A. Please participate...
1. Please don't think
that others on macTALK won't be interested in what you have to say or
ask. It could be that they identify with you or are experiencing the
same problems. With this in mind, macTALK is set up so that all replies
are sent to everyone - not just the originator of the 'thread'. You
can, of course, write direct to someone off-list, but it is possible
that a third party out there is eagerly awaiting a response to your
question too and the aim of this list is to share
information and advice.
B. Writing emails to macTALK...
2. NO ATTACHMENTS
Note: macTALK removes all attachments. This means that you can not send
pictures or other files to the list. If you do, they will be stripped
out automatically and all that will get through is the plain text that
is left. macTALK employs this policy (a) out of consideration for members
with slow or expensive internet access and (b) because email attachments
are the prime vehicle for delivering and spreading viruses!
If you need to send an attachment to a specific person, you can do
so direct by mutual agreement, but if you would like to make your file
available for all members to see it, first upload it to the macTALK
Files page and then quote the link in your email to the list.
3. NO HTML
Note: macTALK also removes HTML formatting. This means that you can
not send formatted text to the list (eg. coloured, bold, italic, etc.).
If you do, it will be stripped out automatically and all that will get
through is the plain text that is left. To avoid this it is recommended
that you turn off HTML when sending messages or replies to the list.
There is one advantage to this however, and that is that plain text
is the best way to display tables of information so that columns line
up correctly, and so on. Again, remember that viruses can be spread
in HTML emails but not in text-only ones.
4. SIGNATURE FILES
Please keep any signature files down to a minimal size.
macTALK already adds a short signature file at the foot of every email
containing the "how to unsubscribe" information, so adding
long signatures on top of this tends to make emails unnecessarily long
and helps give some people the impression that they are being inundated
with too much email. If you have to add a signature,
please try to keep to a maximum of three lines.
TIP: A really good idea for what to put in a signature
is to list details of your computer kit, software versions and system
software. This may help people identify your problem if you are posting
a query.
5. BAD LANGUAGE
It is common 'netiquette' to refrain from undue bad language and 'flaming'
(abuse) - remember there may be minors reading too!
6. CAPITALISATION
The use of all capital letters in your emails is considered
to represent SHOUTING, and even though it may not be meant as such,
it can tend to come across to the reader as a little rude. However,
most people do tend to use odd words which require emphasising in capitals
without it being misunderstood. There are other ways of stressing words
or phrases, like adding asterisks before and after (for example: "I
want to emphasise *this* word").
7. EMOTICONS
Chatting by email can feel very conversational, but at the same time
can be very UNLIKE having a face-to-face chat. By this I mean that you
don't get to see the facial expressions of the other party, nor do you
get to hear the nuances in a person's speech, nor detect the emphases
that the writer intends. Consequently, it is the easiest thing in the
world for the reader to misunderstand the writer and get the wrong end
of the stick. What is intended as a joke can often come across as offensive
or sarcastic, and can lead to a very distasteful falling out. From the
point of view of the writer, there is little more shocking than to think
you are being helpful or informative only to be met with responses cutting
you down to size because your wording has been totally misunderstood.
Very innocent ramblings can so easily be misconstrued as insulting.
This is the reason that people have taken to using 'smiley faces' in
the text to convey feelings and moods as they write, in an effort to
get across to the reader the intended way in which a passage was meant
to be read. These smileys (or emoticons) may
be smiling, frowning, winking, laughing, showing surprise, and so on,
and are best achieved sideways! In other words, a colon for the eyes,
hyphen for the nose, and brackets for the mouth, etc. :-)
Whatever your personal view of these rather ugly text additions, they
are often the most effective way to display feelings in your writings.
Many people also use abbreviations (or acronyms)
to cut down the length of their emails, such as BTW (by the way), LOL
(laughing out loud), or HTH (hope this helps). It takes some getting
used to but has its use. Personally, as we plunge ever more quickly
towards a world of diminishing standards where rap and mobile phone
text abbreviations are becoming the norm, I for one feel that my English
education shouldn't be wasted like this, and there is nothing wrong
with correct punctuation, grammar and spelling - like wot I done here!
8O)
A list of many of the most common emoticons and acronyms can be found
by clicking the "EMOTICONS" button above.
8. SUBJECT MATTER
macTALK is a friendly and unmoderated discussion list
and straying off-topic is not such a big crime,
within reason! Please remember, however, that many people are
still on expensive dial-up connections and may not necessarily share
your interest in the flora and fauna of Tasmania, or the political issues
of Nigeria, so when a thread has gone off-topic and stayed off for too
long, the considerate thing to do might be to make an announcement that
the conversation is going to be carried on off-list
and that other interested parties should make themselves known to you,
off-list. Another quite considerate thing to do, is to add the prefix
"OT:" to the subject heading ("off-topic"),
along with a more explanatory thread name.
