Chalkies FAQ

All about SF Chalkboard

What’s a chalky?

Chalkies are anyone on SF Chalkboard, a mailing list for community and cooperative living in the San Francisco bay area.

It’s meant to strengthen ties between cooperative houses, collectives, activists and other intentional communities. To know what’s going on in our wider world. It’s the chalkboard in our collective kitchen.

As of July 2023, there are 3734 subscribers

How do I join?

Go to our info page, click subscribe

This page explains how mailing lists work

Once you join, you can read and search the archives

Who can join?

The list is for anybody interested in living in an inclusive and supportive community that values cooperation, mutual aid, fun, and meaningful change. Anyone can join and post, whether they live in a co-op or not.

How to post?

Email your post to sfchalkboard@lists.riseup.net

Your post can include things like:

Your post must not include anything:

How to reply?

When replying to posts:

Digest

We strongly recommend to not use digest mode. It sucks. Instead, we recommend you subscribe to individual emails, and use filters in your email client to manage them, like with gmail or outlook or apple. If you absolutely must use digest mode, please note:

Can I hide my name?

Whatever name your email software uses, it will be at the top of the post. If you don’t want to show your name, you should configure your email software to not show it.

You cannot hide your email address. If you want to be fully anonymous, you will need to create a separate email address and use that.

Alternatively, you can contact a mod and one of us can send it for you. Or you can just say at the top of your email that you want it to be anonymous. Then a mod can copy the text of your message and then reject the original.

Can I delete a post?

No, sorry. We can delete it from the archives, but once everybody has received the email, we cannot delete it from their inboxes.

Was my post sent?

Probably, unless you got a rejection notice. When in doubt, check the list archive. Some programs (like gmail) will not display the received version of a mail you sent, because they mark it as a duplicate.

Rooms

If you’re a house looking for people: All below info must be included in your actual email, not just a link to an external/craigslist post

  1. the subject line must include the full cost of the room (rent, utilities, and any other mandatory costs), or a range for multiple rooms, like “$300-500 + $50 utilities”
  2. you must tell us if your house is mostly white or all white, so BIPOC applicants have the option of avoiding these houses
  3. you must not have age requirements, and if you list your own ages you must say you’re open to all ages (and mean it). > We find that age requirements are usually a proxy for other desired qualities, and that it’s better to spell out those other qualities - “looking for someone responsible and chill,” “looking for someone who wants to party and doesn’t mind a little mess” - rather than implying them by using age-based assumptions. If you had an age requirement, please reconsider your reasons, or take it somewhere else which allows age discrimination.
  4. COVID POLICIES - Please provide this information:
    • Do all members of your household wear masks indoors 100% of the time, including grocery stores, cafes, concerts, on transit/planes, etc?
    • Does your house maintain indoor air filters for COVID and other health risks?
    • What policies does your household have for shared spaces if someone tests positive for COVID?
  5. Physical access description of accessing all parts of the home. See full details the accessibility section. Note: “not wheelchair accessible” is not enough information.
  6. the house must be communal, community-oriented, intentional or cooperative in some way, ie you want the person and not just their money
  7. you must tell us the move-in dates (and move-out, if subletting)
  8. you must tell us what pets you have (for allergies) and what pets you can allow

If you’re a person looking for a house, we hope you find rad people to live with through chalkboard! There are no requirements for housing posts, but we hear that you may find something more easily if you provide some details about what you looking for. What are you looking for in your next home? What locations are you looking for? It can even be helpful to provide the range of rent you are considering, if you are feel comfortable. Sample descriptions: east bay only, within 1 mile of BART, ground floor rooms only, Oakland, shared food plan, weekly meetings with housemates, nonviolent communication protocols, QT-only housing, BIPOC-only housing, a bedroom door, a backyard to garden in, under <$1000, $1200 - $1500, as cheap as possible, <$1000 including utilities.

Events

Please provide as much information about accessibility as possible to take the burden off people who need to ask. Try to make your events accessible to as many people as possible. We ask and encourage you to be open and available to answer questions about your event’s accessibility and send pictures. The list below is not exhaustive; please email us if we are missing anything.

All event posts must specify:

Business Advertising

Some Chalkies own businesses and other Chalkies want to support them. Chalkboard allows business advertising posts that follow these guidelines:

  1. The rate of the service must be in the subject line and the body of the email. If you don’t have a rate, think about what your rate usually is or please share the cost of a common service (like the price per haircut, or the price for an entree at your new restaurant, etc). It’s okay if the rates aren’t cheap, but they must be in the subject line. Have questions? Please contact us.
  2. Businesses do not need to offer NOTAFLOF or a sliding scale, but please consider if you can offer a sliding scale or discount to Chalkies. List how they can get the discount.
  3. Only one ad per six months. Consider adding information on how to follow your business some other way.
  4. Business advertisements may not include advertisements for specific events. Please either make a business advertisement post or an event post.
  5. Don’t use chalkboard as your business’s email list. Instead, use your business advertisement post to inform Chalkies how to follow your business and join its mailing list.

Examples subject lines:

Money

If you’re asking for money in exchange for something, at least one of these must be true:

If you’re offering money in exchange for something (like a job opportunity):

Giving away free stuff is always cool. Requests for free stuff may get a little more scrutiny, but it’s probably ok.

Accessibility

Posts for events or housing must describe physical access characteristics. Please include how many stairs to access the room and different parts of the house; if there are elevators, bathrooms, doorways, and hallways. Can they accommodate a standard wheelchair of 30 inches wide? Adequate space to turn a standard wheelchair is 30 inches x 48 inches. This info helps people be informed, to figure out if the space might work for them

A person can have

Posts that only say “not wheelchair accessible” will be rejected.

We understand this might be new territory to describe. Please check out this official resource and let us know if you have any questions :) Many people with disabilities (PWD’s) also appreciate a picture of the access route (worth a thousand words, as they say), or a helping hand at the event.

Example: “Molly’s Cafe has ground-level access with no steps. However, there is a narrow approc. 20” Hallway and 5 steps up to the patio. For anyquestions about access, please email me or _____. We can lend a hand at the event, too..”

Other lists

We often get asked about similar & active lists in other regions. Here are the ones we know about:

Can I help?

Yes please! Mods’ work generally includes:

If you’d like to join the team, you should:

Who runs it?

The moderators are:

The server host is riseup. Their computers send and receive mail using an old version of sympa. They are volunteer run, and supported by donations.

This website’s source code is on github and you can view the contributers list. To edit the website, follow these instructions: