NAA's Federation E-Forums Instructions for Use

PLEASE PRINT THIS PAGE FOR YOUR REFERENCE WHILE USING THE E-FORUMS

Welcome to the NAA E-Forums. These online groups provide an opportunity for newspaper marketing professionals to discuss issues, ideas, and share information that will help them professionally. If you are working on a project and need guidance from your colleagues, post a message on your Federation's E-Forum electronic discussion group. Each Federation has its own E-Forum that members can choose to access to communicate with colleagues, and to be a part of this valuable communication medium. Each E-Forum enables you to tap into the collective knowledge of hundreds of your colleagues around the country. E-forums are an exclusive benefit of your Federation membership.

E-Forum Interfaces

NAA E-Forums run on Lyris software, which permits E-Forum members to communicate via either a World Wide Web interface or e-mail. The E-Forum's Web interface, which can be accessed at http://e-forum.naa.org/read/login/?forum=, allows users to easily configure their forum communication settings and access all forum messages sent within the last six months.

The Lyris software does NOT detect or disable computer viruses; users are advised to maintain virus detection software on their own computers.

Subscribing to an E-Forum

There are two ways to subscribe to NAA's E-Forums. Either technique will result in an e-mail being sent to the list administrator, who will verify your membership before adding you to the list. After you are added, expect to receive a welcome message. Please be aware, however, that this is not an automated process, so your E-forum membership may take a day or so to clear.

1. From your regular e-mail program—Send a blank e-mail (nothing in the body of the message) to: subscribe-(name of the forum)@e-forum.naa.org. The names of the Federation forums are as follows: feds-circulation, feds-classified, feds-display, feds-marketing, feds-digitalmedia, feds-research. (example: subscribe-feds-display@e-forum.naa.org)
2. From the Web site interface—To sign on to your E-forum, log into the E-Forum home page at http://e-forum.naa.org/read/login/?forum=, and scroll down the list of E-forums until you reach your Federation. Select the “Subscribe” button.

Navigating Your E-Forum

Access the E-Forum at http://e-forum.naa.org/read/login/?forum=, and scroll down the list of forums until you reach your Federation. Click on the name of the Federation to select it. Enter your e-mail address and click the “OK” button. Once you have logged in (all you will need is your e-mail address), you have the option to read current messages, create a message, modify your settings, and unsubscribe from the forum.

Getting Messages

You may choose from four different ways to receive your E-Forum messages. They can be e-mailed to you, or you can opt to locate and read them on the Web site, but you can only change these settings from the Web site. Once you have logged into your E-Forum, select the “My Account” tab, then the “Membership Type” drop-down box to choose from among the following:

• " Normal—receive messages as they are contributed"—This option will bring each new E-Forum message to your desktop e-mail inbox with all the other e-mail you receive. If you are using Microsoft Outlook as your e-mail reader, you can use the rules wizard to set up sub-folders in your inbox into which the E-Forum messages can flow automatically, allowing you to view them at your convenience. All messages have the name of the E-Forum in the Subject line (example: feds-display), which provides a convenient hook for the rules to work from. Other programs may offer similar options.
• "Digest—one daily e-mail with all the messages for that day"—This option will contain one message with all the messages posted during that day.
• “MIME Digest—one daily e-mail with that day's messages in MIME format”—This option will contain one message with each message posted during that day as a separate attachment.
• "Index—one daily e-mail with only the subject lines for that day"—This option will bring one shorter e-mail that summarizes the day's E-Forum activity by listing only the subject lines. If anything grabs your attention, you would then go to the Web site to read the full content of the message.
• "No e-mail—receive no mail from this mailing list"—If you would rather not receive anything in your inbox, and only wish to read messages by visiting the Web site, this is the option you would select.

Reading Messages

There are two ways to read messages posted to your Federation's E-Forum:

1. From your regular e-mail program—If you have selected to receive messages as they are contributed, or to receive a daily digest, you do not need to do anything; the messages are sent to you and wait in your e-mail program's inbox for your convenience.
2. From the Web site interface—If you have selected options that require you to visit the E-Forum Web site to view forum messages, you will need to log into your forum (as described above). You will be shown a list of current messages; click to select the message in which you are interested. This method may also be used to search archived messages by topic or by poster.

Sending New Messages

There are two ways to send messages to the E-Forum:

1. From your regular e-mail program—Just address the message to: feds-(name of the forum)@e-forum.naa.org. The names of the federation forums are as follows: feds-circulation, feds-classified, feds-display, feds-marketing, feds-digitalmedia, feds-research. (example: subscribe-feds-display@e-forum.naa.org)
2. From the Web site interface—Once you have logged into your E-Forum, select the "Create a New Message" button to get a screen where you can type in the subject and body of your message. There is also the option to attached files. When you click the “OK” button, your message will be sent to all members of the forum.

