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2005 - VNFORUM as a mailing list has been retired. A new list has been started in its place, VNBIZ.

VNForum is a discussion network of issues related to Vietnam and the Vietnamese people. VNForum is owned and operated by the VAEF (Vietnamese American Education Foundation) and is run by a group of administrators who are VAEF members.

VNForum members include academics and professionals from many establishments around the world: universities, international institutions, government agencies, non-profit organizations, NGOs, corporations, international institutions. In addition, a number of VNForum subscribers are actually relaying addresses for local networks in cities, universities or corporations around the world.

We know that you will find this forum to be friendly, serious, well disciplined, informative, stimulating and intellectually challenging. We hope that the discussions are beneficial to you and we look forward to your contribution.

If there is ever anything we can do for you, PLEASE feel free to send us a note vnforum-adm@vnforum.org.

Please familiarize yourself with the Forum's policy and rules to avoid embarrassing discipline problems and to be more productive in the Forum. The following text contains four major parts: VNForum General Policy, VNForum Code of Conduct, Frequently Asked Questions and their Answers, and Technical Instructions.

VNForum GENERAL POLICY

The first goal of the Forum is to be a friendly and intellectual conference where constructive discussions on Vietnam-related projects and issues are carried on.

The second goal of the Forum is to promote the flow of different ideas on the discussed matters in order to enrich the intellectual life of all Forumors.

VNForum is content-neutral. All opinions are allowed in the forum, provided they conform with VNForum's Code of Conduct and policies concerning friendliness and intellectuality mentioned above.

If you use a free email account (such as Juno, Rocketmail, Hotmail, iNAME, and the likes), you will not be able to post your messages to VNForum. You can read VNForum messages only.

VNForum CODE OF CONDUCT

1. Each Forum member shall act in a polite and courteous manner toward every other member and administrator.

2. Administrators are, among other functions, rule enforcers and judges in the Forum.

3. Only messages concerning issues related, or of significance, to Vietnam or overseas Vietnamese communities are allowed in the Forum.

4. The following messages and conduct are prohibited:

   * personal attacks,

   * defamatory statements,

   * inflammatory statements,

   * statements and conduct likely to create disorder, damage the integrity or reputation of the Forum, or harm the Forum or any Forum member in any way,

   * discussions about any or all administrators or Forum organizers,

   * messages arguing with any or all administrators on an administrative ruling.

5. English and Vietnamese are the official languages in the Forum. For the benefit of non-Vietnamese speakers, English is considered the primary language. Forum members are encouraged to use English whenever possible.

6. Any message posted in the Forum can be forwarded to non-members only with the author's consent.

7. Cross-posting between VNForum and other forums is discouraged.

8. Disciplinary measures: Violations of these rules of conduct may result in the following disciplinary measures (in a scale increasing in weight):

   * private warning

   * public warning

   * temporary suspension

   * permanent suspension

   The above disciplinary measures need not be administered in any particular order. The administrator(s) shall determine what measure is appropriate for the offense at issue.

9. Appeal - A disciplined member may appeal a disciplinary ruling by, within a week from the issuance of such ruling, sending an appeal note to the full panel of administrators at VNForum-adm@VNForum.org, presenting clearly (1) the reasons why the ruling should be modified and (2) what the member would like the panel to do, i.e., overturning the ruling, or modifying the ruling in some respect. The panel shall respond to such appeal within a week from the receipt of the appeal note.

10. * All administrators currently available for active duties constitute the full panel of administrators. A vote of the majority of the full panel constitutes the vote of the panel.

    * If a disciplinary ruling is public, the disciplined member may choose to make his appeal public or private. If the ruling is private, the appeal must be private.

    * The panel may choose to respond to an appeal either privately or publicly.

11. Only the disciplined member, and no other person, has standing to appeal or otherwise challenge a disciplinary ruling.

12. These rules of conduct are subject to change from time to time as the administrators deem necessary for the fair and beneficial administration of the Forum. These rules may be amended only by a decision of the full panel of administrators.

SOME FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) AND (Just For You) THEIR ANSWERS

Q1) What is this list all about?

A1) Discussion of general issues concerning Vietnam and the Vietnamese people from all points of view. These discussions are intended to help participants develop a full understanding of the issues important to those who care about Vietnam.

Q2) I can receive e-mail and would like to subscribe to the list. How do I do it?

