This page provides informal guidance for new users of Internet
E-mail, Mailing Lists and other Internet forums. This page also
provides links to pages which give general guidance, history,
conventions, and some concepts and provisos you may not have thought
about concerning e-mail and participation in Internet forums. It
also provides an introductory discussion of mailing lists. Our
intent is to make this a helpful page for general readers who are
new to Internet E-mail, and who may be doing so using the e-mail
facilities of their employers. It assumes familiarity with Microsoft
Exchange and Internet Explorer, but does not require it.
Mailing Lists have been overtaken to some degree now by Web Logs
("Blogs", hence Bloggers and Blogging) and social networking sites
which accomplish some of the same purposes of Communities
of
Interest, but do so using web pages rather than e-mail.
Although this page does not deal directly with Blogs and social
networking sites, many of the same principles apply to Blogs,
Social Networking sites and to Mailing Lists.
The big thing to remember about an e-mail message (and any Internet
posting) is that you have less control than you might think about
where it will end up, and who will read it. Wherever it goes, it
goes there with your name, likely your employer's name and the name
of your Internet Service Provider attached. If somebody has a bone
to pick with your message, therefore, they have lots of routes of
appeal embedded right in the message. The ease with which e-mail
messages and other posts are copied
has some easily overlooked implications, the results of which can be
profound.
It will also help you to know that although e-mail is very trendy
in the 2000's, it has many of its roots in the 1960's and 1970's
when desktop computers were only a dream. This means that many of
the traditions and procedures concerning e-mail (and especially mailing lists) have been developed and
refined over many years. Some of these systems maintain the
trappings of their earlier cousins, partly because much of the
software was developed by volunteers (and has not yet been
redeveloped by commercial providers), and partly because of a need
to maintain compatibility with ancient archives of messages,
postings data bases, etc.
The third thing to keep in mind is that your messages are broken
up into fragments (called packets) and sent via lots of
potentially different routes to their destination. There, they are
reassembled in the order you wrote them, and delivered. The point
here is that your messages (or fragments thereof) can be found
lying around in lots of queues, backup files, etc., in the files
of lots of different computers between here and there. Every
computer which handles your message makes several copies in the
course of forwarding it to its ultimate destination. This
transmission mechanism has significant privacy implications.
With these provisos in mind, e-mailing and participation in other
Internet forums can be a very rewarding and fundamentally
important access method for participating in the Information
Age.
Kaitlin Sherwood has written a Beginner's Guide to Effective Email
which answers this question and the related question "Why is E-mail
Different?" She deals with the immediacy, the informality, and the
anonymity of the text-on-screen format of e-mail. I suggest you read
her work first if time permits, or at least that you come back to it
sometime. It is a good read; and it is short. There is another link
below to her work, along with links to
several others.
"Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic
Mail," is a Rand Corporation classic dating from 1985. It
has a relaxed and balanced tone, is written for the general reader
and well worth the time, especially for those new to e-mail. It
talks about the paradox of e-mail's "volatility with permanence" that can be
difficult to reconcile. It also identifies the risks and
tendencies associated with conveying emotion in e- mail messages,
and lists a number of thoughtful and effective cautions and
remedies.
My view is that we often learn best by doing. Find a friend with
whom to exchange a few messages. If you are absolutely alone, send
some messages to yourself. The principle of trying out e-mail with a
friend is a very helpful, non-threatening (even supportive) way to
start for everyone. This avoids possible embarrassment when
communicating more officially with others, and I recommend it.
NOTE: Sending an e-mail message to yourself is far
from a facetious suggestion. By sending yourself a note, you can
check the "Reply to:" address, for example, by then also
replying to that test message. If you are new to the Internet,
and have configured your e-mail handler yourself, it is an
excellent way to test whether you have done at least that part
of it right. You might be surprised to hear how many e-mail
messages I get, which, when I reply, the reply bounces because
they put in the wrong "Reply to:" address. And then, though I
feel badly for the person, there is typically no way to reach
them at all. Most do not include a signature
file, either (which would at least allow me to reach them
some way). Worse: none of their friends can reply to
them either, unless they know that what is broken is the "Reply
to:" address. Some of them go on needlessly for weeks wondering
why nobody replies to their e-mail messages (!).
When you practice with a friend, be sure you ask them also to use
their "reply" button to reply at least one time. This assures that
you have entered the correct "Reply to:" address in your mail
handler. If you get just a single character wrong, the reply bounces
back to the sender. If you have not included a signature file with your message that
also contains your (hopefully correct) e- mail address, the person
cannot even reach you to tell you the reply bounced. A friend, of
course, has other means to reach you; but a typical e-mail
correspondent has only your "Reply to:" address (and the signature file, if you included one).
