The ISPSO Listserver is available to members of ISPSO so that they can communicate with each other. It is not part of the ISPSO administrative process and statements posted should not be taken to reflect the views of ISPSO. ISPSO will make no attempt to control or moderate the conversations on the list. When communicating on the Listserver, members are expected to observe rules of common courtesy and common sense. The following are guidelines that are suggested to assist members in their communication:

1. Communications should be oriented towards increasing the knowledge of ISPSO listserve members. The listserv is a forum for sharing information and community building. It is a place where differences of opinion can be respectfully aired. Personal attacks are inappropriate, even when couched in psychoanalytic terms.

2. The forum is to be used only for matters related to the field and practice of the psychoanalytic study of organizations, and/or ISPSO and its regional activities. It should not be used for non-professional purposes. Postings should be limited to those pertinent to ISPSO members and issues related to the field and practice of the psychoanalytic study of organizations.

3. Please respect the privacy and professional needs of your colleagues. Members should not use the list-serve to announce, advertise, promote, or otherwise market programs that are offered by their own practices, institutions, companies, or firms, or those of others with which they are directly or indirectly affiliated.

Recognizing that listserve members may occasionally want to announce programs and conferences and draw attention to their work and their accomplishments, the ISPSO makes space available on its web site for relevant professional announcements. ISPSO members, therefore, should send such announcements to the list administrator, who will post them to the website, or see that they are posted to the website, and inform ISPSO members of their posting.

4. List members should do their best to avoid the propagation of computer worms and viruses

5. When an issue pertains only to a small group/subgroup of individuals, please correspond only with members of that group and not the entire list. When an individual response is warranted please reply to that individual and not the entire Listserver.

6. When responding to a particular segment of a message, you should, as a general practice, highlight just that segment and then reply.

7. Copyright -- Not infrequently a list member wants to tell others about an article or news item related to the issues discussed on the List. Sending the entire article to the list, without the permission of the author or publisher, is a copyright violation. It is permissible to provide a brief quote from the copyrighted material or to provide a link to the story if it is published electronically but refrain from posting the whole item to the List.

8. Sending unsolicited articles to the list is also an abuse of members’ privacy rights, not unlike the practice of mailing spam. That is another reason members should refrain from posting entire articles, whether written by them or not, to the entire list.

9. Defamation -- Sometimes a robust debate about ideas spills over into ad hominem attacks on the proponents or opponents of the ideas. A false statement that harms someone's reputation can be an actionable libel. There is a substantial difference between disagreeing with how someone did their research or the theoretical stance they are taking, and accusing the person of incompetence or fraud. Because negative statements that impugn someone's professional qualifications can cause substantial economic and emotional harm, this is an area where extreme discretion should be exercised. Keeping criticism on an objective basis that is factually verifiable and skipping personal commentary about character, competence or motive minimizes legal risk.

10. Antitrust concerns -- The antitrust laws are broad and complex but on a very basic level they operate to prohibit certain anticompetitive agreements between competitors. An association like ISPSO is almost by definition a group of competitors that has come together to pursue common interests. Where those common interests involve agreements on such terms of competition as rates charged, salaries paid, standards applicable to members of the profession, and other issues of the marketplace, antitrust laws apply. Listservs provide a written record of statements that can create an antitrust risk even when there is no anti-competitive intent. Thus for the protection of everyone, discussions about rates charged in a given area, efforts to exert collective pressure on payors, terms of contracts with clients, salaries, etc, should not take place.

11. Risks affecting tax exemption -- While using the list to endorse political candidates in a US federal, state, or local election or for commercial purposes likely won't expose a member to personal legal risk, it can jeopardize ISPSO's tax exempt status under section 501 (c) 3 of the US Internal Revenue Code. To keep this advantageous tax status, ISPSO cannot ever be involved in electioneering or endorse a candidate for US federal, state, or local political office. ISPSO must assure that its activities are focused on the scientific, educative, and charitable purposes for which it gained tax exempt status.

12. This list of legal risks is not exhaustive but ISPSO will seek legal advice when a question arises.