Replying to Messages

There are two ways to reply to E-Forum messages:

1. From your regular e-mail program—Open the original e-mail and select either the "Reply to All" option to circulate your response among the entire E-Forum, or the “Reply” option to respond to only the author of the message. Be careful about which option you select. You wouldn't want to send a private replay to the entire E-Forum.
2. From the Web site interface—Once you have logged into your E-Forum and selected an individual message, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and select "Reply." Type your response in the box, and then select the “OK” button." Your reply will be sent to all E-Forum members as the Web site interface does not allow for individual replies.

Participation Guidelines

Any topics related to newspapers and newspaper industry news and business are suitable for discussion on the NAA E-Forum, except for the following types of messages:

• Solicitations, advertising or direct marketing messages,
• Job postings (visit www.newspapercareerbank.com for newspaper industry job postings),

• Messages containing defamatory statements,
• Messages containing curse words or vulgar language,
• Messages containing copyrighted material, if the copyright owner has not consented.

Trade associations like NAA, are, by their very nature, a group of competitors joined together for a common business purpose, and therefore, are subject to strict scrutiny under the antitrust laws. Accordingly, associations must refrain from actions having anti-competitive potential. While we don't want to stifle speech, it is important to remember that discussing certain topics is "off limits". These topics also include:

1. SPECIFIC CURRENT OR FUTURE PRICES OR RATES OF A PARTICULAR COMPANY. However, it is permissible to discuss aggregated data, such as average prices previously charged by a group of four or more companies. The price/rate averages should be based on data more than three months old.

2. SPECIFIC CURRENT OR FUTURE COSTS, SUCH AS WAGES OR SALARIES, OF A PARTICULAR COMPANY. However, it is permissible to discuss average costs, previously incurred, in a way that will not identify costs of the individual firms whose costs are averaged. The cost information should be based on data more than three months old. Benefit packages may be similarly described.

3. REFUSAL TO DEAL. While it is permissible to discuss your experiences with vendors or other companies, NAA does not encourage the boycotting of companies or of certain products or services or encourage dealing only with a particular company to the exclusion of others.

The purpose of these antitrust rules (taken from Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission guidance) is to avoid discussions that would help competitors reach an agreement that either expressly or implicitly restrains competition in the marketplace. Because NAA is an association of newspaper companies, any anti-competitive discussion on the e-forum may be viewed as an agreement by the newspaper industry.

NAA does not actively monitor the site for inappropriate postings, and does not undertake editorial control of postings. All messages sent by members are automatically transmitted to the entire member list. However, if any inappropriate posting is brought to NAA's attention, NAA reserves the right to remove from the forum the author of the posting which does not comply with the guidelines. Following the etiquette outlined here will promote clear and concise communications:

• When originating or responding to a message, at the end of the message always provide a signature that includes your name, company, and e-mail address.
• Keep responses courteous; flames do not belong on the forums.
• Messages should be kept short to conserve bandwidth and readers' time.
• If quoting a message, quote it accurately, in proper context and attribute the originator. When quoting a long message, delete portions that are not relevant to the current discussion.
• Use the e-mail's subject field to indicate the topic being discussed.

Unsubscribe from the E-Forum

There are two ways to unsubscribe from the E-Forum. Before you choose to do so, however, please consider that you may want to be able to access the forum at some point in the future. If what you really would prefer is to receive no e-mails from the forum, then see the section above on "Getting Messages" to learn how to change your settings to "no mail." That will allow you to still access the messages at the Web site when you choose to, but will not deluge your inbox with e-mail.

1. From your regular e-mail program—Send a blank e-mail (nothing in the body of the message) to: unsubscribe-(name of the forum)@e-forum.naa.org. The names of the Federation forums are as follows: feds-circulation, feds-classified, feds-display, feds-marketing, feds-digitalmedia, feds-research. (example: unsubscribe-feds-display@e-forum.naa.org.
2. From the Web site interface—Once you have logged into your E-Forum, select the “My Forums” tab, then select “Unsubscribe” next to the E-forum you wish to unsubscribe from.

Contact your E-Forum Administrator

If you have questions, suggestions, or encounter problems on forum usage, contact the forum administrator at: owner-(name of the forum)@e-forum.naa.org. The names of the Federation forums are as follows: feds-circulation, feds-classified, feds-display, feds-marketing, feds-digitalmedia, feds-research. (example: owner-feds-display@e-forum.naa.org)

NAA's E-Forums is an exclusive benefit of your Federation membership. One more valuable way you can connect with colleagues and enhance your business knowledge. To learn more about how you can use Federation benefits to your advantage, contact NAA at (800) 656-4622 or email membsvc@naa.org.