March 11, 1996
Revised: August 24, 1996
June 1, 1998
Primary Author: Simeon ben Nevel [with LOTS of help from PB friends] snevel@wco.com
Copyright 1996, 1998 by Simeon Nevel, All rights reserved
Permission granted for electronic distribution, archiving, Web-Page linkage.
Permission for for-profit distribution must be obtained in advance from author.
What is PetBunny:
PetBunny is an unmoderated Internet mailing-list based at the University
of Kentucky. It is an open forum for people interested in rabbits as *pets*, established by Bob Crovo in May of 1994. Since that time, PetBunny has grown to over 500 subscribers in many countries (representing well over 800 bunnies) and usually distributes more than 150 messages a day. We sometimes experience spikes in volume to over twice that number.
Note: Because of PetBunny's incredible volume, it may *appear* that your particular comment, story, plea for help or introduction has been ignored. Nothing could be further from the truth!!!
Because of the volume, it is *very* easy for a message or two to be lost in the blizzard of electrons. Please don't take it personally. If you don't get an answer in a couple of days, simply re-post and make sure that your subject line is an eye-catcher.
Anyone with a love of rabbits and access to Internet e-mail is encouraged to join. You don't have to be owned by a rabbit to be welcome.
Who is PetBunny:
We are people with rabbit companions including breeders, rescuers, fosterers and people who run rabbit sanctuaries. We are adolescents and adults, men and women. We have scientists, veterinarians, students,
computer types, secretaries, teachers, librarians and homemakers sharing the PetBunny list.
There are single-bun families and people with thundering herds of lagomorphs on the loose. There are bunnies that range free all the time and others that are only out while under supervision.
Some of us have chosen to work (as time, ability and inclination allows) towards educating those who have not yet learned the joys of rabbit companionship; trying to keep unwanted/unloved rabbits from being brought into the world; and helping those bunnies without a loving home to find one.
In short, we are a bunch of people with a rabbit habit.
As with any diverse group,
PetBunny members disagree on many issues. But as a group we would probably
agree with the following:
1) We agree that the subject of rabbits as meat or the killing of rabbits
for fur and other products is *not* an appropriate topic for discussion on
PetBunny. Discussion on either side of this issue offends many PetBunny members and *always* leads to unproductive flaming.
2) We believe that rabbits are sentient, intelligent, inquisitive, and sensitive beings that have rich emotional, social and mental lives.
3) We believe that *all* companion rabbits should be in loving homes with
as much freedom as the rabbit's behavior and the owner's tolerance for disorder and destruction will allow.
4) We believe we should improve the quality of our lives, the lives of
our fellow bunny "devotees", and most importantly the lot of rabbitkind by spending time each day learning and sharing accurate information about
the medical, dietary and social needs of our chosen companions.
5) Rabbits are WAY cool to have as friends!
What we *don't* talk about:
Over the years, PetBunny has suffered through a number of passionate, divisive and damaging flame-wars.
In order that PetBunny remain a fun and friendly place to be and to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of rabbits, we (as a group) have decided that the following issues are OFF-TOPIC, OFF-LIMITS, FORBIDDEN and forever PROSCRIBED as topics for on-list discussion:
1) The ethical, moral and medical dimensions of vegetarianism vs. carnivorism.
2) The ethical and moral dimensions of the animal rights, animal welfare, wise use and medical research controversies.
3) The *deliberate* breeding of rabbits for any reason whatsoever, and any topics associated with such deliberate breeding, such as naming new litters as they are born, culling "defective" babies," etc.
4) The "use" of rabbits for meat, fur or another product. The sole exception is made for those people who use the results of the normal care and grooming of angora/fuzzy companions for personal projects.
This policy was not arrived at lightly nor were the topics selected frivolously. These are matters of passionate, deeply held personal belief. It is rare that *anyone* is converted from one position to another by any amount of on-line discussion, however phrased.
