List etiquette and general helpful hints

[Heather Williams]

Dear list members,

Let us start the New Year with a reminder of the mission statement for this
list:

We are here to discuss Revolution, and help each other along the road of
programming in Revolution, swap tips, solve problems, offer information and
ask questions about using Revolution.

Politics, religion and cheese are all off topic. Off topic posts should be
marked with the header OT, and kept to a minimum.

This list is a friendly, welcoming place. It tries to stay on topic, but the
occasional off topic post is tolerated. In fact, toleration and mutual
respect are essential prerequisites for a useful, functioning list.
Fortunately, we have them in abundance. Let it remain so. Please, if a topic
appears to be drifting, getting acrimonious, no longer has much to do with
Revolution, everything that can be said on the topic was said three posts
ago, the correct response is - No Response. If you really feel you must
continue the discussion, take it off list.

Some other reminders:

When posting to the list, use plain text only please. No html formatting.
Check the preferences in your email client and turn off all fancy
formatting. It may look fantastic in your email client, but on the list
digest all we get is bandwidth gobbling garbage.

No Attachments! Even the tiniest attachment is heavily frowned upon. Most
attachments will automatically bounce anyway, but the little ones that slip
through, again, come across as meaningless garbage on the list digest, which
is how the vast majority of members receive this list. Also, in this age of
widespread virus attachments, sending unexpected attachments can cause
distress and is bad etiquette. The correct way to share your stacks is by
posting a url, where members may go to download your valued contribution.

This is a double opt in list, for your protection. Only members can post to
the list. The list software (being a robot) will only recognise the email
address that you subscribed with. If you post from a different email address
your posting will be held for moderator approval. That's me folks. I will go
in and approve your post with all available speed, once I've checked it's
not spam or a virus. However, since I am a human being, not a robot (despite
any rumours you may have heard to the contrary), this can lead to delays,
especially at weekends and busy periods. To avoid this happening, I
recommend you subscribe all the email addresses you are likely to use for
posting, and set all but one of the addresses you are subscribed with to
"nomail" so that you don't get duplicate copies of the list.

Be aware that this list goes to a large number and wide range of recipients,
some of whom receive their mail through "nanny" type ISP's - eg universities
often have very strict spam filters. This means that if you use strong
language in your post, it is likely not to reach the widest possible
audience, and may prevent the whole list digest that your post appears in
from being delivered to some list members.

Did I forget anything? Oh yes... this: :-). Remember, it is impossible to
determine tone of voice from text alone. Emails are notoriously open to
being misunderstood. Be polite, be friendly, if you make a joke, don't
forget the smileys!

That's all folks!

Heather (removing list mom hat, placing carefully back in box, box on shelf,
close cupboard, sigh of relief)
-- 
Heather Williams <heather at runrev.com> <http://www.runrev.com/>
Runtime Revolution Ltd.
Tel: +44 (0) 131 7184333 Fax: +44 (0)1639 830707
Revolution: Helping Each Other to the Solution