SFEvents: Policies and Guidelines
Articles We Carry
The SFEvents list carries the following types of articles:
- Notifications of upcoming SF Sidewalk Astronomers events.
- Notifications of occasional celestial events to see from the SF Bay Area. Generally, we try to include things that everyday people can see without a telescope, though we do cover binocular and telescopic items from time to time — especially if they are of major public interest.
- Notable events from other astronomical organizations in the Bay Area.
Distribution
We try to keep the traffic low, so as not to fill your mailbox. Generally, traffic is pretty light; there are only a couple (fewer than ten) messages on the list per week.
Each message has a distinctive tag [sfevents] in the subject header, so you can set up your mail software to automatically filter or file the messages into a separate folder.
We tend not to post multiple reminder announcments for an event, also to reduce the strain on your mailbox. So if you see something that interests you, please mark it on your calendar, Outlook, PDA or whatever.
Public Events
Only events open to the general public are listed. Some events may have an entrance fee, though as a rule all Sidewalk Astronomers-sponsored events or activities are free.
Commercial Announcements
We do not allow commerical solicitations or announcements, though we sometimes post announcements for events or special offers sponsored by local astronomy-oriented business. The local astronomy businesses are a part of the amateur astronomy community and do support us, so we support them in return by publicizing their activities from time to time.
There's a definite gray area here, but the general rule is that we aren't here to sell you stuff, and we will not use the list to dump advertisements on you.
Privacy Policy
We will never give your name or email address to anyone else, for any purpose. We do not keep your email address once you've unsubscribed from the list.
Subscriptions
Follow this link to subscribe or unsubscribe from the list.
Change of Address
This page has instructions for changing your email address. Basically, you unsubscribe your old address and re-subscribe your new one.
Event Submssions
List members may submit event announcments for distribution, subject to moderator approval. However, posts to the list from non-members are automatically discarded, to fight spam. If you are not a member of the list, send your event announcement to:
Submission Guidelines
If you are submitting an event listing, plain text is strongly preferred, as are links to websites with more information.
We do not post PDF, Microsoft Word, images, or other attachments to the list. In fact, if you provide us information in those formats we will simply convert it back to plain text for use on the email list and website — so you may wish to save yourself the time and effort.
Make sure you include the basics:
- Sponsoring person or organization.
- Description of event: who, what.
- Date and time.
- Place.
- Driving directions (or link to website with this info). Don't forget public transit instructions, if available.
- Cost (if any).
- Contact person or website link for more info.