We have learned from bitter and painful experience that (in a group as large and diverse as PetBunny) we simply cannot discuss these things without a violent and hurtful firestorm enveloping the list.
Breeder Policy:
Breeders are welcome on Petbunny if they confine their discussion to topics related to the health, care, behavior and biology of rabbits as companions and friends.
The breeders who *are* a part of the PetBunny community have generously shared their insight on rabbit genetics, fostering techniques, adoption guidelines and rabbits in general. They have provided invaluable
help for many people who have unwittingly fostered, adopted or rescued pregnant bunnies. They have done this while respecting PetBunny's prohibition on the discussion of other breeder issues.
Enforcement of Charter policy:
There are no moderators on PetBunny. No PetBunny clique, cabal or central committee. No one on the list (except the list's owner) can make or enforce rules. If you send it to the petbunny address, we *all* get it.
Enforcement of Charter policy is the responsibility of each and *every* one of us. We have no moderators and no Advisory committee and we'd like to keep it that way.
Here are some suggestion on how to deal with messages you feel are offensive and/or off-Charter:
1) DO NOT RESPOND TO THE MESSAGE *ON* THE LIST!!!!! This will simply provoke an on-list response and encourage others to join the fray.
2) Make use of any filtering or "kill-file" abilities of your mail delivery system to screen out messages from people you'd rather not hear from. If all else fails, liberal use of the delete key is encouraged.
3) Compose and send a *short* and *civil* message DIRECTLY to the offender explaining why you feel thier message was inappropriate for Petbunny. Quote the Charter if you wish. Send a copy of your message (along with a copy of the post) to the list-owner so he can get a feel for the opinion of the list as a whole.
PetBunny has a participating and *proactive* list-owner. He (at his sole discretion) has, can and *will* invoke the ultimate sanction by revoking your PetBunny membership for continued violations of the letter or spirit of the Charter as outlined here.
**Above all, remember that this group is about PET bunnies, whether indoors or out, and that for most subscribers, their bunnies are a member of their family!
We hope these guidelines help you with your experiences on PetBunny.
Welcome to the group and we look forward to hearing from you (*and* your bunnies).
Petbunny Resources:
Webpages:
Beth Mammini [meanie@ALUMNI.CALTECH.EDU] maintains a Web Page with pointers to the home pages of Petbunny members at:
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~meanie/petbunny.html
The House Rabbit Society Home Page can be found at:
http://www.rabbit.org
The "Official" PetBunny Homepage is located at:
http://www.magpage.com/~laurat/petbunny/index.html
An older homepage for PetBunny is located at:
http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/klund/bunny/bunny.html
E-Mail Auto-Responder Archives:
Two PetBunny members maintain e-mail-accessible archives of companion rabbit information.
To obtain the index for Simeon Nevel's [snevel@wco.com] archive, send the command "send index" (w/o the quotes) in the *subject* of a message to the address listed. The body of the message is ignored.
To obtain the index for D'Arcy Emery's [x@obs.empath.on.ca] rabbit archive, address a message to: bunindex@obs.empath.on.ca; neither the subject nor body of the message is important.
PetBunny Archives:
PetBunny archives are currently maintained at:
EScribe.com http://www.escribe.com/pets/petbunny/
Mail-Archive.com http://www.mail-archive.com/petbunny@lsv.uky.edu/
ListQuest.com http://www.listquest.com/goto/petbunny
eGroups.com http://www.egroups.com/list/petbunny
Reference.com
http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/go.py?search=advanced&groups=.mlist.petbunny&choice=Search
or
http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/listarch?list=PETBUNNY@lsv.uky.edu
Note: On January 19, 2001 the above two links were not working.
Checked again on April 10, 2003. Not working.
Reprinted with permission for PetBunny.Net January 2001.
If anything on this page appears to be out of order, please contact
. Every effort will be made to ensure the information on this page remains up to date and accurate.
