QTRA Mailing Lists
There are three QTRA mailing lists: qtra-admin@lists.qtra.co.uk for receiving essential updates; qtra-users@lists.qtra.co.uk to join the QTRA User Discussion List; qtra-newsletter@lists.qtra.co.uk if you wish to receive occasional newsletters.
All Registered Users have access to our email Discussion List, where informed discussion provides both support for users of the system and valuable feedback contributing to its ongoing development.
In December 2022, the web-host for the QTRA website discontinued service and we migrated the website to a new server. At the same time, our Discussion List was migrated to the SympaLists server. Unfortunately, the user-defined settings did not successfully migrate with the Discussion List and if you wish to post questions or messages to the list or to receive emails posted to the list, you must first subscribe using the process below. There are three QTRA mailing lists: qtra-admin@lists.qtra.co.uk for receiving essential updates; qtra-users@lists.qtra.co.uk to join the QTRA User Discussion List; qtra-newsletter@lists.qtra.co.uk if you wish to receive occasional newsletters.
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In a web browser, go to sympalists.net to create an account by going to ‘Account sign-in’ and then ‘Create an account’. No payment is required.
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A confirmation email will be sent to your registered email account with a link that you must use within 60 minutes to confirm registration of your account
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When you have registered, follow this link to the QTRA Discussion List https://lists.qtra.co.uk/wws/info/qtra-users where you can subscribe to the QTRA Discussion List in the side panel. Your subscription will then be verified the at the latest by the next working day
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Once subscribed you will receive all emails that are sent to the List, unless you go to ‘Subscriber Options’ in the side panel and change your ‘Receiving mode’
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You will remain subscribed as long as you are a QTRA Registered User, unless you choose to unsubscribe. You will have access the List archive, be able to post messages and set your account preferences. All emails you receive from the List will include an ‘unsubscribe’ link.
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You can send messages to qtra-users@lists.qtra.co.uk without logging into the Sympa Lists website
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You will access our Discussion List archive, which contains lots of tree risk discussion going back to 2005.
Terms of use for the QTRA Discussion List
When you use the QTRA Discussion list you are agreeing to be bound by the following terms of use:
Summary
The Terms of Use, together with the Posting Guidelines, set out the minimum standard of acceptable behaviour expected on the QTRA Discussion List. Their aim is to help make the QTRA Discussion List a friendly place where healthy debate can prosper by ensuring courteous and professional behaviour.
The main points are:
- You must be polite at all times
- You must not use profane language
- You should keep posts ‘on topic’
- You must not use the QTRA Discussion List for advertising
- You must not infringe copyright by posting other people’s writing, images or other work
- You must not post in a way that is illegal
- You should ensure your posts comply with the QTRA Discussion List’s “Posting guidelines”
- You agree to any posts you send being made available in the list’s archive
1. Introduction
1.1 Why we have Terms of Use
The purpose of these Terms of Use, together with the list’s Posting Guidelines, is to set out the standard of behaviour expected whilst you are using the list.
1.2 Nature of the agreement
The QTRA Discussion List is administered by Mike Ellison (the administrator). Use of the QTRA Discussion List indicates your acceptance of an agreement between yourself and the administrator to be bound by these Terms. If you do not accept these terms you should unsubscribe from the QTRA Discussion List by sending email to sympa@lists.qtra.co.uk with the subject "SET qtra-users NOMAIL". Alternatively, you can login at //www.qtra.co.uk and then set your Receiving mode to "no mail". The administrator may vary these terms from time to time by posting them to the QTRA Discussion List and placing them on the QTRA website.The use of the QTRA Discussion List other than in accordance with these terms may constitute an offence under section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
2. Acceptable Conduct
2.1 Purpose of the QTRA Discussion List
The QTRA Discussion List is a forum for discussion on all aspects of trees and their care and maintenance. The list is open only to current QTRA Registered Users. The aim of the forum is to promote a better understanding of tree risk management through active debate and the exchange of information. Whilst some light heartedness helps make a readable list please keep your messages to the QTRA Discussion List on topic and at all times maintain courtesy and respect to all who may read the mailing list.
