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Guidelines for Email Newsletter/Mail list
subscribers
- Save your 'Welcome' messages with list rules and unsubscription information.
- Don't send an 'unsubscribe' message to the whole list. You most probably will receive some very unwelcome suggestions about
getting off the list. (Look at your 'Welcome' message for unsubscribe instructions)
- Do NOT assume that hitting "reply" with "remove" in the subject field (for example)
will get you off the list. (Look at your 'Welcome' message for unsubscribe instructions)
- Don't expect the list administrator to remove you manually. YOU subscribed; you can remove yourself. (There ARE exceptions
and the list administrator may work with you but, if the process is totally automated - you are out of luck!)
- Do not subscribe to lists using an email address with an 'auto responder' function. This includes "Out of Office Auto
reply" and other features like automatic signature with links to Yahoo mail or MSN Mail. Doing this creates a large amount
of wasted email, which can be a significant burden on a publisher with a large email list. (It can also cause YOUR in box to
exceed its limits and your list messages will 'bounce' back to the list administrator... A sure way to be automatically
unsubscribed...)
- If you have a problem, take it up nicely with the list administrator (List Mom).
- Do not mail a single individual when replying - reply to the list. The question posted may be something other people are
interested in. These other people have no way to read your reply and will probably contact the original requestor for
information. The one person consequently gets overloaded with mail while the rest of the list misses out. (Now if there's a
'connection' and you want to further that connection, then emailing each other only makes sense! The rest of the list has no
interest...) If in doubt, contact the list administrator.
- Most, if not all, mailing lists require that you are subscribed to allow a mail to go through to ALL the subscribers. If
you post without being subscribed (or from a different email address than the one you are subscribed as) your mail will be held
until the list administrator either approves or discards it.
The reason for this policy is, of course, the dreaded internet
disease called spam.
- Please do not reply to an existing message as a short-cut to post a NEW message to the lists. Many mail programs and web
archivers use information within emails to keep them together as "threads", a collections of posts that discuss a
certain subject. If you don't intend to reply on the same or similar subject, don't just hit reply on an existing mail and change
subject, create a new mail.
- HTML is not for emails. Please switch off those HTML encoded messages. You can mail all those funny emails to your friends.
We speak plain text emails here.
- If you are the one who asks, please consider responding once more in case one of the hints was what solved your problems. The
guys who write answers feel good to know that they provided a good answer and that you fixed the problem. Far too often, the
person who asks the question is never heard of again, and we never get to know if he/she is gone because the question was
answered or perhaps because the problem was unsolvable!
- Getting the solution posted also helps other users that experience the same problem(s) or have the very same question. They
get to see (possibly in the web archives) that the suggested answer actually has helped at least one person.
- People on the Internet often get far more email than they can deal with. As a common courtesy to do your part to minimize
this email, you should always check the Frequently Asked Questions files (if available), search the Internet, and search the
newsgroups for the answer to a question before sending email to a human being. If it turns out that the question was easily
obtainable in an obvious place, you may annoy the other person, irritate the other list members and embarrass yourself.
- As with use
of the FAQ, CHECK THE ARCHIVES for the mail list you are posting the query to. You never know, someone might have already posted
the question and, because messages are threaded, you will be able to see if someone has also posted a response. (Look at your
'Welcome' message for mail list archive addresses.)
- Flaming is the act of sending someone an outrageously insulting message, whether by private email or in a public Usenet
posting, usually because you disagree with something they have said. A good flame mixes a razor sharp wit with a devastating
put-down so that the other person will only make themselves look silly if they dare disagree -- "The absurdity of your ideas
is exceeded only by the incoherence of your remarks, beginning with..."
"Flame wars" are
never allowed on
any Rootsweb mail lists and can be grounds for permanent removal from any/all Roots Web mail lists. Again, if you have a
problem with a fellow list member, take it up with the List Administrator!
- Most, if not all, List Administrator's are volunteers! They have lives outside of the mail list you are researching! So
please be patient! Some administrators moderate their lists 24/7 while others check in occasionally...
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