes you to the page containing instructions on how to subscribe and unsubscribe to the mailing list, how to manage your subscription when going on vacation, how to change the form in which messages come to you, and to which address to write when you're having a problem. JewishGen has no secretarial staff to make changes in either how you are subscribed or to put temporary or permanent stops on your subscription — You are expected to manage this for yourself. The information on the JewishGen Discussion Group page spells all this out in complete detail.
Please submit only messages which are related to research in Jewish genealogy such as:
Many topics that might be of interest to some Jewish genealogists are not suitable for this forum, because there are other mailing lists or groups devoted specifically to them. There, your chances of getting reliable information are much greater. For example, questions about:
should not be addressed, unless they are of immediate relevance to genealogy. All of the above are more appropriately addressed to the usenet newsgroup soc.culture.jewish.moderated.
Questions relating to
If a discussion threatens to move off topic or to develop into a prolonged debate among a small number of participants, the moderator will direct that it continue privately.
No. Those who offer products or services for sale may not use this forum to promote their interests. Because the JewishGen Discussion Group seeks to bring information to its participants, one-time announcements of new books and software are acceptable, as well as repeated references to books as resources when posted by disinterested parties.
No. If you want to offer information that is of long-term interest and takes up considerable space, such as:
Instead, they should be offered either as an InfoFile, or, in the case of lists of names exceeding 1,000 in number, as a database. To explore these possibilities, please see the JewishGen Support Center.
"Netiquette" refers to the basic rules of courtesy which should be observed in all communication on the Internet. In particular, JewishGen asks:
Messages violating any of these rules will be returned unposted by the moderator.
Don't use the Discussion Group to do your research; there are many resources within JewishGen that may answer your question — use them first.
Read the JewishGen FAQ. The FAQ ("Frequently Asked Questions") is a primer on Jewish genealogy.
Review the index of JewishGen InfoFiles accessed from <http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles>. The answers to your questions may be there.
To locate a particular town or shtetl, first try the JewishGen Communities Database.
To trace a particular surname or ancestral town, first check the JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF). Your surname may already be there. Even if it is, you should enter your own family data. For more info, read the JGFF FAQ.
All of the above sources are named links from our homepage. When you have exhausted all avenues that might lead to answering your question, then and only then, send your message to the JewishGen Discussion Group. Submit your messages to the moderator at < jewishgen@lyris.jewishgen.org>.
Unless you state your question clearly and succinctly, and describe what you have already done to find the answer, it's nearly impossible for anyone to provide an answer that will be helpful. When you ask for a piece of information, or direction, it is important to explain the specific problem that prompts your question. It is also necessary that you specify when and where: identify the region and the time period to which you are referring.
If you need to ask several unrelated questions, or ask about a list of surnames, put them each in separate messages.
Yes, indeed! The 1998 Rules Review Committee has established the following guidelines:
Your Subject Line should begin with the word "Searching:", followed by the surname typed in all capital letters. For example:
Searching: LEVINSON
You might also add locality names or dates. For example:
Searching: LEVINSON, Grodno -> Detroit, MI 1906
Your Message should include the following information:
It is never appropriate to present your entire family tree or go into completely irrelevant and extraneous details. Bear in mind that there is nothing so boring as the nitty gritty of someone else's family lore, and many of our Australian, European and South American readers pay for incoming messages.
First, your own subject line must repeat the subject line of the original query, prefaced by " Re:". You should never use the date and number of the digest as a subject line.
In your message, quote the relevant part of the original message, to make clear to which message you are responding. Quote only just enough text of the original — it is not appropriate to quote the entire message, repeating the signature, the surnames being searched, and the tag lines inserted by our Listserver, etc. Refer also to the name of the person who posted the original question. Moderators are empowered to either reduce excessive quotes or reject the message entirely.
If your response is to a very limited question, such as "a match on a surname query", or the information that "you know of somebody with the same surname" being searched, respond only to the person who posted the question; do not post this reply to the entire group.
If your response is of general interest to the group, such as "a source of information", "the address of an archive", "a strategy for research", then respond to the entire group, as well as to the person asking the original question.
In either case, before responding, please read the question carefully and make certain that your answer is accurate, relevant and as complete as possible. Responses such as "I think I saw that information, but I don't remember where" are of no value to anyone, in addition to being an annoyance to many. If you can't formulate a reasonably complete and helpful answer, please don't send in anything.
Always re-read your response, checking for spelling and punctuation, and be sure to include as much information regarding the sources (even down to microfilm numbers if appropriate). Remember, the expertise of the discussion group participants varies greatly, so keep your answer simple, clear and straightforward.
JewishGen reaches a global audience. Many of our readers do not have English as their primary language, so while typing everything in lower case may seem "cool" it doesn't always insure effective communication. You are expected to use proper upper and lower case format. The use of slang and abbreviations are discouraged. Remember also that many newcomers don't have a clue as to what "SSDI", "LOC", or "FHL" mean. It is always proper to clarify an acronym by using a completely spelled out reference at least once in your post.
First, make absolutely sure that you typed the e-mail address correctly and completely. Pay particular attention to the difference between the numerals "one" and "zero" and the letters "el" and "oh", as well as between the hyphen "-" and the underscore "_". Carefully read the error message you have received. Sometimes you are merely being informed of a delay and that delivery will be re-attempted within a specified time period.
If you have deleted the original post to which you are responding, please do not post a question to the entire list asking for the e-mail address until you have made every effort to find the original post, either in the JewishGen Discussion Group Archived messages, or in any search engine which can retrieve messages posted to soc.genealogy.jewish, such as www.dejanews.com. When all else fails and you must rely on posting to the entire group, please explain why you are posting publicly.