2.2 Responsibility for posts
You are responsible for the content of all messages that you post to the list. The administrator accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the content of any message except those posted by himself.
2.3 Courtesy
You must be polite at all times and respect others points of view and differing levels of knowledge. The intention of the list is the dissemination of tree related knowledge for the mutual benefit of members. It should provide for informed debate and not be a forum for bickering.
2.4 Language
The QTRA Discussion List emails are delivered to the inbox of many family computers. The use of foul or profane language in messages is not acceptable.
2.5 Commercial promotion and advertising
The QTRA Discussion List should not be used for commercial promotion. Advertising of products, service or events is prohibited. If you breach this condition you may subject to sanctions as set out in section 6 of these terms.
2.6 Legality
You must only post in a way which is legal in England and Wales. In particular you must not infringe copyright. In deciding whether or not a post contains content that is not legal it will be assumed that the list’s subscribers include both consumers and businesses. One effect of this is that the content of your posts must not in any way contravene the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 or the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008.
2.7 Posting guidelines
All posts to the QTRA Discussion List are expected to comply with the current Posting Guidelines which are on this page. The administrator reserves the right to use technical means to enforce compliance with these guidelines.
3. Responsibility for virus checking
You are responsible for ensuring that your computer is adequately protected against viruses. The administrator does not guarantee to check messages sent through the QTRA Discussion List for viruses and accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damage caused by a virus transmitted through the QTRA Discussion List.
4. Archive
Any message that you send to the QTRA Discussion List may be archived. In posting a message to the QTRA Discussion List you will be deemed to have agreed to copies of that message being stored and made available to both present and future QTRA Registered Users. Users of corporate systems that attach confidentiality disclaimers should particularly note that messages sent to the QTRA Discussion List will NOT remain confidential.
5. Privacy
5.1 Privacy of your personal data
The administrator undertakes not to sell or reveal your name or email address to any third party unless required to do so by law. You should understand, however, that if you post a message to the QTRA Discussion List your name and email address will be contained within that message, which will be passed to all other members and made available in the list archive. The list’s privacy policy is described in more detail in the Quantified Tree Risk Assessment Limitid's Privacy Statement. Continued subscription to the QTRA Discussion List will be deemed to indicate your agreement to the Privacy Statement.
6 Breach of Terms
If a user of the QTRA Discussion List behaves in a way that may offend other members or potential members, or otherwise breach these terms of the posting guidelines, the administrator reserves the right to take the following actions:
• MODERATION In the first instance the user will be placed on the moderation list. Any message posted by the user will have to be approved by at least one of the moderators before being transmitted to the other members. The need for only one moderator to approve a message equates to requiring a unanimous decision in order to censor.
• SUSPENSION or BARRING Users who persistently breach these terms may, at the administrator's discretion, have their account suspended or barred from posting on the list. The administrator reserves the right to announce on the list any sanctions which have been taken against a subscriber and the reasons for those sanctions, or to announce any breach of the terms without taking further sanctions.
Posting guidelines for the QTRA Discussion List
Contents
Why we have Posting Guidelines
Stay on topic
Be polite
Language
Copyright
Avoid HTML formatted messages
Replying
Pick your recipient carefully
Trim quoted text
Attachments
Long URLs
Changes to the Posting Guidelines
Why we have Posting Guidelines
Email discussion groups like the QTRA Discussion List are not like real life. Email is a harsh medium. It cannot convey the subtleties and nuances of body language or tone of voice. It is easy to misunderstand or be misunderstood. It can also be impersonal and makes it easier to be rude or confrontational in a way which we would not be if the person we were addressing were stood in front of us. All this can make internet discussion groups seem like intimidating and unfriendly places to some users.
We don’t want the QTRA Discussion List to be like that. We want users to feel welcome and to feel that their point of view is valued and respected. The Posting Guidelines exist to help make the QTRA Discussion List a friendly place, and to help you to understand some of the things that you can do to make the list run more smoothly and remain on the right side of the law.
Stay on topic
The QTRA Discussion List is a forum for discussion on all aspects of trees and their assessment care and maintenance. Please keep your posts on topic.