Incidentally, questions about PCs are considered off-topic, unless
with regard to comparisons/interoperability with Macs.
9. JOKES
Although straying off subject matter on macTALK is not a hanging
offence, please try not to make macTALK a forum for passing on the latest
office joke. That does NOT mean to say that humour is banned! In fact,
humour in your emails is definitely encouraged - this is after all meant
to be enjoyable, - but I don't want members unsubscribing because of
the high level or suitability of jokes! The place to share jokes is
in the weekly YMUG Newsletter.
10. MORE RULES
It goes without saying that racism, antagonism, name-calling, and so
on, are definitely not acceptable.
11. AUTOMATED RESPONSES
On the email address which you have subscribed to macTALK, please remember
to NEVER set up an automated reply system (like an "out of the
office" reply, for example). These messages will be relayed to
every list member and will soon give you a bad name!
C. Replying to macTALK emails...
12. I AGREE!
When responding to a point well-made in a macTALK email,
please refrain from sending "I agree!" messages, as they add
nothing to the thread and and are a waste of downloading time for others.
If, of course, you have something to add to the thread, then "I
agree" is quite acceptable as part of a more considered response.
13. THANK YOU!
When you find a macTALK email particularly helpful,
it is natural and polite to thank the writer for helping you with your
problem. However, please refrain from sending "thank you!"
messages through the list, as they add nothing to the thread and and
are a waste of downloading time for others. Please send such messages
off-list direct to the intended recipient
of such worthy praise. If, of course, you have something to add to the
thread, then "thank you" is quite acceptable as part of a
more considered response which should definitely be sent on-list.
14. QUOTING
When replying to someone's question or opinion, it is
always best to have your email program set up so that it quotes the
original text. That way everyone can easily see what you are replying
to and isn't left puzzled as to what you are talking about.
15. DRASTICALLY EDIT QUOTED TEXT
It is very important to delete any quoted text which is not
absolutely necessary to the response in order to keep the length of
the email down as far as possible. It is just personal preference whether
to begin your reply before or after the quoted text, but if your reply
comes after (as preferred in normal conversation!),
you should try to cut down what goes before as much as possible so that
the reader doesn't have to scroll down (much) to get to your point.
You should always try to cut the quoted text down to
a single sentence or so. In Apple's Mail.app when replying to an email,
the message composition window puts the text insertion cursor before
the quoted text, but the official word from the developer of this Apple
program (a chap called "Cricket") is so that you can begin
your email with a salutation (eg, "Hi John", etc) and that
the correct way to proceed is then to place your cursor after
the quoted text and start typing, in much the same way as you would
in a spoken conversation. This is becoming the accepted norm, as it
adheres to normal lifestyle behaviours, and we encourage it on MacTalk.
In fact more than that: "top-posting" (replying ABOVE the
quoted text) is to be avoided if you can remember.
16. CUT OUT EXISTING SIGNATURE FILES
The signature files of the original sender and of macTALK are ESPECIALLY
important to delete. If this is not done, and a string of successive
replies to the thread ensues, the email will get longer and longer and
it will soon become very difficult to work out what the writer has actually
written! Please give consideration to members who read the "digest"
version of macTALK who will see all quoted text and signatures over
and over and over again, so please delete them.
17. PROXIMITY
Your reply text should be as near as possible to the text it is replying
to - thus promoting clarity to the reader. This means that if you are
responding to several points, they should be interspersed in the quoted
text after each original point - rather like a two-way conversation.
Example...
> This is a piece of quoted text containing a highly
debatable point
> with which you may wish to take issue
Yes, and this is my reply to your debatable point
> and this is another one
And again my response, written straight afterwards so as not to confuse.
18. APPEARANCE
In order to help make your replies easily understandable to the recipient,
you will find it useful to set up your email program so that it changes
the appearance of quoted text to distinguish it from the new (reply)
text.
Note that this achieved by teamwork between the recipient's
email client, and that of the sender.
Some email client programs can be set up by the recipient
to change the point size of the lettering, its colour and its weight
(bold, italic, bold italic) so that it makes the quoted text easily
recognisable. The way these programs identify what is quoted text is
by the sender's email client adding a text
character to the start of each line of quoted text, and this has become
standardised as a chevron in most cases >
Although some email clients may allow you to stipulate what you want
this character to be, you should stick with a chevron because some email
programs only recognise this and other characters don't have the desired
effect for the reader. Apple's Mail program, of course, does its own
thing by adding coloured lines!
Example...
> This is a piece of quoted text with the correct standard
symbol
> at the beginning (a 'chevron') in order that the reader's email
> program can easily distinguish it from the rest of the text.
19. LEAVE A GAP
When replying to quoted text, ensure you leave one or two blank lines
before beginning typing because if your reply starts too near the quoted
text, it can be treated as part of the quote, and the reader will not
know where the quote ends and your reply begins.
