GroupMe Guidelines
Instructions, rules, and tips
Admin
Gates Dupont
Primary purposes
- Quick news with breaking information about rare birds
- Team efforts to clarify where and how to find especially important rare birds, or to keep track of a mobile one (like the Steller’s Sea-eagle)
Rules
- Texts must be concise, non-redundant, and only about rare birds (see definition below), including location details.
- When you join the group, immediately click the heart (♡) button on any message (otherwise the app will remove you; only need to do this once).
- Do not text the group to say “thanks” (for any reason), as it clutters the group too much.
Definition of “rare birds”
Rare birds acceptable to text out to this group:
- State-level rarities (see the Massachusetts Avian Record Committee review list for categorizations: https://maavianrecords.com/review-list/)
- First county records, through tenth county records (according to eBird is fine).
- Do not text out any sensitive species. This includes all owls. Err on the side of caution. Send a direct message to the admin if you’re unsure.
Please note: be respectful when chasing any rare bird, whether on private or public property.
Non-smartphone users (flip phones)
First of all, please download the GroupMe app to your phone if you can; it will make your experience (and everyone else’s) much easier.
If you cannot download the app: the web browser version of GroupMe (GroupMe.com) is far more reliable than the SMS text commands. If you do not have the GroupMe app on your phone and are joining us via SMS texting (often a flip phone), please use your web browser to:
- Fulfill rule 2 above (upon joining, immediately click a “like” on any message).
- Manage all personal settings. This includes how you receive alerts from GroupMe. See the section below: “Too many notifications?”.
Too many notifications?
- Navigate to GroupMe.com and log in, or to the GroupMe mobile app
- From the chats panel, click this group
- Click on this group’s thumbnail image at the top
- Click on ⚙️ Settings
- Find Mute and click the gray toggle switch
- Select “always”
- If the Mute toggle switch turned blue with a check mark, you’re all set. Otherwise, start over.
In particular, sending “ STOP” does not do anything at all — please do not send that. Contact the admin directly if you are running into issues.
Have a comment that is not about a rare bird?
All messages not related to a rare bird must not take place on the GroupMe. There are plenty of other venues which are much better designed for that (Massbird, eBird, etc.), which we hope you will check out!
If you have questions or issues related to the group, instead of texting the group you can either:
- Leave a comment at the end of this post and the admin will reply as soon as possible
- Email the admin at: massrbag@gmail.com
Final instructions to join
Follow the link to join the GroupMe.
After clicking the link, you will be asked to answer the Membership Question, which asks you to state your interest in joining the group. Please provide some relevant piece of your birding background so that the admin knows you’re not a bot or fake account.
Also, please include the code “Mass-RBA-GM” in your answer to the membership question so that we know you read the rules.
