Membership in a group hosted on our server brings a few recommendations
we feel are necessary for the continued successful operation and administration
of our groups.
Betty and I are generally very easy to get along with (and for those
who are interested, we get along with each other very well, too),
however we have a few guidelines about which you need to be aware.
This list isn't exhaustive, so you should scroll to the bottom of
this page and click on one of the links to the sites about Email
formatting and Netiquette (which stands for Net-Etiquette, or
Internet Etiquette).
- Please follow these guidelines when sending email:
- Think of the members of these groups whose primary language
IS NOT English and culture is NOT based in American culture.
- Re-read your email before sending to make sure it says what
you really want it to say. Avoid using slang. Slang is quite easily, and
usually misunderstood. A word used locally may have a totally different
meaning even in a different state within the United States.
- Check your spelling and grammar, especially punctuation,
so others will understand you.
- When answering an email from the list, DO NOT include the entire email
in your response. Remove (or CUT) non-essential text from previous emails
before sending. We have a size-limit on emails which is set by default to 40,000
characters. This is quite large, but you might be surprized how
quickly that limit can be reached. If you don't know how to cut
text before sending, ask anyone on the list for help, or a neighborhood ten-year-old.
- Don't send attachments. Virus files are often sent as attachments
without the sender even knowing their computer is infected. If you have
something that the groups really need, we can make it available through
Firefox or Internet Explorer on our web server (see previous paragraph).
- NEVER SEND EMAIL IN UPPER CASE! As elementary as this seems, it's
surprizing how often this is still done. Typing email in upper case is
the same as YELLING AT PEOPLE. I'm sure you don't want folks to believe you
do nothing but yell all the time, well, unless you do... Also, for those
with poor eyesight, it makes reading much more difficult. Be nice, okay?
- Please don't be shy. It's okay to "lurk" but joining in and asking,
or answering, questions, is what will make these lists successful. If you
post too often, someone will kindly tell you. But for everyone that tells
you, there will be ten others that love your posts. At least that's what
we think.
- If you don't like the topics being disucssed in your group, send an email
with something you wish to have discussed. We are too often seeing members
have a tantrum and unsubscribe just because others are discussing things they
have no interest in. If your subject isn't really part of the group's intent,
then the subject you choose will not be adopted, otherwise, you'll find the
answers you need. Please don't be frivolous and just post to get attention.
It's really not 'all about you'...
- These lists are not for your personal gain. Please do not monopolize the
topics. They are also not owned by the members. The server on which they reside
belongs to Betty and me and we are control freaks... Honest. For this reason,
if you ever feel offended by us, and have contacted us and still feel we are
unreasonable and you can't get along with us, you may be tempted to block email
from Betty or me. If you do, you will be summarilly unsubscribed. You probably
should unsubscribe anyway, if that's the case.
- Though related to the previous topic, please be aware that occasionally
someone will offend you. Please don't block or black-list their email address.
Doing so causes every message they send to be bounced to us. We are getting
tired of those bounces which state email can't be delivered to so-n-so because
they are not accepting email from thus-n-such. If a trend is seen with any
individual, that individual may be unsubscribed.
- Many of us belong to more than one list and every one of those lists
all request the same thing: Do Not Post The Same Email To More Than One
List, or Cross-Post. Not only is it a waste of bandwidth, but
you can also cause a clash of cultures -- remember every group has its own
unique culture.
- There are several companies, such as QuikCop.com, and a growing number
of public school districts, that offer a service that requires those who
send email to you to have to 'register' on their service in order for
emails from you to be delivered. We Do Not Accept Such Services.
If you feel a need to use one of these services, or are the prisoner of
your employer who demands it, please find out how to 'white-list' our email
server to allow all email through, else you will not be allowed to use that
email address on one of our email groups and if you join, you will be
unsubscribed at the first receipt of one of the 'registration' emails.
Solution: To get around this prohibition, you should consider
creating a free email address at yahoo.com, mmail.com, netscape.net,
netzero.com, juno.com, gmail.com or one of the other places where free
email addresses are available. Then subscribe the new email address to
our groups.
- We've noticed over the past several weeks (as of 8.4.2005), that many
of your ISPs are starting to do something that's so totally ineffective as to
be annoying to mail servers and damaging to their users, you. When spam is
received by their servers, they score it and return it to the sender. Their
customer probably doesn't receive the email though we can't verify that. The
returned email has verbiage something like, "this email has been rejected
because it has an unacceptibly high spam score." There is no way for you, the
user to add this email to a whitelist or let us know why it was marked
as spam. If your ISP has this type of policy, you will miss email and never
know it. We are putting some of these ISPs in our
Poor Servers page. Please take a moment to let your ISP know to put
ourldsfamily.com in their whitelist database. Since this has become an
annoying and significant problem (and is part of the previous policy),
we have started to unsubscribe email addresses from these ISPs (currently
dominated by public school systems which are doing their best to control
a rampant problem, but doing it in a typically draconian, bureaucratic manner).
- We don't allow flaming. If you don't know what flaming is, here's
a brief description: Flaming is the practise of "going off" on another
member of the group with which you disagree. These exchanges
of emails are often referred to as Flame Wars.
Any such email activity will not be tolerated. if you feel your
opinion is worth stating and you feel you can't state it in a
non-disagreeable manner, please take yourself to the corner of
your room and count to a very high number. If you can state it in a
non-disagreeable manner, do so off the list so you don't start a "war". In
other words, "learn to disagree without being disagreeable" else you may
find yourself unsubscribed.
