March 2025: Farewell to the mailing list

It’s been a long road since 2006 when we started the mailing list. At last count we had 247 members. We’ve shared garden produce, found pets, recommended a tradie or two and connected with each other. However, all good things must end. Community interest in managing the technical parts and keeping the traffic focussed has waned over the years. Significantly, the need to moderate conversations that occur through the mailing list (beyond its purpose as a digital bulletin board) has grown beyond the capability and capacity of the remaining administrator, a role initially intended to be mostly technical. As a result of all of these factors I’ve decided to shut down the mailing list. I’m sure that the community that we participated in will find other ways to keep itself connected. So long and thanks for all the basil. ♥

The mailing list has shut down permanently.

The following information is from the original sumnerhood website and is no longer relevant.

Sustainability Street in the Sumnerhood

The Sumnerhood.org email list began in 2006 as part of the ‘Sustainability Street Program’, an initiative of Vox Bandicoot supported by the City of Darebin. It started with roughly 60 members, all of whom knew each other personally. The list was intended as a sort of digital bulletin board, designed for short posts that could be expanded on when we met face-to-face.

The mailing list was for a neighbourhood in Northcote, Victoria approximately bounded by Merri Creek, St Georges Road and Arthurton Road.

A bit about the mailing list

Over the years the list has grown and currently sits around 250 members. With increased use and participation, occasional issues have emerged. Many members are not known to one another. The nature of the issues raised on the list has also broadened and in some instances this has led to extensive and sometimes heated discussion between list members, which everyone who receives the emails is privy to. The list is not designed to accommodate all of these developments. For example, it does not enable threads and it has not hitherto been moderated. While Sumnerhood.org has proven a good tool for ‘freecycling’, sharing resources, passing on tips about local services and advertising community events, it is not set up to be a blog or discussion forum.

Some guidelines for posting to the list

Following are two sets of protocols, the first concerns signing up to the list and the second relates to communication on the list.

Signing up
The list is for use by residents of the Sumner Estate area to communicate about matters affecting our neighbourhood. Accordingly, when signing up to the list, applicants will be asked to identify themselves as such by giving:

Full name (first and last name)
Address (street number and name)

Other questions may sometimes be asked to confirm these. Your details will not be available to everyone – only to the list administrators.

Posting protocols
1. Be positive. This isn't the place to call out the neighbours kids who ride their bikes on your lawn or let off steam.
2. When posting, we ask that you sign off on your email with your first name and street name; this has been general practice since the list began.
3. Try to keep posts as succinct as possible, remembering they will be widely distributed. You may consider inviting list members to contact you directly for more information.
4. Please write and respond respectfully and politely. The Sumner Estate is a diverse community and you can’t assume we will all see things the same way. Posts should be the sort of thing you would comfortably say to a neighbour over the fence, bearing in mind there are 200-odd neighbours in this particular conversation!
5. If you would like to reply to a post, please consider if you wish to respond to the member posting or the whole community. Oftentimes, ‘reply’ is more appropriate than ‘reply all’.
6. If an issue requires extensive discussion, we ask that posters find an alternative way of continuing the conversation off the general email list. This could be through a smaller email list and/or a face-to-face meeting. One of the contributors should take responsibility for setting up the separate discussion group and list administrators may propose this if it seems necessary.
7. While it is a closed list remember your posts go to ~300 neighbours and you have no control over what happens to the email after you hit send. Write with this in mind.
These protocols have evolved organically and for the most part the list effectively self-regulates; however, if members do not adhere to list etiquette, posts may be moderated. List administrators will notify members if they believe a post breaches protocol with the intention of resolving the issue amicably. However, posting privileges will be suspended if there are repeated breaches or if a post involves a personal attack.

If members have queries or concerns at any time concerning the list, and would like to contact the administrators directly. You can also go to the website – www.sumnerhood.org or email sumnerhood_admin@sumnerhood.org

Sumnerhood.org has been a useful and important part of our community for the last several years. We look forward to many more years of sharing resources and information, and having fun together.
Sumnerhood