A general thank you to all who have helped is appropriate for posting to the entire list. Please do not waste bandwidth by thanking people individually in separate messages. If you have received answers that might be helpful to others, it is appropriate to post a summary, but not to burden everybody with all the details.
Yes indeed, but be sure to include the hints which enabled you to achieve success so that others may benefit either from the advice you received or the strategies that you employed.
The Subject line should be a specific short phrase capturing the essence of your message. Many readers have less time to read messages than they would like, and will decide whether or not to look at your message based upon its Subject line. The more accurate, informative and meaningful the Subject line is, the greater the chances of this message being read.
Generalities such as
Some e-mail reader programs truncate the display of subject lines, so keep the subject line brief.
If you read the JewishGen Discussion Group via the e-mail digest, responding to a message in a particular digest by hitting the Reply button will bring up a reference to that digest, "Re: JewishGen Digest: 23 March 1999". There is no point in sending it in this way, and your message will be rejected. Please be sure to change the Subject line in this case. In addition, many email programs will repeat the entire digest as part of your reply message! The best strategy is to follow your program's instructions for copying and pasting a portion of a message, open a new email form, write a proper subject line referencing the message to which you are responding and then "paste" the portion of the message you want to quote so that people will know to what you are responding.
Some pointers on writing effective subject lines:
A test of whether or not you have written an effective subject line is to ask yourself "does my subject line tell somebody exactly what it is I am trying to find out?" If not, rewrite it!
Our list server accepts straight US-ASCII ("Plain Text") only. However, most e-mail programs send messages in HTML format as well. This requires that moderators spend time deleting all HTML, embedded characters and other extraneous material that you do not see as you type the message. It is your responsibility to inquire of your e-mail tech support how to send messages in straight ASCII "Plain Text" — so before posting to the list, be certain that you have your email program set correctly. Turn off any HTML and/or MIME settings and be sure your 'word-wrap' feature is set to on. Also, if your program has any type of 'stationary attachment' please turn it off. Attachments are not to be posted to this forum under any circumstances.
See the JewishGen Support Center for specific information about how to send "Plain Text" format messages.
The number of letters across the line should not exceed 65, and that includes spaces between the words. Lines longer than 65 characters often create awkward overflows which result in alternate lines taking the complete width of the screen and the following line containing only one or a few words. This makes your message difficult to read and excessive in length.
To determine the width limited to 65 characters, you can make your own guide by typing a capital letter or a single number 65 times across the top of the page to see about where it ends. Once you have an idea, you can narrow your e-mail screen to that width for many e-mail programs. With some programs, the option to narrow the screen is not available, and even if you do, when the message is transmitted the program sends longer lines than what you have typed. Your message in the JewishGen Discussion Group will print in that long line, short line pattern. If it does you should get into the habit of creating a hard return (pressing ENTER) after every 65th character. (Older readers will remember this as a carriage return at the end of a line on those old machines we called typewriters.) You'll need to explore the possibility of setting your 'word wrap' to 65 characters, or, if this is not a option in your email program remember to create hard returns as described above.
Finally, your message should be typed in proper upper and lower case letters, typing only the surnames being searched in all capital letters. Sentences or messages typed all in capitals are considered to be impolite shouting and will be rejected by the moderators.
The signature should consist of:
It may also include:
If you are a professional genealogist, you are encouraged to include this information in your signature line, but non-genealogical professional affiliations or web pages will not be permitted. These will either be deleted by the moderator or rejected.
The total length of the signature must not exceed 3 lines, 65 characters each in width (not including the surnames you are searching) and it must be free of graphics, high ASCII characters and commercial, political, philosophical or "cutesy" sayings. These contribute nothing but clutter. The moderator will reject your message if you grossly violate this rule. An example of an acceptable signature follows:
Herman Petrovich, professional genealogist, Montreal, Canada
Vice-president JGS Montreal
Family page: http://www.jewishgen.org/family/Petrovich
Yes, providing you follow procedure:
For identification of people with very common surnames (Goldberg, Cohen, Levine), it is also a good idea to include the place of origin and to where and when the family or person you are searching emigrated. For example:
"GOLDBERG Vienna, Austria -> Detroit, Michigan 1921"
Lists of surnames being searched may be no longer than six lines of text no wider than 65 characters across the line including the spaces between words. Anything in excess of this will be deleted as excessive use of space. If you are in the habit of sending in "laundry lists" of names being searched, please consider setting up as many six line lists which as you need. Then, these can used in rotation.
If you are in doubt as to whether or not the message is acceptable, send it in, and if the moderator finds it unacceptable, it will rejected and a response message will be returned to you. (Please do not put a note to the Moderator asking about this in your posted message.)
You can always write to them directly, expressing your annoyance or concerns. Public criticism has no place on JewishGen and will not be permitted. Gentle suggestions and corrections are another matter as long as handled generally and not directed personally.
If you disagree with a Moderator's decision regarding a message you submit or the decision to end a thread, you may write to the JewishGen Support Desk explaining why you are dissatisfied with the decision. Support Desk volunteers will review the situation and reply, citing the specific section(s) of these Rules that are the basis for the decision. Since Moderators also are guided by these Rules, it is expected that most of their decisions will be upheld. Support desk decisions will govern; JewishGen does not have the means to set up an elaborate appeals system.
Moderators are selected from a pool of volunteers who offer to serve. Any JewishGen reader is always free to volunteer to serve as a member of the moderation team. Depending on the traffic, the time involved is generally three to four hours a day, for several days each month. The number of days per month depends on the number of current moderators available to work. Anyone interested in being considered for service on the moderation team should contact the JewishGen Support Desk.
If there is a rule that you feel would be appropriate, you are always free to suggest it to the JewishGen Support Desk.
Revision 3.01, June 9, 2000 WSB
Copyright ©1996, 2009 by JewishGen, Inc.
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