Be polite
Please be polite when posting to the QTRA Discussion List and respect the points of view and differing levels of knowledge of others. The intention of the list is the dissemination of tree and risk related knowledge for the mutual benefit of members. It should provide for informed debate and not be a forum for bickering.
The standard of courtesy expected includes, but is not limited to:
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you may not insult or slander others
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you may not deliberately bait other subscribers or act in any way that could be construed as being ‘troll’ like (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet))
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you may not send messages that are harassing, offensive, abusive, racist or obscene
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you may not send messages that promote discrimination, violence or hatred for any reason
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Remember that whilst you might ‘gently rib’ someone in person with a smile, a wink or a not too serious tone of voice, those details are lost in email. Whilst good-natured banter is not outlawed, you should be sensitive to the possibility that your remarks might be taken more to heart than was intended.
The QTRA Discussion List is not the place to play out personal disputes between members. If your message is addressed to one person, or a small group of people, think carefully about whether it is appropriate to be posting it to the List.
These guidelines are specifically not intended to stifle healthy debate, but to ensure that the debate takes place in a courteous and professional way. It is quite acceptable to disagree with someone but you are expected to express that disagreement respectfully.
Language
It is not appropriate to swear or use foul language.
Copyright
Posting copyright material to the QTRA Discussion List is unlawful. What you post should be your own work. Remember that copyright exists in all written work from the moment it is written. It does not have to declare that it is copyright and there is no process which has to be gone through to register something as copyright.
You may post copyright material only if you have explicitly obtained the permission of the copyright holder. In this case, you should clearly indicate in your post that this is the case.
Certain work is placed in the public domain or is released under permissive licences such as the Creative Commons license. Make absolutely sure that you understand such licences before posting material released under them to the QTRA Discussion List.
There are a number of exceptions to copyright law, the most important from the point of view of the QTRA Discussion List being the fair dealing exception for criticism and review. This allows you to reproduce small sections of work for the purpose of criticism and review providing you give adequate acknowledgement. There are many good articles on copyright available on the Internet—if you are in doubt take a look at them.
Avoid HTML formatted messages
The use of HTML formatted messages is strongly discouraged on the QTRA Discussion List. HTML messages take up considerably more resources in terms of both bandwidth and disk storage space. Furthermore, the QTRA Discussion List has members who use email software that does not understand HTML or who are on corporate systems that do not accept HTML because of its vulnerability to viruses.
HTML parts may be automatically removed from messages posted to the list.
Replying
Pick your recipient carefully. Think carefully about who you are sending your reply to. By default replies will be sent to the whole list. This is often appropriate. Everyone has seen the question, they are probably all interested in the answer too. But sometimes it may be appropriate to just email the original poster, rather than the whole list. Don’t clog up everybody’s inbox when an email to one person would have done just as well.
Trim quoted text
When replying to messages you should quote only enough of the original message to place your reply in context. Quoting the whole of the original message makes unnecessary use of resources (yours, the system’s and that of every one on the list) and makes messages difficult to read. Reading digests (compilations of a whole day's posts) is particularly difficult and tedious when every message quotes the whole of the previous message.
Remember, subscribers to the list will have seen the original message. Don’t be lazy — trim it.
Sending attachments
Attachments such as photographs and PDF documents can often be very useful and may be sent through the QTRA Discussion List. However, sending large files can put a big strain on the server’s resources. Email is not designed to transmit large files. You should ensure that attached files are no bigger than necessary for viewing on screen. Messages that are unreasonably large may be rejected.
You can find help on getting images to a suitable size at http://www.tree-care.info/uktc/howto/sendimg. There is also a tool there to help you resize your images.
If you can’t get attachments to a reasonable size then you should place them on a file storage web site such as http://www.mediafire.com/ and post a link to the QTRA Discussion List.
Long URLs
Sometimes you may want to post a link to an interesting website that you have found. Long web addresses often cause problems in email because they get chopped up and line wrapped. If you want to post a long web address use one of the free URL shortening services such as http://tinyurl.com or http://tr.im
Changes to the Posting Guidelines
The posting guidelines are intended to be a dynamic document, to evolve in the light of experience. They will be updated from time to time and you should check on the website for updates.
