1. H-Catholic is an electronic forum for discussing the history and cultures of the Catholic church and communities defined by a Catholic religious identity. It encourages scholarly exchanges on all aspects of these subjects, regardless of the countries or periods involved. It particularly welcomes the exploration of interdisciplinary and methodological approaches, the evaluation of new archival sources, and contributions from scholars anywhere in the world.
2. H-Catholic operates in the manner of scholarly journals, the program committees of professional organizations, or indeed anyone conducting a seminar. The editors reserve the right to keep the discussion on the subject, free from ad hominem attacks or other arguments that go beyond the limits of accepted professional discourse.
3. H-Catholic is non-partisan. The list will not post submissions in which the content or objective is partisan or political. The list will run information about the status of current controversies or policy debates that might affect the interests of our subscribers. The editors welcome frank and open discussions about such issues and their implications.
4. H-Catholic does not run advertisements. It welcomes information about new books, new journals, new sources, fellowship and scholarship opportunities, proposed conferences, and-- through its sponsoring organizations or H-NET--job listings. But it will not run solicitations to purchase books, or to subscribe to journals, or to apply for admission to particular academic programs.
5. H-Catholic will post articles and reviews it receives from sponsoring organizations and through the H-NET book review project. The list encourages discussion of articles and book reviews following their posting.The editors will also, from time to time, post reviews forwarded from other lists if these articles appear to be of interest to subscribers.H-Catholic will not post unsolicited book reviews.
6. H-Catholic will post abstracts of articles appearing in scholarly journals or of papers presented at scholarly conferences, as well as items from other discussion lists, if in the judgment of the editors these relate to subscribers' interests and are not of excessive length.
7. H-Catholic will regularly post information about new discussion lists or other resources on the Internet that might be of interest.
8. H-Catholic will not provide e-mail addresses beyond those listed on communications addressed to the list as a whole. The editors will refer subscribers to directories where such information is usually available.
9. H-Catholic welcomes requests for information from subscribers for whom standard reference sources have proved inadequate, but it discourages inquiries easily answerable from such sources. It encourages potential authors of theses and dissertations, as well as articles and books, to use its facilities as a way of determining who else may be working on particular topics. The editors may ask those responding to such inquiries to consider whether their reply will be of general interest to everyone on the list, or might better be sent directly to the subscriber making the inquiry.
10. H-Catholic seeks to promote discussion among as wide and diverse agroup of its subscribers as care to participate. The editors recognize that too many e-mail messages, especially if they seem to come repeatedly from the same individuals, can cause other subscribers to "tune out." Accordingly, the editors may, from time to time, ask frequent contributors to delay, consolidate, or even withhold messages when the prospect of "overexposure" seems imminent.
11. H-Catholic reserves the right to reject any message that does not fall within the list's guidelines, and to ask an individual to modify a submission to conform with them. In all cases, the editors will contact the contributor to explain their handling of the message. The editors may not always assume this obligation when non-subscribers forward messages originating on other lists.
12. The editors will have the authority to remove people from the list if they persist in trying to post inappropriate messages that contravene these guidelines. Anyone so removed may appeal to the Advisory Board, whose decision will be final.
13. H-Catholic has an appeal mechanism in case objections to these procedures arise. Unresolved disputes will be referred first to the editors. If they are unable to resolve a dispute, the editors will refer the issue to the Advisory Board, whose decision will be final.
14. H-Catholic is a "work in progress." The editors and the Advisory Board encourage suggestions from subscribers as to how the list might be improved.
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