**NOTICE TO THOSE WHO SELL ITEMS ON BABSTALK:

As a seller, you are expected to tell your buyers of your sales,
shipping, and return policy. All sales must be conducted appropriately and
emails must be answered within a reasonable time frame, preferably 24
hours. If the committee receives numerous complaints about a seller, the
committee reserves the right to notify sellers they can no longer post "For
sale" emails to BabsTalk or be unsubscribed from the list, which ever is
appropriate according to the committee.

**E-BAY AUCTIONS:

While most everyone will surely be interested in knowing of Barbie items
you may have for auction on E-bay, please make a post about this ONCE.
There is no need to update the group on the bids - they can go over to E-bay to do that!

ATTITUDE ABOUT OFF TOPICS (OT):

OT stands for Off Topic. In moderated lists, only topics
mailing related to the chosen list topic are Allowed. No specific topics are
banned from BabsTalk list but please remember everyone has a right to their
opinions and it is helpful to avoid overly sensitive topics.

On BabsTalk mailing list, the volume of email can be enormous so out of
courtesy for our fellow subscribers, topics not Doll Related are indicated
by OT in the subject line. This allows someone trying to sort their email
to do so by the subject line.

POSTING ETIQUETTE:

It is correct Nettiquette for you to cut and paste relevant parts of the
email in which you are replying instead of just putting "I agree" at the
end of someone paragraphs worth of writing. It is also considerate to
place your reply at the top of your email so that it is easily seen. If
replying to 1 person and it is a private matter - reply privately instead
of clicking Reply to all or sending it to the entire list. And please -
when responding to a post that is meant for the group, PLEASE remove
anything from the post you are responding to that isn't pertinent to your
reply, ESPECIALLY all of the header information that comes at the top of
E-mail posts. This is important to remember for the way this affects our
Digest form members.

It is specifically against the rules of BabsTalk to forward private E-mail
to the group without written permission by the author. If it is done in a
blatant attempt to harm other members or the list - the person will be
unsubscribed!

PLEASE NOTE: Everyone makes mistakes - warnings are given when violations
occur. There will be consequences for blatant disregard of the FAQ and
multiple time violators.

For our Digest form members

PLEASE cut the digest out of your response.
When you don't, basically you send the entire days posts back to the list,
and clog up our space on the server. We only get 250 megs of data a month
without having to pay extra so reposting a whole days worth of messages back
and forth will take up a lot of room and break our budget.

In other words -Please do not hit Reply All to the Digest leaving the the
several million messages embedded in the email...

FORWARDING of Messages

Forwarding messages posted to or received from the BabsTalk Mailing List
is strictly prohibited. If you need to forward a post for whatever reason,
you must first obtain permission from the author of the post . Anyone found
forwarding messages without permission will be automatically
unsubscribed, and prohibited from resubscribing. This is to protect members
of this list so that they can be assured that what they write goes to this
list and not everywhere else in cyberspace....however, it is not
a guarantee.

DO NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS TO THE LIST

Some attachments, especially picture files, take an extremely long time
to down load and people with limited access time might prefer not to receive them, and some
people have trouble accessing them, and some people are nervous about opening
them, because of viruses. Please post a message describing the picture or the
file, and have people e-mail you privately if they would like to receive the
file.

DO NOT SEND CHAIN LETTERS

Under no circumstances should chain letters, good luck totems or anything
else of this sort be sent to the list.

EXPECTED CONDUCT

Each List Member will be held responsible for his or her own posts and
their conduct. The committee members are in no way responsible for the
conduct of the list members at any time. Adult professional behavior is
expected. In no uncertain terms, Flame Wars will NOT BE TOLERATED. We all
have a right to disagree but this can be done in an adult manner!

The flaming of a BabsTalk member/members by another Babstalk
member/members either on the public BabsTalk mailing list or in private
E-mail is STRICTLY PROHIBITED.  Flaming of another BabsTalk member will
result in being unsubscribed from the BabsTalk mailing list immediately.
There will be no warnings or second chances.  The committee members
reserve the right to determine what constitutes a "flaming post", and
their decision will be final.  Private E-mails that are felt to be of an
inflammatory nature by another BabsTalk member should be forwarded, with
headers intact, to the committee at committee@mat.net  The committee  will
then review the post and determine whether it constitutes a flame  and the
removal of the individual in question.

Please be advised that if a discussion gets too heated or out of hand, the 
committee may unsub any member(s) involved who we feel have posted 
inappropriate messages and/or ignored our requests to take the discussion off 
the list.   This would, hopefully, be temporary and allow a cooling off 
period for those involved.  However, if we decide it is necessary, we WILL 
unsub a member who we feel has blatantly insulted or flamed other members 
and/or disrupted the list. 

*Definition of FLAME*

Flames have a long history on the Internet and can have different meaning
to different folks.

On BabsTalk this is our definition of a flame:
"A Flame is any comment of an inflammatory nature ... this is usually
worded in such a way as to be personal and attacking." A Flame war is a
series of negative personally targeting or attacking emails that go back
and forth usually between a number of individuals - ugly and filled with
she/he said / she/he said and goes on and on and on.

If you are on the receiving end of a flame - because there can be several
definitions of Flames - it might feel like a flame even if the author of
the email did not intend it to be so.

*** Any comment of an inflammatory nature should not be posted to the
general list. We expect that no one would post about another what they
would not want posted to the general public about themselves.***
 

The committee reserves the right to determine if any particular email or
set of emails is inflammatory or negative thus making it a Flame, and if
determined as such, reserves the right to take disciplinary
action as needed.

Individual conflicts need to be handled in Private email or contact Karen
to get the Committee's assistance for help.

While the list is open to everyone, the majority of subscribers are adults.
As such, we suggest that parents review the posts before letting their
children read them. It is not the practice to post inappropriate material
on BabsTalk, but the situation has arisen in the past. As an unmoderated
list,  there is no way for us to
screen the posts prior to them going out to everyone.

SUBLISTS

The sublists have REALLY helped with space, and it
sounds like they are doing really well and liked by everyone!
 

Here is the contact info:
Beanie Babies - Sunshine  mademonc@airmail.net -do you have the craze?

FOR NEWCOMERS

Some suggestions are: Lurk and learn - To read postings for awhile to
get a feel for the group & what is the norm on postings and then introduce
themselves. The analogy I like is one of being a stranger at a party. You
would take a while to see what was going on and test the waters so to
speak. An introduction - with information like what you collect, how long
you have collected, what part of the world you live in - is a good way to
start connecting with folks on the list.

Definition of Lurk - this means reading email messages only.

Please ask questions before buying on the Internet!
Questions like:
What is a fair price for any certain doll?
What is currently available?
What are the qualities of good dealer?
What can I do as safeguards for buying on the Internet?
Asking for references from potential sellers?
How do I obtain references myself?

Ask first - you won't be sorry!

NO AFFILIATION WITH MATTEL

This list is in no way affiliated with Mattel and/or its management.

***************************************************************

By subscribing you agree to the terms above.

If you do not agree then please unsubscribe immediately.

***************************************************************

SWAPS

We regularly hold swaps where members make special and theme specific creations to
 send to another member. They are some of the most gorgeous and creative dolls out there!

Thank you to those who contributed to this FAQ:

Sherri in Texas (srhein@texas.net)
HeatherA (heathera@softhome.net)
Karen (Karenmmk@aol.com)

updated June 2001