Contact/Communications
From Open Knowledge Foundation
Emails @ the OKF
- Where possible, where the message is of general interest to the community ask the poster to forward their message to the relevant mailing list. (Give them the correct link to the signup page for that mailing list)
- Where the message is sensitive or not of general interest to the community reply with the appropriate email address in cc. Refer to the contacts page of the okfn site if you need to.
- If unsure - contact Jason / Laura James / Rufus / ask support from the community team. Any kind of official endorsement / partnership should be agreed with Rufus or Jason.
Mailing List & Email Etiquette
- Always only ask for 1 thing in a single post
- If possible keep to <= 2-3 paragraphs before cut/signature (can always have more stuff below cut)
- If you want a link followed it must be inline
- If you want something done put most of the info inline
- Please don't send out attachments to mailing lists as they clog up people's inboxes. Where possible, please instead upload the data somewhere online e.g. CKAN/ Google Doc and link to it in your email.
Using aliases
Note: Most key pieces of correspondence go through Mailing Lists, these aliases are mainly for internal use to avoid spamming mailing lists with day-to-day process-stuff.
- Keep the alias in cc so that everyone can tell that an email has been responded to.
- Move people who do not need to be informed of the outcomes of the thread to Bcc: so that they will not be included in replies.
admin [at] okfn.org
- Not used for communication - only for account setup and notification purposes.
Point Person Naomi [lead], Lucy [backup] & Rufus
blog [at] okfn.org
- For suggestions for blog posts and suggestions for the newsletter
Point Person Currently monitored by Theodora
blog-admin [at] okfn.org
- Not used for correspondence. Notification email for comments to be moderated.
- TO DO - make sure all relevant sites use this.
Point Person Laura Newman
comm-coord [at] okfn.org
- UK based community / core coordinators (may also include the Germany based ones here too)
getinvolved [at] okfn.org
- To be cc'ed into conversations with volunteers
- Forwarded to volunteers Gmail account to keep track of messages.
Point Person Sam Leon
info [at] okfestival.org
- Contact point to support okfestival.org.
Point Person Kat Braybrooke
info [at] okfn.org
The info address is our general contact address. Often, questions which come in through there are misdirected and should be redirected to the appropriate mailing list.
Note: info [at] okfn.org also regularly receives a lot of spam. We do not acknowledge spam, including people offering to write guest posts on any topic, or offering marketing solutions and links sharing.
Many fewer people are on info@ than team, essentially just the community team. This means many messages will need to be forwarded for the attention of others.
If it is unclear how an email should be handled, the community team will discuss at the daily stand-up. The aim is to respond to all emails within one working day.
Point Person Laura Newman [lead], Naomi Lillie [backup]
jobs [at] okfn.org
- Contact point for people applying for jobs
- Naomi to send acknowledgements & add to the Jobs spreadsheet. Jobs spreadsheet monitored by Rufus & Laura James.
- Someone from each team that is recruiting should be placed on it temporarily until the position in question is filled.
Point Person Naomi Lillie
payments [at] okfn.org
- The address to which payable invoices are sent, as well as general use for finances contact.
- Also used as notification email for incoming payments e.g. from Paypal.
Point Person Naomi Lillie
speakers [at] okfn.org
- The external email address for anyone wanting a speaker from the OKF to come and talk at their event.
Point Person Laura Newman
sysadmin [at] okfn.org
The emergency address for technical assistance e.g. servers down, migration help...
Point Person Nils
team [at] okfn.org
- Very low traffic - core team only. (Basically Wolfpack)
- Please use very sparingly - we do not want people to start filtering these out.
- Should not be included in external correspondence - use info@ for that
volunteers [at] okfn.org
- Not used for correspondence - getinvolved@ -> volunteers@ - linked to a Gmail account to keep track of these emails.
Point Person Sam Leon
Events aliases
Information on these can currently be found here.
How to deal with email
When is email time?
At the OKFN - you could quite easily spend every waking hour answering email. Don't - checking them a couple of times per day is enough, things can wait!
Filters
We recommend setting up as many of these as you require to keep your inbox manageable.
Tips:
- More > Filter messages like these
- Skip the Inbox (Archive it)
- Create labels for mailing lists
Boomerang
Many of us are very inbox centric. One really useful application for this is Boomerang for Gmail (free for occasional use).
Boomerang allows you to:
- Schedule messages
- Send stuff that you don't want to seal with immediately out of your inbox and set a time for it to come back to you.
- Boomerang emails if no-one replies
Journalists
In our experience, journalists will generally not be happy with discussing their questions in a public forum. Arrange a Skype / phone call with them and the relevant people if possible.