A2) Send e-mail to Mailman email address (NOT to the list address), which is mailman@viet.net. Your e-mail message should contain one line:

SUB VNForum

or SUB VNForum [your.preferred@email.address]

Q3) Can anyone participate in discussions, subscribers as well as discussion group readers?

A3) Yes. All subscribers can post to the list by sending their posts via e-mail to:

Q4) Are there any rules of the road for this list?

A4) Glad you asked.

1. First, we hope you have already read VNForum General Policy and VNForumCode of Conduct.

2. It is better to observe the Forum for a while to get yourself familiar with the Forum and Forumors before sending in your first posting.

3. If you have a large (over 30 kbytes) file to share with the list, do NOT post it directly to the list without the list owner's or a list administrator's prior permission. Some student accounts have a limited amount of storage space.

4. To help our/your readers, please place

   (1) the category code for your subject and

   (2) a subject title on the subject line of your postings.

Example:Subject: [POL] Vietnam-US relations.
Some suggested codes for subject categories:
[POL] = Politics
[ECON] = Economics
[PSYCH]= psychology
[SOC] = Sociology
[LIT] = literature
[POET] = poetry
[MUSIC]= Music
[ENG] = Engineering
[COMP] = Computer
[EDU] = Education
[FIN] = Finance
[NEWS] = News

Q5) What does it mean if I stop receiving mail from the VNForum list?

A5) Another good question. Please do NOT post to VNForum something like

"HELLO?!! IS ANYONE THERE??"

It's quite possible that the list started getting rejections from your account for a variety of technical reasons.

Suggested recourse: re-subscription. If you're already subscribed, no problem, and if you've been dropped, you're back on. If that doesn't work, please write directly to one of the list administrators at

* Your discussion messages (to all list members) should be sent to:

* Administrative requests (such as SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, HELP, etc.) should be sent to:

**IMPORTANT...PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:

WHAT FOLLOWS IS A VERY COMMON ERROR ON DISCUSSION LISTS....If you send an ADMINISTRATIVE REQUEST to VNForum@VNForum.org it will NOT, I repeat NOT, be sent to the computer for automatic processing, but rather will be sent to all of the current members of the list. Your request will get lost in EMAIL NEVER NEVER LAND and thus, WILL NOT be processed!! You wouldn't like that, would you? Besides you will ANNOY everyone else on the list and become known as the LIST DUMMY!! GOT IT? :->

* To subscribe, send an e-mail message to

DO NOT specify a subject and type ONLY the following message in the body of your e-mail:

As an option to the above instruction, if you wish to receive VNForum mail at a different e-mail address than the current log-in from which you are sending the subscribe message, is to specify such in the body of your e-mail as follows:

In-other-words, following VNForum type the e-mail address you want used for your list membership.

SOME SHORT INSTRUCTIONS ON USING Mailman

In the instructions below, items contained in brackets [ ]'s are optional. When providing the optional information, DO NOT type the [ ]'s around it.

The following are commands which can be sent as the ONLY MESSAGE in the body of an e-mail, to mailman@VNForum.org for the purposes noted.

SUBSCRIBE VNForum [address] - to join the list.
UNSUBSCRIBE VNForum [address] - to remove yourself from the list.
WHICH - to find out which list you are currently subscribed to.
LISTS - to get a list of mailing lists available on this server.
HELP - to receive a help file.
INFO VNForum - retrieve this general introductory information concerning VNForum.

https://mail.le.org/mailman/listinfo/vnforum

* should you need to "talk" to one of the administrators, please send a message to:

VNForum-ADM@VNForum.org

We all wish you well and look forward to hearing from you in the very near future!

VN Forum Copyright (c) 1995-2005 Vietnamese American Education Foundation

Because of our concern over the legal issues concerning the Internet and information on the Internet, the Forum feels the need to address some issues concerning the ownership of, and the consent to use, the information posted on the Forum as follows:

1. Generally, as a matter of implied consent by the Forum and the authors, materials posted on the Forum may be reposted on other networks, conferences or forums on the Internet.

2. However, when the author of a message specifically has a notice that his/her consent is required for re-publication, then the message cannot be forwarded or reposted anywhere outside this Forum.

3. The posting of a message on the Forum does NOT carry with it the consent (by either the Forum or the author) for the message to be re-published on media other than the Internet, such as CD-ROMs for off-Internet consumption, books, microfiche, newspaper, etc...

Thank you for your cooperation.

VNForum Admins

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