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Netiquette
Guidelines for Email Newsletter/Mail list
"subscribers"
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- Look for unsubscription directions, and follow them.
- Do NOT assume that hitting "reply" with "remove" in the subject field (for example)
will get you off the list.
- Don't expect the publisher to remove you manually: you subscribed; you can remove yourself.
- Save your welcome messages with list rules and unsubscription information.
- Do not subscribe to lists with an email
address with an 'auto responder' function. This includes
"Out of Office Auto reply" and other features.
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. The question may be something that other people
are also wanting to ask. These other people have no way
to read the reply, but to ask the one person the question.
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...)
- 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 an admin either approves or discards
it. The reason for this policy is, of course, the 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 and
embarrass yourself.
- 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 mail
lists and can be grounds for permanent removal from any/all
mail lists (RootsWeb as an example). 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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