Remember that if you send an e-mail from somebody else's machine,
or from a form on their web browser, the system will attach that
person's e-mail FROM address. You can overcome that by just
explaining it to your correspondent, and providing your own e-mail
address in the text of your note. Double check that every
character is correct, however, if you do that.
You can also send me an e-mail message for practice if you wish.
Here is a special
form to make it very easy. If I can possibly squeeze it in,
I will send you a reply, too.
Start with a greeting; end with your name and a signature file.
When you begin using e-mail with an internal e-mail system, it is
easy to just write your message. Everybody knows you; and it is not
hard to figure out who-is-who, who is saying what to whom, and from
what point of view.
Internet e-mail is different.
First, there will often be people who see your message who do not
know you at all; and second, e-mail messages (and replies) tend to
migrate around well beyond the readership boundaries you initially
considered.
Because e-mail is so easy to
copy, and because some mailers quickly lose track of who is
sending and who is receiving the message (particularly on
multiply- forwarded messages) a message with several comments and
replies is substantially impossible to follow except for the
parties who wrote it.
As an aid in helping others to understand who is saying what to
whom, always begin your e-mail message with what your third grade
teacher called a "salutation." In letters, it is "Dear So-and-so:"
(often Mr. Jones, or other formality). In e-mail it is typically
"Hi So-and-so," (first name). At the end, you signed off with
"Sincerely," or "Yours truly," (whatever that meant). In
e-mail, some writers include these closings; but the important
thing is to close with your name, and always include a signature file. (Note: The detailed
steps for creating
a signature file are available; and they are written for
those not familiar with creation of plain text files).
The result, in multiply-forwarded (or replied to) messages, is a
series of comments which other people can follow. You should
always write e-mail messages as if they will eventually
be forwarded to somebody who does not know you (or the context of
the message), may not even like you, and for whom all of the
information on the subject will come from the quoted e-mail
message.
If, for each segment of the message, there is an identified
recipient, and at the bottom an identified sender, then the
message becomes readable for everyone. It also makes it much
easier for those new to e-mail to follow any message (regardless
of the current condition of the headers). Keep in mind that the
"To:", "From:" and "Subject:" portions of an e-mail message
(called "headers") are displayed or concealed by various e-mail
message handlers as the message is transmitted (or forwarded, or
imported, or exported) from party to party. We are rapidly
approaching the time when machines will do much of the sorting,
prioritizing, re-directing/forwarding and filing of e-mail
messages. And if the present is any guide, these machines will not
always (or even often) be programmed to preserve senders and
receivers with any degree of reliability. If the body of your
message contains this information, then it will be preserved
intact for all.
When you write an e-mail message, always use a good subject line.
Remember that many mail handlers will provide only subject line and
sender's name, for example, in displaying the contents of a person's
e-mail in-box. If you have five e-mail messages a day, then that is
no problem. You are going to open them all anyway. If the subject is
missing or misleading, you will find out about it when you read the
message.
If those days are not gone, they are definitely numbered. As we
handle more and more of our communications via e-mail, we will
more and more face the dilemma of which messages to open next. In
no time, we will no doubt need to decide which messages to open at
all, forwarding some, and turfing others outright. Recognizing
that many e-mail messages are used to ask somebody else for some
assistance, we can help them (perhaps raising the probability that
they will be inclined to help us) by giving them all of the
"open-or-forward-or-turf" information in a well-written subject
line. Think of how they will react to your subject-less message if
they are facing an in-box with 150 messages the day yours arrives.
With a good subject line, when our message is forwarded to
others, they will be able to understand the subject matter even
though that is the only context they have initially. Finally, when
the message is filed in some data base or archive, readers will be
able to make the "open-or-bypass" decision based on our good
subject lines. Again, many of these data bases and archives will
be stoked by machines. We will want our message to be filed in the
correct category, and given the correct priority; and both will be
helped substantially through our use of accurate, descriptive
key-words in subject lines (and by consistently using exactly
the same spelling for our name, by the way).
I have found that starting with a Subject line helps me focus on
exactly what it is that I want to communicate. Then, when the note
is written, re-visiting the subject line allows me to fine-tune
it, or to add a component that only came up as I wrote the note.
"How to Write Headlines, Page Titles, and Subject
Lines," by Jakob Nielsen (a very readable web design
and usability guru) explains that headings, titles and e-mail
subject lines "need to be pearls of clarity: you get 40-60
characters to explain your macrocontent. Unless the title or
subject make it absolutely clear what the page or email is about,
users will never open it." On-line headings are different from
print headings because they are often displayed out-of-context,
such as in lists of articles, results from a search query, in- box
lists, etc., says Nielsen. Considering a headline on the sports
page of a newspaper, for example, a great deal can be inferred at
a glance from that context. Not so in many on-line situations
(most of which are not of the author's making, incidentally). Many
experienced e-mail users have so much mail, they delete messages
if they cannot immediately recognize and make sense of them. This
is the "delete by default" syndrome that we are hoping will not be
applied to our message. We minimize that with a good
subject line. Keep the most important information content to the
left, less important content to the right (in case it is truncated
somewhere).