20. THE SUBJECT FIELD
When a reply is sent, macTALK automatically adds the word "Re:"
before the subject title to signify that it is part of a particular
thread. However, successive emails can tend to drift off subject and
the title can become a little misleading. In this case, it is best to
change the title of the email in the 'subject' field, but to add the
old title in brackets with the word "WAS:"
in front (without the quotes). Keeping emails following 'threads' makes
it easier for others to follow, so please don't go off at tangents without
changing the subject heading.
Please note that as each email is added to the message archives, the
"Re:" is removed in order to keep threads all together and
fulfill your search patterns correctly.
D. General guidelines...
21. CONTENT
ISSUES
Although nobody on macTALK is likely to kick up a fuss,
it should be borne in mind that the sender of each email is responsible
for their own breaches of copyrights. In practice, we will all do this
from time to time, and will find no complaint from anyone else, but
this does have to be pointed out - in actual fact, people do copy and
paste all sorts of stuff others may find useful. If you are at all concerned
about these issues, simply include references and addresses (URLs) of
where people can look up the information for themselves, rather than
copying things yourself. You should also bear in mind that you are responsible
for anything written in your own emails which may cause
offence or may be slanderous (actually, worse than that - libellous).
22. MAIL FILTERS (RULES)
It will help you to not feel inundated with too many emails if you can
keep yourself organised by setting up mail filters in your email client.
This is a method by which emails are intercepted as they reach your
computer and directed into folders which you specify. Sort of "housekeeping
on the fly". It is just as adviseable to organise your email as
it is to organise your office desk! It makes a seemingly big volume
of email not so overwhelming!
23. MAIL HEADERS
Emails sent through a mailing list such as macTALK have extra "email
headers" added which are necessary to help with bounce
handling and the general smooth running of the archives, threading,
etc. You are strongly advised to investigate how to turn these
headers off in your email client, as they tend to be so long and overpowering
that they spoil the experience of email reading. In Apple's Mail.app
this is simplicity itself, but many people using older email clients
often don't know that you can elect this option and they tend to put
up with the eyesore of headers which read like Tolstoy's War &
Peace!
24. LIVE AND LET LIVE
As emails are very similar to spoken conversation they have an 'immediacy'
about them which would be a pity to lose. With this in mind, spellchecking
is not always high in a list of priorities when hitting the "send"
button. Indeed, people who pride themselves on being a good speller
tend to make the most basic of errors in both spelling and grammar when
writing emails. Usually the reader can tell what was meant and there
is absolutely no reason for anyone to jump on the slightest
error with pedantic fault-finding. No need to make anyone feel small
by criticising and putting them off contributing in the future.
25. macTALK ON THE WEB
You do not have to receive individual emails to be a member of the group.
You can have your membership profile set so that you don't receive the
emails at your computer at all, but can still read them online on macTALK's
website. You can still send emails to the list and reply to emails sent
by others. When reading emails on the website you should be aware that
you can organise the emails by thread, by
subject, by date
or by author.
26. DIGEST
A digest service is also offered
whereby you receive just one (long) compilation email after every ten
individual emails and one per day instead of all the separate ones.
Most people, however, prefer to stick with individual emails in order
to receive info and tips immediately and to not miss out on anything.
If you do use the digest service, it is particularly important to ensure
you change the subject heading of any emails to which you reply to reflect
the thread.
27. TEMPORARY SUSPENSION OF SUBSCRIPTION
There is no need to unsubscribe and resubscribe should
you go on holiday or your internet access is interrupted. Rather it
is advisable to have your subscription temporarily suspended for the
duration. You can do this yourself on the unsubscribe
page, using the suspend button to have the
service temporarily suspended until such time as you restart it again,
using the resume button on the subscribe
page.
28. HELP YOURSELF
Please note that almost anything you need to do regarding
your macTALK subscription can be done automatically by you, the member,
either via the website or by emails. However, if you are experiencing
difficulties please don't hesitate to contact me for assistance. The
subscribing/unsubscribing details are ALWAYS carried at the foot of
each list email, so there is no need for anyone to send emails to the
macTALK list asking to be unsubbed - but anyone who is a member of other
email lists will tell you that this does go on and is quite annoying
to other members who all receive these requests through the list!
29. SENDING
Remember that you should always ensure that you send
emails to the list from the same address at which you are subscribed,
otherwise macTALK will not recognise you as a member. If you do need
tosend the occassional email from an address other than the one at which
you are subscribed, special arrangements can be made for these emails
to be recognised and accepted by the software, so please contact me
to arrange this.
30. SUGGESTIONS
There is no rule 30! Except to say that these guidelines
will be added to as and when things crop up. Suggestions to enhance
the MacTalk experience will be gladly received.
There are not many rules - I just hope it may help the ones who are
new to email lists to enjoy being on the MacTalk YMUG Discussion List.
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