NeroBro (whoever that is) wrote: >>The nice way to do this would be to explain the problem with the behavior he's seeing, and a step by step on how to fix it. Mark, this is also me offering to write a nice reminder e-mail you can send out every couple months. What you sent out earlier, wasn't.<< -------------- So you are asking for a description of WHY we should trim posts? Thanks for DJ for thoroughly answering that already for me, but if you are proposing to write up a description of the issue, I did that about 25 years ago, and it's posted at http://www.krnet.org/info.html. That link is some of the junk that appears multiple times in emails where nobody deletes the previous posts..it's at the bottom of every post!
Every member is requested to read the rules when they join the list, and I remind the list every month or two (when I've reached my limit) to please go read the rules! A few weeks ago I posted them direct to the list and asked that posters read and comply with them, and they didn't. When people KNOW what the rules are and continue to ignore them, because they think the only reason to trim posts is "we should all trim up the e-mails to look good for others", the point has been completely missed. This statement, and the fact that you are volunteering to write something that already explains the issue with searching the archive, tells me that you STILL haven't read the rules. If you are proposing to write a HOW-TO as to how you'd use your particular email client to do this, that's great, but if you already know HOW, WHY don't you trim your posts? So if this stuff continues, here's how I'm going to deal with it. Once I reach my limit with a particular repeat offender, I'm going to "moderate" him so that he can no longer post to the list. He can read email, but he can't post questions or comments to the list. This may last a month, it may be permanent, or I might simply unsubcribe you and be done with you. So when you get a message that says your post was pending permission from the list admin, you'll know you've crossed the line. For those who simply can't figure out how to make your email client reply to an email without carrying all the previous baggage with it, perhaps you'll be incentivized to spend a few minutes surfing the web to figure it out. Yes, this will make running this list an even larger pain in the butt for me. But those who flagrantly disregard the rules because they are too lazy to spend another few seconds to follow the rules will not be penalizing those who seek answers in the archive for years to come. The beauty of this is that since you can no longer ask questions of the list, YOU will be searching the archive, and YOU will gain an immediate understanding of the issue. Emailing me personally to answer your KR question will likely lead to me blocking your email to avoid the annoyance. Yeah, I'm an unreasonable jerk. For those who don't want to abide with the rules, it appears as though Doran Jaffras is starting his own list, so you guys can all bail together and live happily ever after on his new and improved list, without my overbearing supervision to hinder your freedom to spew forth whatever you please. But I'm done letting this list get further and further out of control as people ignore the rules. The end result will be that KRnet will have less flotsam and jetsam floating around, the archive will gradually become somewhat easier to search. Here are the rules again, for those who haven't seen them. Please pay particular attention to number 2! KRNetiquette We have a few folks who feel compelled to comment on just about every post made, and I can only be thankful that all 600 of us don't do that, or we'd be wading through several thousand emails a day! Please be considerate of your fellow KRNetHeads. A few of us would do well to heed the following advice: 1) Think long and hard before you publicly flame somebody on this list. This list may not be like others you've been on. We don't do that here, period. If you have a personal problem with another lister, you need to address it off the list and spare the rest of us your angst. If you disagree with something somebody else posted, you can disagree in a nice manner without getting all bent out of shape. Just point out your side of the discussion and let others be the judge. Public flaming and superfluous bad language will not be tolerated. 2) When replying to a post, delete everything except one or two key sentences from the previous post. It's really ridiculous to have to search thru 3 or 4 pages of stuff to find down at the bottom where some clown wrote "me too". Carrying all that useless baggage around from previous posts also gives people fits when searching the archives later, as they end up getting 10 hits for the same message. 3) Conversely, at least put SOMETHING in the post to remind us what you're replying to. A post like "yeah, that's how I did mine and it works great" doesn't mean a thing if you don't know what the guy's talking about, so please cut and paste some of what you're replying to above your comments. 4) Carefully consider whether or not you even need to reply to a post. Saying "me too", or "I don't know" doesn't contribute to the thread, it just makes the list more bothersome. If you don't know what you're talking about, maybe you should be listening, rather than talking. There are FEW people who know everything about everything. Try to stick to things you KNOW about, and let others answer the rest. A corollary to this is if you find yourself making more than five posts in a single day, you probably need to "stifle yourself"! 5) Try to write "keeper" posts if you're the expert on something. Cover the whole issue, answer all possible questions, address both sides of an issue, and make it a post that others will want to save or print out and keep. Those are the gems that we all search for on KRNet. 6) Put your name and email address in your signature to make emailing others "offnet" easier. If we all had our addresses at the bottom of our posts, it would be far easier to "email direct". If it's blue just click on it, if it's not, cut it and paste it into the "To" box. If throwing your email address out on the internet makes you nervous (and it should), camoflage it a little by replacing the @ symbol with "at", or something similar, so that bot crawlers won't know what to do with it. 7) If you don't have anything substantial to say, please don't post anything. This is a KR list, and as such, really needs to stay focused on KRs, or at least airplanes. With over 600 people on the list, if we all decided to say something every day we'd have a real problem. Ask yourself "do 600 people really need to see this, or are 600 people going to be annoyed by this?" Personally, my time is pretty precious to me, and I hate to waste it reading inane email. And is it something that you could find somewhere else? 8) Don't send enclosed files (except small photos) directly to the list. Either post it to a web site or get someone else to post it so others can see if they want, but don't have to if they don't. Also, enclosures are famous for carrying viruses, which we could all do without. I usually delete messages with enclosures immediately, unless I'm expecting something from that person. I don't have three days to rebuild my computer "for fun". And by all means, arm yourself with an anti-virus program such as Malwarebytes. It's free and it works better than most. There are other FREE antivirus programs out there. GET ONE! 9) If you have something you want to share, specify that you want replies to go offline. It's nice to say "hey, I've got the holy grail on thingamajigs, anybody want it?", but when 15 people reply online that they want it it gets kinda painful wading thru all of those posts for nothing. A gentle reminder to "reply offline" and furnishing your email address will be a big help. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that just about everybody would like to know more about something helpful, just post it and get it over with. 10) Do not advertise commercial products to this list. It's OK to let folks know there's a new service or a new business, but point them to web site. We don't need a bunch of advertising here. Personal testimonials as to a product's usefulness are welcome anytime, as long as it's not YOUR product. Advertising and selling KRs, KR parts, or something that can be used on one IS permissible anytime, however. Just don't go overboard if it's your business you're "selling". 11) Try not to take things personally. We're all here to help each other. There are usually several ways to take comments. Always try to pick the "nicest" interpretation, rather than trying to read animousity into a post. It's a lot easier to just ignore a snide comment and let it slide. Try to avoid "having the last word". 12) It's OK to interject some personality into emails, just make a contribution while you're at it. I like to let other KRNetters know who I am and what my interests are, but I try to tack that sort of stuff to the bottom of a post in which I've made some sort of contribution to the cause. 13) Keep personal stuff offline. Finding that some other KRNetter is from your neck of the woods isn't a good enough reason to bother us all with your efforts to strike up an acquaintance. Email him direct, rather than to the list. 14) Do not forward "chain mail" or ANYTHING that urges the sender to "send this to everyone in your address book", or "forward to all your friends". These are almost always either hoaxes, viruses, or just plain don't have any place on KRnet. This includes messages dealing with politics, nationalism, or religion. There are plenty of email lists where you can flood your email inbox with warm, touchy-feely messages from the heart. KRNet is NOT going to become one of them! I have already thrown one of my best friends off the list for doing this, mainly because he started the sentence with "I'll probably get thrown off the list for this...". He was espousing his political view...exactly the same as mine, but the rules are the rules, and even I abide by them. Don't throw down the gauntlet, especially when you know better! 15) Change the subject if the thread starts to deviate from the original intent. This makes searching the archive much more productive and far less time-consuming for future builders who are in search of information. 16) Please read ALL of your messages before replying to ANY of them. Why? Because much of the time, your reply will have already been answered by somebody else (or lots of people), and your reply may just be redundant, or even worse, already disproved by somebody that knows more about it than you do! 17) The best way to send photos to the list is to put them on a website somewhere else and send the link to the list. If that's over your head or you only have one or two, you can send them direct to the list, as long as the total size doesn't not exceed ~200k (a total of 250k, but your text and "encoding" will cost you some of that). That's likely only one or two pictures. This means you will likely have to shrink it down to something reasonable like 800x600, AND compress the image 50% using something like IRFANVIEW, a free image processor available online. If it's oversize you'll get a message that the moderator is considering it, but the same guy that wrote this is the moderator, so you can guess what the answer is. If you can't find an image processor and can't post it online and send a link, you likely should not be building an airplane either. It's really not that tough. I've posted a LOT of 70k images on the list and on my website that are quite acceptable. Surely you can do it with three times that allotment. 18) Those who violate these suggestions may find themselves wondering why they don't get KRNet mail anymore. I reserve the right to throw anybody overboard that I see fit... ---------------------------------- Every couple of days I get a message saying somebody can't post to the list, but are receiving them just fine. There are several possible causes: 1) You just set up a "new" computer and the default is "normally" to send all email as HTML. The server rejects these, but doesn't bother to notify you, so you simply don't get through. The remedy is to go into your "tools", "options", and "send" (in Outlook Express) and change your "mail sending format" to "plain text". That'll fix it. 2) You just set up a "new computer" and you incorrectly typed your email address in the "reply to" field while setting up Outlook Express. This will lead to all kind of problems, but you won't be able to post because your reply-to address doesn't match the address from which you're subscribed, so it fails. Best policy is to leave the "reply to" field blank. The only folks that need that are spammers or others who don't want you to know how to reply to their messages. 3) You're trying to post from work or some other email account from which you are not subscribed. The list should inform you that you are not a member of the list, and that should be your first clue. Some people get irrate, convinced that their God-given right to post has been revoked by the moderator jerk, and I get nasty emails. The easy answer is to join from both accounts (send a message to krnet-join at list.krnet.org from the "excluded" account, and set one of them to receive no posts, so you don't get them twice. 4) One more reason would be if your ISP is stupid like Netzero, and tells you your email address is "somethingorother at somewhere.COM", but your return address is actually "somethingorother at somewhere.NET" instead. Same problem as number 3...your subscribed address needs to match your reply-to address, or it's not gonna work. 5) If you suddenly stop receiving email from the list entirely, and you've done nothing stupid with your email accounts, the first place to look is your ISP's spam filter. That'll kill everything from the list in a heartbeat. It's happened to me, and I'm the list owner. Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com http://www.n56ml.com