- Please brush your teeth and comb your hair before sending emails. Okay
that was a joke. You can approach your computer keyboard in any fashion
you wish, however, we don't need to know about it. Be private and don't,
as my Grandmother used to say, "Tell everyone the color of your guts." In other
words, don't send personal things to the whole list. Though we try to control
tightly who subscribes to our groups, still, you never know who's reading
"over your shoulder" so to speak, and how personal information may be used
later. One example: A mission president's wife found out some damaging
information about a missionary in her husband's mission. Yes, there are
some very important people on our lists who are anonymous (by our policy and
their choice).
- Please don't send email in HTML format. All email programs have a setting
that indicates something like "Send plain text" or "No HTML email" or something
similar (except for AOL v7 and later; Evil, that's what AOL is, just plain
evil...). HTML is a very bad thing where digests are concerned. Those who
receive your postings in digest form (one email daily) will get pages and
pages of garbage they don't have time to sift through to find a few words
or sentences. HTML encoded email can have twice the HTML code than the
actual message in the email. As of July 7, 2002 we have installed a patch
to Majordomo which strips HTML code from emails if it is in one of two
different formats which are the most common. As stated above, AOL users
don't have the options to turn off HTML email. This patch does it for them.
The archives are already cleaner. NOTE: If you use
Incredimail, be prepared to have your email get to the group BLANK, empty,
missing your message, etc. etc... In other words, Incredimail is awful. The
reason is it puts HTML in the wrong place, as far as normal systems are
concerned.
- Please never alert the group to new viruses, the Marcus Neimann Cookie
recipes or other "important" news. Everyone has probably already heard
about it from their off-list friends. If you can't verify your news, please
send it to either Betty or I for verification. A good rule of thumb?
Don't send it to the group unless it's directly related to the group's
purpose. Also, you can go to the internet and verify whether the information
is authentic or a hoax at one of a myriad of sites that debunk internet
hoaxes. Just go to your favorite search engine and enter
hoax or hoaxes debunked, or the name of the specific thing you have
recieved, or some specific text from it, and you'll be able to
find sites which tell you whether it's real or not.
- Never forward any "chain" letter to any groups. Chain letters are those
kinds that say something to the effect, "Forward this to everyone you know" or
"if you send this to 10 people, you will get ... ". Any email that tells you
about getting something because the number of emails you forward is tracked
is lying. There's no way for emails to be tracked that way so you can be
sure someone is perpetrating a hoax. You can look these up on the internet
hoax sites.
- Never use our email groups, or any addresses you gather from them,
to solicit money for yourself or any organization, or advertise for a
business, either yours or not, regardless of need or the goodness of the
cause, or products, unless specifically given permission in writing. We have
a page just for this purpose. Please contact me if you have a product to
advertise.
- Never post copyrighted material without written permission of the
copyright holder. Please cite sources. Please be honorable and honest.
- Don't send emails to the whole group and just say, "me, too" or
"I agree" or "welcome to the list", or similar things that add
nothing of substance to a discussion. You can send those privately. This also
isn't an invitation to send a bunch of stuff just to have something to say,
either. Please see the checklist above.
- If you wish to have a political discussion, or an existing thread
becomes political, change the subject line by putting OT (meaning off topic)
or POLITICAL or some other equally noticable word or abbreviation in it.
Typically this would look like: Subject: [OT] Thoughts while reading Harry
Potter. If you wish to talk politics, visit and consider joining the
LDS Conservatives email group.
- We are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or
the Mormon Church as it is commonly,
though erroneously, called. Therefore, be it here known that we will not
tolerate any murmuring, degrading of church leaders or debate about church
counsel, principles, practices or policies. We recognize, however,
that we do not represent the church. We expect you to maintain discussions
that would be appropriate to have with your bishop, without, of course, any
of the confidentiality that might come up there.
- Betty wrote an email to her Missionary Moms lists which you should also
read along these same lines, but which is much more specific.
I have a copy for you to read here.
- If your email begins to consistently bounce, you will be unsubscribed.
Please don't allow your inbox to become full else you
will find you have been unsubscribed. If you've bounced and want to be
re-subscribed, please go to
Email Groups Suggestion
or Problem Form and enter a trouble ticket, or just contact Betty or me.
One major disadvantage of bouncing is that you will miss emails and never
know what you've missed, or wonder what you missed when new emails come
responding to who knows what. Remember, when I see an email address
show up in the overquota folder over a period of time or in the bounce
folder once, I unsubscribe that address.
- If you go on vacation and can't check your email, be sure to visit our
Nomail page, else when
you return, you'll find you have been unsubscribed.
- Do not use any type of Challenge-Response Anti-Spam system.
First, our server hasn't the technology to respond and allow your emails to
be accepted, and Second, they just don't work all the time. To understand
- Server Quality. I have compiled a list of servers I frequently
see problems with. If you are interested in changing ISPs, you may wish to
check this list. It can be found by clicking
here.
NOTE: If you suspect you are missing emails, try a new email address
and see if it improves. You may have a poor email server/ISP and just need
to switch.
Well, I hope this is enlightening and gives you an idea of the standards
we hope to maintain. As I think of things, through what I encounter and
through member suggestions, I'll update this page. So you remain informed,
please come back for a review from time to time.
Thanks,
Karl L. Pearson,
System Administrator/Owner,
OurLDSFamily.com domain
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