Email Policy

I am trying to track down an email policy. I assume the church has one and gives it to those they issue email accounts to, is it available to see?

As the District Technology Specialist I have been concerned over some lack of understanding by the general membership. I have created a point form policy that sits next to the clerk computers so there is appropriate use based on the church policy as well as some more restrictions placed by our District Presidency. But to my knowledge only the Bishop/Branch President and Stake/District Presidents are officially given an email from the church. We all use email regularly to communicate and I am a little concerned that some leaders may not have read any policy on how and what should/can be sent with email. I know there are generic policies that I can use, but if the church has one, it would be nice to follow the official guidelines.

Thanks,
Mike

dmmackay wrote:But to my knowledge only the Bishop/Branch President and Stake/District Presidents are officially given an email from the church.

I know a councilor in the stake presidency has one, as does the FHC director and I think the Institute staff. I've never seen a policy, but that doesn't mean there isn't one.

I know there's a policy about email lists (like Yahoo Groups), but that doesn't seem to be what you're looking for.

RussellHltn wrote:I know a councilor in the stake presidency has one, as does the FHC director

I've never seen a counselor in the stake presidency with an official ldsmail.net email address. The address for the stake looks like 2224445@ldsmail.net for a stake with unit number 2224445. That's pretty clearly just one per stake, so I don't see how a counselor would have one.

Each FHC has an email as well, which is tied to the FHC itself, not to the director as a person. For the FHC that our stake participates in, the email address is a form of the FHC's name (not its unit number). The FHC director is the one who would use that account, but when the director changes, access to the account is passed on to the new director, who would presumably change the password.

Alan_Brown wrote:I've never seen a counselor in the stake presidency with an official ldsmail.net email address.

Not even one that works at the LDS Employment Center? :o

Sorry, I assumed he had one for the wrong reason. I guess I should broaden it to say that all church employees have a church email.

RussellHltn wrote:

Alan_Brown wrote:I've never seen a counselor in the stake presidency with an official ldsmail.net email address.

Not even one that works at the LDS Employment Center? :o

Sorry, I assumed he had one for the wrong reason. I guess I should broaden it to say that all church employees have a church email.

But the Headquarters employees at least don't have ldsmail.net email addresses.

But this seems to be getting off the original question. It seems to me that the original question is

dmmackay wrote:We all use email regularly to communicate and I am a little concerned that some leaders may not have read any policy on how and what should/can be sent with email. I know there are generic policies that I can use, but if the church has one, it would be nice to follow the official guidelines.

emphasis added.

Lol. Well, with all these different individuals getting email accounts, they must have a policy somewhere. Now just to find a copy of it, and find out if they mind us distributing it locally.

dmmackay wrote:I am trying to track down an email policy. I assume the church has one and gives it to those they issue email accounts to, is it available to see?

The LDSMail.net Usage Guidelines are indeed available for anyone to see. These guidelines provide some helpful principles, although they are clearly oriented towards Church employees and other representatives, so much of what you find there doesn't directly apply to local leaders and members.

But the Access Security paragraph is clearly a good reminder: "Authorized users are responsible to maintain the security of electronic messages and accounts. Access must be secured by an appropriate password or PIN that meets minimum security standards."

dmmackay wrote:We all use email regularly to communicate and I am a little concerned that some leaders may not have read any policy on how and what should/can be sent with email. I know there are generic policies that I can use, but if the church has one, it would be nice to follow the official guidelines.

I don't know of any official policy that applies to what local leaders do with email. But it would be good to review pages 150-151 of the 2006 CHI, which explains details such as securing electronic data with a password. What you will find there is certainly general enough that some local interpretation will be necessary for specific circumstances, but it will provide a helpful framework for the leadership to discuss their local policy.

That is perfect. As you mentioned, it doesn't directly apply, but it gives us a base to structure our own policy to distribute. I will take to our next meeting and work it out.

Thank you very much,
Mike

I would point out another statement on the login page for the Church e-mail system.

Do not use e-mail to communicate confidential or sensitive information.

E-mail is neither private nor secure. Yes, we use logins and passwords, and yes, on occasion I do send some information via e-mail that may cause a little grief if it becomes public.

But, I have generally followed a rule I heard in the early days of the electronic frontier:

Do not e-mail anything you would not like to see on a billboard on the way to work in the morning.

Do not use e-mail to communicate confidential or sensitive information.

Since you're emailing members, you really don't know what their situation is. It's tempting to believe that it's confidential person-to-person communication, but it may not.

Is it a husband and wife account? Is it saved on the home computer where anyone can read it? Or will it go to their smart phone while the kids are playing a game on it?

Then there's my own pet peeve: people who send a mass mailing with everyone in the "to" or "cc" fields when "bcc" would be more appropriate.

I have the same original question. The LDSmail.net usage guidelines mentioned does not work and I do not know what the '2006 CHI' is and how to find it.

So more specifically ... in the spirit of getting to know each other in the stake, is it appropriate for the stake communication calling to send out profiles of stake members to everyone in the stake?

JudithLocke wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2024 1:14 am I have the same original question. The LDSmail.net usage guidelines mentioned does not work and I do not know what the '2006 CHI' is and how to find it.

You're responding to a 14 year old thread. Things have changed a bit since then.

JudithLocke wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2024 1:14 am So more specifically ... in the spirit of getting to know each other in the stake, is it appropriate for the stake communication calling to send out profiles of stake members to everyone in the stake?

I for one would be rather upset if that were done with my profile.

The calling of Stake Communications is outlined in the General Handbook - section 6.2.1.7 Communication (Public Affairs). It replaced the Church Handbook of Instructions (CHI) mentioned earlier.

The way I read it, it's less about communicating within the church and more about communicating with the community.

I know I've seen different wards (actually, mostly RS orgs) send out monthly newsletters, often with a member profile where different interesting facts are listed out. This is always done in coordination with (and thus approval) of the individual member. Are you thinking about doing something like this at the stake level, with different stake leaders, to help local members get to know them better?

In principle, I personally think that's a great idea. Operationally, while that's not specifically part of the Stake Communication Director (or the stake communication council) calling, if the Stake President feels this is a helpful priority, it seems like something he could assign to the communication council to lead out. As always, whenever info is shared, care should be taken with what is shared, and if explicit permission is given. And there's likely privacy considerations from place to place to keep in mind.

And yeah, this is quite the old thread