The Group Guidelines notice is a unique type of notice that provides a convenient and versatile way to communicate and maintain the group’s posting and conduct guidelines, rules, best practices, and so on.

Note: A group can have only one Group Guidelines notice.

A Group Guidelines notice can be:

• Sent automatically on the first of each month as a message to the group, with an option to include members whose subscriptions are set to Special Notices Only.
• Sent automatically to all new group members.
• Sent manually by an owner or a moderator to a group member at any time.
• Displayed through its own Guidelines entry in the group’s left menu (in a desktop browser) or on the group’s More menu (in a mobile browser or the mobile app), with an option for that entry to be visible to group members only or to the general public.

When the notice is created, a Guidelines entry automatically appears in the left menu (in a desktop browser) or on the More menu (in a mobile browser or the mobile app). The rest of the notice’s features are optional, and you can specify them when creating or editing the notice:

• Name

  You can leave the default name as it is or change it. This name is displayed in the list of existing notices on the Notices page and in selection lists on other pages.

• Subject

  Enter a subject line that will appear in the message when the notice is emailed to a group member separately from the monthly message to the group.

• Email Subject

  Enter a subject line that will appear in the message when the notice is emailed to the group or to an individual.

• Private

  Select the Private checkbox to make the Guidelines entry on the group’s home page visible only to group members. If you do not select this checkbox, the Guidelines entry is visible to the general public.

• Send on Join

  Select the Send on Join checkbox to email the Group Guidelines notice automatically to new group members.

• Send monthly to group

  Select the Send monthly to group checkbox to send the Group Guidelines notice as a message to the group on the first of each month. With this option, the message is also saved in the group’s message archive.
  Note: The system sends the message with the #guidelines-notice hashtag. If that hashtag does not already exist, it is created with a topic duration of one month, causing the archived message to be automatically deleted after one month (when it is superseded by the next monthly message). The #guidelines-notice hashtag is set to “Use by Mods Only” and “Replies by Mods Only” to prevent nonmoderators from using it.

• Send monthly as special

  This checkbox appears only when the Send monthly to group checkbox is selected. When you select the Send monthly as special checkbox, the monthly Group Guidelines message to the group is sent as a special notice, so that members whose email delivery option is Special Notice Only will receive it (in addition to members who receive individual messages, digests, or summaries). In this case, the #guidelines-notice hashtag is also set to “Special.”

  Note: The checkbox in the notice overrides the #guidelines-notice hashtag setting. For example, if you edit the #guidelines-notice hashtag during the month and remove the “Special” setting from it but you do not clear this checkbox on the Group Guideline notice’s page, the “Special” setting will be reinstated in the hashtag the next time the notice is sent.

Tip: Sample Guidelines notices are available in the wiki in the GroupManagersForum group. Feel free to use those samples as a basis for your group’s notice.