important list information
colist-admin at comm-org.utoledo.edu
colist-admin at comm-org.utoledo.edu
Tue Nov 21 09:46:43 CST 2000
Hi COMM-ORG. Me again, your humble editor/moderator. I apologize sincerely
to everyone for bothering you again about list management issues.
As COMM-ORG grows and the Internet becomes more unwieldy, managing the list
becomes more complicated and time consuming. I find myself needing your
help more and more. So here are two issues on which I need your help. This
message has a brief listing of the two issues, then a section explaining
each of them, and finally a long convoluted essay giving
background. Please read at least the brief listing of issues 1 and 2.
BRIEF LISTING OF ISSUES:
1. Please don't click "reply" to a COMM-ORG message unless you mean it to
come to COMM-ORG. You need to write a separate message to contact a message
author.
2. Please send messages as "plain text," and not as "rich" or "html" text.
As always--thank you to everyone for contributing to so many fascinating
discussions and such a wealth of resources and helping COMM-ORG to grow and
expand.
MORE EXPLANATION OF ISSUES 1 AND 2:
1. When you reply to a COMM-ORG message it goes to me. If you want your
message to go to the original sender you need to create a new message,
*not* click reply. I try to inform people when they send a message to me
that they meant to go elsewhere (especially if it's personal). For some
mis-addressed mail, however (such as the "can I get a copy of ..." kind of
message) time constraints force me to discard it (I've been a couple a day
lately). So if you have sent such a message and do not get a reply from
your intended recipient it may not be that they are being rude but that
your message came to me instead. I have added a header to list mail
reminding people that their replies go to COMM-ORG. If that clutters up
messages too much, please let me know and I will think of another strategy
(I welcome your suggestions).
2. An increasing number of people are setting their e-mail programs to
"rich text" or "html text" only or are sending attachments. When you do
that I will return your message and ask you to please send it as a
"plain-text" message. It is not a problem if you send a message as *both*
plain text and rich/html text as I just delete the rich/html text version
when I send the message out. But if you send a message only as rich/html
text then I have to return it to you because it is too difficult to read
with all the code included (see below for an example). The reason for this
is that many e-mail programs still do not accurately read rich/html text
and in order to serve everyone the best alternative is to send out all
messages as plain text only. I am working on adapting a script that will
automatically strip out the extra code. In the meantime, however, I need
your help in sending your e-mail messages as plain text. And I don't send
out attachments at all. It's too hard for too many people to download
and/or open and the virus risk is too great.
THE LONG CONVOLUTED ESSAY:
Please, I do not want anyone out there thinking that I am saying to myself
"those stupid ^%^$#$^*s can't even figure out how to reply to a simple
e-mail message." I'm not saying that to myself. E-mail has gotten
incredibly complicated and is more difficult to understand every day. Much
of the complication is being done behind our backs, so we have no idea that
we are sending a rich text message when we mean to send a plain text
message or even that there is a choice. And we have gotten so used to
clicking "reply" to messages that we have a hard time remembering that when
we click reply to a list message it goes to the list rather than the
original sender. I've done it myself on various lists. So I never want to
discourage people from sending e-mail to the list and want to gently
encourage people to become more familiar with their increasingly complex
e-mail software.
What is "plain text"? Plain text means absolutely no formatting--no bold,
no italics, no underlining, no centering, no indenting, no subscript, no
superscript, no large fonts, no small fonts, no
pink-yellow-blue-green-or-any-other-color fonts, no pictures, no attached
files, no nothing. :-) It means literally using only the keys on the
keyboard to construct your message. For those of you using Windows, one of
the best ways to get familiar with plain text is to click your "start"
button on the lower left corner of your screen, go up to "programs," go up
to "accessories," and go down to "notepad" and click on it. Notepad, if
you are not familiar with it, is a plain text word processor. You will be
able to see there just what you can't do.
To make sure rich/html text is turned off, it helps to have the most recent
versions of the e-mail programs. In Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook
Express you can choose between rich/html and plain text in the message
editor under the "format" command. Eudora always asks you if you want to
send your message as plain text or rich/html. Pegasus has a little box to
check or uncheck for rich text in the message editor. The various on-line
e-mail programs (yahoo, hotmail) also allow you to choose rich text or
plain text
Also, if you have ever worked on a document with someone who uses a
different word processing software then you understand how problematic it
can be to find a common format. E-mail is becoming very similar to word
processors in their ability to do things like italics, bold, underline,
centering, etc. All of that is rich text or html text and is interpreted
differently on different e-mail. It is really a mess on those e-mail
programs that can't interpret it at all (see below). Plain text is the most
common format.
And by the way, for those of you who are interested in what a rich/html
message looks like as a plain text e-mail message, be is an example, taken
from the new COMM-ORG Colist information page:
<p align="left"><font size="3">1. Please do not subscribe colist to other
lists. Feel welcomed to send messages advertising the availability of
other lists.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3">2. Please custom-design your messages for
colist (<a href="http://comm-org.utoledo.edu/bkgnd.htm">go here to learn
about the COMM-ORG mission</a>). It is also helpful if you do not send
discussion messages to colist while simultaneously sending them to numerous
other recipients (if people "respond to all" in your message they may
not know they are also sending their message to the list). </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3">3. Please do not send copyrighted
material,
or forwarded messages, unless you have permission from the original source or
sender. Feel welcomed to send web addresses for copyrighted or other
material. You can also use the "e-mail this article" link
provided by many of the corporate news web sites.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3">4. Please send only plain text e-mail
messages. The list software <b><i>cannot</i></b> accommodate attached
files, graphics, or formatted text. In addition, the threat of viruses in
such things is too great to take the risk, and many people still do not have
hardware and software that can handle such things. Feel welcomed to send
those files to <a
href="mailto:randy at comm-org.utoledo.edu">randy at comm-org.utoledo.edu</a>
and I can post them on the COMM-ORG web site for downloading.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3">5. Please identify yourself in
messages and
feel welcomed to send a message introducing yourself if you are a new
subscriber. List membership is private, so your identity and e-mail
address will not be revealed except through messages you might send or the
actions of a particularly ingenious hacker :-).</font></p>
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