OList > OActivists

OActivists @ OList.com

Do you wish to join OActivists?

After you review the list criteria and rules, you can request a subscription to the Google Group. Questions? E-mail the list manager, Tammy Perkins.

OActivists is an informal private e-mail list for Objectivists committed to fostering positive cultural and political change. Its purpose is to encourage and assist effective advocacy of Objectivist ideas in non-Objectivist forums by facilitating communication between Objectivist activists. Posts to the list alert subscribers to opportunities to speak and write, recommend sources of information, discuss effective arguments and principled strategies, reproduce op-eds and letters written by subscribers, announce publications and events, and more.

OActivists is limited to Objectivist activists. The list is not moderated, but members who violate its rules will be subject to moderation, if not unsubscribed.

OActivists is managed by Tammy Perkins. She can be reached at tammy@dirtyankles.com.

OActivists was launched in February 2008. At present, it has over 395 members.

Subscription

To join the OActivists mailing list, you must meet two criteria:

• You must be an Objectivist, meaning that you agree with and live by the principles of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism as best you understand them.

• You must be committed to engaging in intellectual activism to promote Objectivist ideas in online or print forums as time permits. At minimum, that means engaging in some form of activism -- whether posting comments on newspaper articles or writing your representatives -- at least once every few months. Arguing with people already substantially familiar with Objectivism in online forums does not qualify as activism.

Note: You do not qualify as an Objectivist if you consider yourself to be a libertarian (or associate with the Libertarian Party), advocate revising Objectivism (like David Kelley's "open system"), or associate with the false advocates of Objectivism (most notably David Kelley, Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, and Chris Sciabarra).

You can request a subscription to OActivists via this web form. You must briefly explain how you meet the list's criteria for membership: please write a few sentences. If you are confused or doubtful about the subscription criteria, please do not request a subscription without first e-mailing the list manager Tammy Perkins.

The list is hosted on Google Groups, so subscribing requires an account with Google. (It's free and easy to create.) Click here for instructions on managing your OList subscriptions.

After you subscribe, please post an introduction, including your name, profession, location, and interests and goals with respect to activism for Objectivism.

Rules of the List

The OActivists list has a few basic rules:

1. Please be friendly or at least civil in posts to the list and in e-mails to the list manager. Subscribers who behave like asses, such as by insulting other list members or attacking Objectivist intellectuals, will be removed from the list. Also, please do not gripe about other list members in posts to the list. Subscribers should strive to be civil in their activism efforts too, as belligerence or rudeness is counterproductive.

2. Please respect the purpose of the list. Subscribers who prove disruptive -- such as by arguing against Objectivist positions or posting on irrelevant topics -- will be unsubscribed or subject to moderation. Please note that list policy is always off-topic: please direct any comments or questions about the management of the list to the list manager.

3. Please respect the privacy of other list members. Don't forward list messages to blogs, e-mail lists, or other public forums without the author's permission, unless the message is a public announcement meant to be disseminated.

4. Please be considerate about what you choose to post to the list. If a message is likely to be of interest to just one or two people -- such as "thank you!" or "good job!" -- please send that privately, rather than to the whole list. Notably, you are welcome to announce your own work on the list, if relevant.

5. Please refrain from debate on the list. The common goal of all the OLists is to serve our real-life values, not to foster ivory-tower or acrimonious debate. If you disagree with opinions expressed on the list, state your own views and give reasons for them. Any back-and-forth arguments, however, should be taken off-list. (For elaboration, see "A Discussion is Not a Debate" by Jean Moroney.)

6. If you do not wish your post to be circulated outside the list (e.g. forwarded to friends of list members), please indicate that at the top of the post. Such requests must be respected. List e-mails should not be posted to any public forums without the express permission of the author. However, subscribers are welcome to use the information in posts as they see fit.

List Mechanics

Mail to OActivists should be addressed to oactivists@olist.com or oactivists@googlegroups.com. (Mail to the former address is automatically forwarded to the latter address.)

If you are a subscriber, you can access OActivists through this web interface. There, you can peruse the archives and change your subscription.

Contact

If you have any questions about or problems with the list, please e-mail Tammy Perkins, the list's manager, at tammy@dirtyankles.com.