UUPoly FAQ  

The UUPoly list was created to promote acceptance of and support of polyamory (and the ethical values it teaches) within the Unitarian Universalist movement, and through that movement to bring a Unitarian Universalist polyamorous viewpoint to society as a whole. It is also intended to be a resource for Unitarian Universalist polyamorous people (UUPolys) to be supportive of one another in our activism and lives.

What is Unitarian Universalism?

Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religious movement that emphasizes love, justice, and community over religious dogma. It is based on many religions, including Christianity (in which are its origins), Religious Humanism, Paganism, and Judaism. 

For more information about UUism, visit 
Unitarian Universalist Association  
UUA Bookstore
100 Questions That Non-Members Ask About UUism

What is Polyamory?

Polyamory, translated, means "many loves." Briefly, a polyamorous person is one who prefers to have (romantically) loving relationships (including but not limited to sexual relationships) with more than just one person at a time. A polyamorous person may have more than one person that the polyamorous person considers to be a "spouse," for example. Polyamory is about love, without constraint by the dictates of society, defined only by the parameters that we, as individuals, impose upon it. (This definition is partially taken from www.polyamory.com) In general, the polyamorous relationships supported by this list involve living up to agreements between all persons involved in the relationships; this is sometimes defined as "responsible non-monogamy". Whether responsible non-monogamy is a description of polyamory in general is still being debated. Some other discussion of the definition of polyamory can be found at www.lovemore.com/aboutpoly.html and the links reachable from it. A recent article on what polyamory is and isn't can be found at www.ejhs.org/volume6/polyamory.htm

What is the UUPoly list?

The UUPoly list was formed by individuals and is managed by volunteers. It is not sponsored or managed by any formal organization. One of the topics under discussion on and off the list was the formation of a Unitarian Universalist polyamory organization, now known as UUPA. The organization and the mailing list are separate entities and likely will stay that way, though they are expected to be supportive of one another and have a significant degree of membership crossover.

This list was originally hosted as a public service by Loving More, an international organization dedicated to new models for relationships. UUPoly is currently hosted by UUPA.

 The UUPoly list was created out of a discussion on another list originally hosted by Loving More, the Polyactive list. Polyactive is a forum for polyamory activists to communicate regarding:

  • specific threats to the personal and civil liberties of polyamorous people; and
  • strategies both for dealing with specific threats and for increasing public awareness and acceptance of relationship models beyond the monogamous dyad.
A polyactive thread in July of 1999, prompted by the publication of several pro-poly letters in the UUA's World magazine, led to the realization that there were a significant number of UUs among the polyactivists. The ensuing discussion in turn led to the creation of UUPoly. The legacy of this activist origin remains - there is a strong activist presence on the UUPoly list. Indeed, many of the founders believe that the UUA, if it is true to its history and the non-discrimination section of its bylaws, will be one of the first mainstream organizations to embrace freedom of choice in relationship styles. But, in addition to the activist agenda, there is an equally strong recognition that, as is the case with UUism in general, it is impossible (indeed, undesirable) to separate issues of personal spiritual or loving/romantic practice from issues of political advocacy for the continued right to express those practices. Discussion of polyamory as an element of one's personal spiritual path is also a part of the charter of UUPoly.

To join, visit UUPoly

List Rules

The Basics
  • Take flames off-list.
  • Use email filtering (aka killfile) software.
  • Put compliments on-list.
  • Before posting, think about whether the post meets the below list guidelines; for instance, on off-topic email, the following questions (taken from the CPSG mailing list information, thanks to a web search) may be helpful:
    • "Am I contributing anything to the UUPoly community with this post?"
    • "Is this post relevant to the UUPoly community as a whole, or to a large portion thereof?"
    • "If this post is only relevant to a portion (even if a large portion) of the UUPoly community, can people to whom it isn't relevant recognize it by the subject line (please change the subject line if necessary to make this the case) and delete it?"
    If the answer to any of these questions is "no", please don't post.
  • Let other members know (off-list, but preferably with a Cc: to the list admins) if they believe another member is violating these guidelines.
However, if list self-governance fails, the admins may step in. Those who violate the guidelines, if the list is failing to police itself, will receive:
  1. a private polite suggestion from the list administrators;
  2. a public caution from the admins; and
  3. if the problematic behavior is not changed and/or is excessive, removal from the list (temporarily or permanently).
Removal from the list will almost always only come with a consensus of the administrators, when possible accompanied by a consensus of the list (aside from the list member possibly being removed). The same is true of other administrative actions aside from purely technical ones (and ones in which confidentiality is desired, such as the "private polite suggestion" mentioned above).

Bear in mind that the list administrators are also active contributors to the list. They make every effort to identify posts made in an official capacity with the keyword ADMIN in the subject or some other indicator. Otherwise, the administrators are just list contributors exactly like anyone else.

Privacy
UUPoly takes matters of privacy seriously. In order to provide a safer environment where list members will feel more comfortable posting their personal thoughts and experiences, we must insist that no one forward mail posted to the list to someone who is not a subscriber to it for any reason, any time, without the express permission of the poster. This includes informing anyone that someone posts to UUPoly.