Emotional Content in E-mail Messages and
Internet Postings
For reasons not yet well understood, but perhaps related to the
absence of social cues such as tone of voice and body language which
are available in face-to-face discussions (and even in telephone
conversations), e-mail messages and other Internet postings seem to
be open to some sort of misinterpretation that provokes emotion in
readers more often than is the case in other forms of communication.
In the Mailing Lists section below,
in Guidelines for Posting
we mention some of the hazards of replying to a message when you
are angry. E-mail messages can't be recalled,
for example, after you have calmed down (or anytime, for that
matter). The Rand classic "Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic
Mail," identifies the risks and tendencies associated with
conveying emotion in e-mail messages, and lists a number of
thoughtful and effective cautions and remedies. It has a relaxed
and balanced tone, is written for the general reader and well
worth the time, especially for those new to e-mail. In their
section "Receiving and Responding to Messages," they
have sub-sections "Avoid responding while emotional" and "If a
message generates emotions, look again" which are very helpful.
Their section "The Phenomenon of 'Flaming'" also contains good information about
possible origins and causes. They present helpful information to
be aware of before it comes up in your own messages.
Of course, there are
always those whose purpose is to provoke an emotional response,
especially on mailing lists, in
newsgroups and in other discussion forums. It is a very potent way
to neutralize the effectiveness of these electronic Communities
of
Interest (See "The Natural Life Cycle Of Mailing Lists," a
classic from Kat Nagel (1994) that talks about some of the social
aspects of mailing lists and other Internet postings). Anyhow,
this provocative activity is called trolling; and some
individuals have honed it to a fine art.
Since these difficulties seem to come up most often in criticisms
of other people's work, it may be well for all of us to make a
shift in approach when communicating with e-mail and in other
Internet postings. It is much easier to be a critic than a
builder. If we all made as big a shift as we can from critic to
builder, and made special efforts in editing and revising to
minimize the shortcomings of the e-mail form and in other Internet
postings, perhaps we will help to reduce misunderstandings and ill
will on all sides. [See also the section "The Phenomenon of 'Flaming'" in the Rand
paper "Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic
Mail" mentioned above].
See also: a review of Patricia Wallace's book "The
psychology of the Internet." Wallace describes "the specificities
of online contexts, as well as the similarities between human
behavior, online and offline. The result is an interesting and
well-written book that offers an overall perspective on online
behavior."
See also: the section below, "Mailing Lists - Starting
Your Own," and the references there concerning on-line
communities of interest, the use of mailing lists for computer
mediated communication, etc.
Always keep your line-length well under the (mostly arbitrary)
eighty-character length limitation. This allows for screen widths
which are narrower, and it also provides room for the insertion of a
quotation character in the front of each line of replies. [Rather
than use quotation marks (which are not supported by some e-mail
packages), the > character is commonly inserted at the front of
each line when you are quoting somebody else. It is nice if
they have left you some line-length to do that.]
A line length around 65 characters is about right.
Please do not consider signature files an option. Add a signature
file to every out-going e-mail message you send. See the note about
signature files and a small part of their value in the "Learn-By-Doing" section above. See also
the example linked immediately below.
In any posting to a mailing list, be sure to turn OFF any
request for a confirmation or acknowledgment of delivery that
your mailer allows. These confirmations (also called "receipts,"
"confirm reading" or "confirm delivery" options) create a monumental
annoyance to mailing list administrators. In some cases the message
confirmations end up being returned to the list server (because that
is who sent the message to the subscribers). If you are the cause of
that kind of grief, plan on being excluded from that list for the
foreseeable future. No matter what happens, there is hardly a
quicker way to reap the scorn of experienced users, or to get
yourself dropped from a list than to ask for a confirmation on a
message to be posted to the list.
In fact, for your Internet e-mail generally, turn off the receipt
or confirmation request option. Every mail handler is different;
some can handle it; some cannot. And others handle it completely
wrong. Forwarded or re-directed mail frequently looses the
confirmation option; and in other cases, it returns a delivery
confirmation when the mail has not been delivered at all, merely
forwarded. Asking for these confirmations doubles the amount of
e-mail traffic for very little return; and it is considered an
intrusion by experienced e-mail users. It is about like sending
out every letter at the post office by "return receipt requested."
