World Pantheist Movement’s Help Centre

Community list:

This list is for sharing experiences and feelings about nature, discussing the everyday practice and problems of pantheist living, suggesting ways of celebrating life's stages and the seasons, and developing the World Pantheist Movement and its local groups.

Ideas list:

This list is mainly for discussing pantheist and related ideas and beliefs, and also discusses science, ethics and philosophy related to a reverent naturalistic life-view. This is the right place for discussions about other religions. Since ideas can only be developed if debated, be prepared, if you raise a pet idea, for someone else to offer a critique of it. It's not usually a sign of hostility.

WPM bulletin board:

Pantheist news: This is a free, very low-volume, announcement-only list for news about the World Pantheist Movement and its mailing lists.

Issue oriented lists:

These lists deal with specific recurring topics that proved too divisive, repetitive or delicate for the main lists to handle. They include Vegetarianism, Politics (for all contentious specific issues such as war on Iraq), Relationships (for mature and tasteful discussion of personal relationships and sexual preferences, over-18s only), Mutual Support (for problems and advice). The "God" list deals with terminological topics, eg: Should we use the words "god", "prayer", "church" etc? Are we a type of atheist or a type of theist? Are we a religion or a philosophy?

World Pantheist Movement related lists:

These deal with specific issues of the organization. They include the Celebrants List, about the role and status of celebrants of weddings, funerals etc. WPM UUS is about linking pantheism with Unitarian Universalism. World Pantheist Movement Members is for voting in MAC elections, and polling of members’ opinions. WPM Children is meant to look at ways in which the WPM can be made child-friendly and parent-friendly. Local Groups Forum is for ways to start and run local groups.

Generic Pantheist lists:

We set up the first generic pantheist mailing list, Pantheist Spirituality, to accommodate all types of pantheists, including dualists, pagans, believers in reincarnation, and so on. Pantheism-Intro is a free, moderated list where people can ask questions about pantheism and the WPM. The Pantheist newsgroup, set up by WPM members, is the main Usenet newsgroup for pantheism. It is open to all types of pantheist — and anti-pantheist!

There are also 22 local lists (see page 12), and several administrative lists dealing with various aspects of WPM services.

Rules of the games

When you first join a list it may seem as if you have entered a private conversation. Don't be shy — post if you feel like it. If you don't like the drift, introduce a new subject. Tell the group some background about yourself, how you became pantheistically inclined, and where you live — other members may live near you. Put your city at the head of every mail.

Only one of our lists (pantheism-intro) is moderated. The rest rely on self-control. Please remember that our lists are not censored in advance. Unless coming from a director and stated to be official policy, posts represent ONLY the opinions and character of the person who posted them.

The basic rules, which apply to all our lists, are designed with two goals in mind. The first is to maintain a civilized, positive and friendly atmosphere in which open-minded exploration can thrive. Outbursts of flaming, hostility, or mockery are like infantile tantrums: they monopolize attention, focus interest on personal clashes, close off intelligent exchange and drive good people into silence or departure. Given that WPM members are a highly intelligent and tolerant group, this is a guaranteed way to impress people — badly. If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, lose respect and credibility, and divert attention away from the content of your message, then this is the way to go!

The second goal is to keep mail volume within digestible limits. Many people are busy, and sign off lists if confronted with excess volume.

The rules about private mailings are also important. Please don't abuse WPM contacts for commercial purposes, or take it upon yourself to cleanse our ranks of people you disagree with politically or pantheologically by harassing them privately. We discourage this kind of behavior very strenuously indeed.

Ethos

1. No personalized attacks against individuals or sections of the group, whether targets are named or can be inferred. Ideas may be criticized or disagreed with, but persons should always be treated with respect. Avoid contemptuous language when criticizing other members' ideas. Mocking or satirical remarks against other members or sections of opinion are strongly discouraged.

2. No racist, sexist, obscene or foul language is tolerated. Remember we have members aged between 13 and 93 and consider your content and language accordingly.

3. No citing of private posts to the group without the author's permission.

4. No private mailing with advertising, commercial approaches, flaming, threats, harassment or calls to leave the list. Anyone found to be breaching these rules will be expelled from all our lists.

5. Please forward any mail you believe constitutes abuse to the list managers for review to .

6. Mail addresses obtained from any of our lists or the geodatabase must not be used to distribute commercial or chain letters.

7. Names and contact details on the geo-database must not be divulged to people who are not members of the WPM.

Volume and focus

1. A maximum of ONE POST PER DAY is allowed in the Ideas list and Community list.

2. Try to be concise and avoid rambling. Short letters are far more likely to be read than longer ones. The ideas list has a machine-applied length limit of about 100 lines (depending on header length). If yours get sent back often though they seem short, check points 3 and 4 below.

3. Turn off automatic quoting when replying to a list message. In your email program, go to mail options/composition (or equivalent) and make sure automatic quoting is turned off. Full quoting leads to double-sized messages, which if requoted become treble.

4. Don't send letters as HTML and text, as this doubles their size. Please turn this option off in your mail program [OPTIONS/MAIL/FORMAT].

5. Post to the group only what you think will be of interest to the group — see the descriptions above. Please stay (more or less) on topic.

Administration of the rules

When clear and serious infringements are brought to our attention, we issue warning notices. Usually, a first infringement results in an informal warning. A second infringement warrants a formal warning. A third infringement results in suspension. Sincere and prompt public apologies to the victim will help to avoid sanctions. Severe breaches may result in immediate moderated status or expulsion. Sanctions of any kind are infrequent.

There is a three-person management committee to adjudicate on breaches. Members do not take part in cases in which they are one of the parties.

To complain about a rule breach or private mail harassment, please email .

For technical problems about list operation please email stating which list you are referring to plus problem details.