There are two exceptions to the preceding rule:

  1. We recognize that this list will deal with topics that involve relationships and a variety of ways of handling them. To better support our members as they work through issues, sharing of postings with members' significant others is allowed.
  2. If the email in question did not originate with the poster (was forwarded to the list), and any information personally identifying the poster in the email in question is removed, then it may be forwarded further. (Please do not do so with chain letters or other spam, however.) 
Keep in mind that we cannot constrain anyone from signing onto the list and reposting messages seen on it; subscriptions are not closed. Also keep in mind that the list archives are available to the public, including search engines; although the last may not index the list currently due to the dynamic nature of lyris' web interface, this is likely to change with future versions of lyris. (It is possible for list admins to delete individual messages from the archive, but it is unfortunately not currently possible to automatically exclude mail from specific people from the archive.) Pseudonymous mail to the list is acceptable so long as replies may be done and a person's pseudonym is consistent. (In other words, a one-way remailer is not acceptable; neither is one from which all email looks the same regardless of the original sender. See http://anon.efga.org/ for more information on this topic.)
 
Solicitations
Announcement about UUPoly-related events are invited. Information about UUPoly-related businesses, products, or services (i.e., ones particularly useful to UUPoly people or to promotion of the list's purposes) may be considered on-topic if presented in a non-pushy way. Advertisements or solicitations of non-related business is not appropriate. To be related, something needs to be related to both Unitarian Universalism and Polyamory, not just one or the other.
 
Personal Ads
Please do not post personal ads to UUPoly. This list guideline does not mean that you can't mention in a message to the list that you and/or your partner(s) are looking for (more) partners, as long as such a mention is on-topic for the message in question; however, this information cannot be the focus of a message. There are a number of other places for personal ads directed to polyamorous individuals.
 
Harassment
If someone tells you they don't want mail from you, don't send it! (If someone doesn't feel comfortable with making such a request, or feels that the mail - such as flames - would be inappropriately sent to the main list, we suggest the use of email filtering (aka killfiles).) If you meet someone on the list and you bother them after they have requested you stop, you will be removed from the list upon their request.
 
Be Nice
Play Nice, we're all in this together. People are expected to be polite and tolerant of others' diverging views. If you disagree, (politely) attack the idea; don't attack the person.
Remember that it is easy to overstate or misinterpret in a written forum, and try to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. This applies both in writing a post and reading -- if someone offends you, deleting is often better than flaming back. It is never good to respond to a post to the list while you are angry. Your tone will almost always be less inflammatory if you wait to respond until you are calmer.
 
Clarity
No one needs to be a great writer to post here; just do your best to write clearly so that your meaning comes through. Likewise, please give a list member the benefit of the doubt if it seems at all possible that their meaning could be misconstrued; this is frequently the case with what appears to be a flame or dishonest behavior. The experts claim that in our daily interactions we only get 40% of the message from words. The other 60% comes from tone of voice, facial expression, body language, etc., and none of the factors are present in e-mail (except for emoticons, which help a little).
 
Brevity
You are certainly welcome to write as much as you like. That being said, considering how little time many people have in their day-to-day lives, your posts are much more likely to be read in their entirety if you keep them fairly brief and to the point.

Moreover, you should try to read all of the postings in your mailbox (that have the same subject header as what you're responding to) before responding for at least two reasons:

  • Someone else may have already properly responded to a post. This situation is particularly likely, and annoying, in matters involving factual information (such as requests for information or corrections of postings involving incorrect information).
  • A series of single posts from one person responding to a series of single posts - especially from one other person - can be quite annoying.
Please consider combining responses into a single post, especially to multiple postings with the same subject header. If responding to two or more different subject headers, alter the subject header to broadcast the contents.

Responses like, "Yeah, me too" do not need to go to the group; send them back to the person privately. We do not wish to discourage people from expressing their on-topic views and support; however, we encourage concise language and/or the introduction of new content in such posts.

Unnecessary quoted material (including list information headers and footers) should also be deleted. However, do be sure that you don't delete so much material that somebody who comes in in the middle can't tell what you're talking about! Be advised, the list server will not accept more than 30 lines of copied text.

Keep the Conversation on Topic
This discussion group is for matters Unitarian Universalist and polyamorous. Of course this touches many aspects of life and philosophy which, when they come up in context, are fine. If such a sideline takes on a life of its own, we may ask that it be taken off-list.
 
Respond to Individuals Privately
Please post messages of a private or individual nature to the individual and not the group. Do not post private messages to the list without the express permission of all correspondents. To assist with this, the default for replying to messages is to the individual. You will need to use your email program's "reply all" feature to get messages to the list. (This may vary depending on your email program and the email program used by the originator of a message. Errors on this can be very embarrassing and can cause disputes on the list and in private.) To eliminate duplicate emails going to the list and the person you're responding to, you will probably need to delete that person from the list of email addresses the email is going to.
 
Chain Letters and other Spam
We appreciate forwarding of relevant material (so long as you aren't going to get the list in trouble with copyright concerns)... but please don't send chain letters (see http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACChainLetters.html#recognize for some information on how to recognize such) or other types of spam to the list. For instance, a political/action message (such as a petition) that asks to be forwarded should not be sent to the list unless:
  • It has an end date clearly stated after which the actions requested are no longer useful and the message should be killed; and
  • It gives a webpage or phone number for verifying that the information is current and accurate and getting more details - and the person sending the message on has followed up on them.
Please Do...
  • introduce yourself to the list after lurking (or reading the list archives) for long enough to get a feel for the list.
  • share your UUPoly experiences, ask questions, seek answers, and share resources that pertain to the UUPoly lifestyle with others on the list.
  • have fun!
     
     

     

    Website curator, Barbara.
    This page last updated: November 29, 2005
    Comment about the website? Send us an     email.

    Questions about UUPA?
    Send us an email or contact a board member.