You would not want to impose that on anybody (certainly not
anybody whose respect you wanted to retain) unless it was really
necessary. Just rely on the reply to your e-mail to confirm that
the original message was received, or send the message by some
other means.
For those using MS Exchange, be sure to use the Properties option
in the File menu to change these options for the message your are
currently composing. The options in the tools menu affects only subsequent
messages.
The Exchange e-mail client and lots of others have an option to use
Rich Text Format for e-mail messages to others who also use those
options. It provides the ability to use BOLD or ITALICS,
to use any desired COLOR or FONT,
to adjust FONT SIZES, etc. Most mail handlers also allow the use of
HTML tags in e-mail messages to
enhance the display of the message for the receiver, many as a
default.
There will be circumstances in which these enhancements will be a
preferred option. In your Internet e-mail messages, however,
you will need to exercise caution. As with all things
Microsoft, the RTF feature has been implemented with the
expectation that sooner or later everybody (perhaps only
"everybody who counts") will be using Microsoft products. In the
meantime, however, you need to know that the Rich Text Format and
HTML tags are appended to the message somewhat like an attached
file. If the mail handler receiving the message happens to be
Exchange or one of its variants, then it is usually handled
correctly. (Or, at least, it does not cause undue grief). This is
an advanced feature which some existing mailers cannot handle; and
it has been implemented in such a way that most mailers are not
able to just ignore it either.
It would be bad enough that most mailers do not handle these tags
at all well. Worse, there are mailing list servers which react to
them only badly. In the case of a non-Microsoft mail handler, the
person receiving the message sees what looks like an attached
file. When opened (if they can open it at all), it appears to be a
shambles. In some cases, both the message and the "attached file"
are garbled. In any case, the recipient is sure s/he has missed
something in the attachment. When they query you about it, you
don't remember sending any attachment. And, unless you know how it
got there, both of you are then baffled. In the case of mailing
lists, not only do most list servers not handle attachments--they
are not Microsoft creations; when the so-called "attachments" are
garbled, it creates no end of grief for list owners and managers.
As with confirmation requests
(above), sending Rich Text
Formatted or HTML messages is a very efficient way to
become persona non grata on that list for a good long
time. You give yourself a bad name; if you send it from work, you
give your employer a bad name; and all of it is for no benefit
whatsoever.
The short answer to Rich Text Formats and HTML is to just say
no. When you encounter a friend who also uses the Exchange
client, and with whom you can exchange these messages
successfully, then Rich Text Formats may be ok. The drawback, even
there, of course, comes when you decide to forward something from
that friend to somebody else (or, heaven forbid, to a list). At
that point, you have to remember to turn off the Rich Text Format,
or you will very likely be embarrassed (... or worse).
Most e-mail messages are informal and of little lasting consequence.
Others probably ought to be kept for future reference, and some
(heaven forbid) should probably be printed on hard copy and filed
officially.
It is a certainty, however, that others will have copies of your
correspondence. Some will keep them for a long time.
And those who are your enemies, will likely use them in ways you
might not like.
E-mail costs are very small, mainly because e-mail messages tend to
be short, contain only text and (with the exception of mailing lists) are usually not
multiplied or repetitive. Order-of-magnitude costs are some small
fraction of the corresponding costs of sending a fax, for example.
One estimate is that e-mail costs are about 1/50th of the cost of a
fax; others have estimated it between 1/20th and 1/100th. Another
page contains a more complete comment on
e-mail costs. It also has a Privacy Caution you will
likely want to read before doing much with e-mail.
Most e-mail messages and other Internet postings are short. It is
worth some effort, in fact, to edit your message so it is short and
sweet for most purposes. This not only conserves network bandwidth
(the capacity of the network to carry message traffic), but also
maintains the tradition that e-mail messages are brief, to the
point, and carry meaningful "subject" lines. Some authors recommend
keeping e-mail messages to about 20-25 lines so that the entire
message can be displayed on a screen without scrolling, in fact.
Keeping the paragraphs short helps too.
If you have two subjects on which to correspond with the same
person, consider sending two messages. It adds a little overhead;
but it allows the other party to file or forward them separately,
for example. This can be a bigger advantage than you might think
for a busy e-mail reader.
Jakob
Nielsen (a very readable guru who studies on-ine design
generally) explains that by keeping your e-mail messages short
you may be doing your readers a great favor. In his Alertbox
column "Transactional Email and Confirmation Messages"
he says (my emphasis): "A striking
conclusion from the studies is that processing email is
stressful. Users frequently told us that they were too
busy to deal with certain email messages, and that they
considered any fluff in messages a waste of time. When they
check their email, users are typically dealing with multiple
requests for their time—whether from their boss, colleagues,
or family. People just want to be done with most email,
and quickly move past anything that is not absolutely
essential. "
For those with modem connections, some long e-mail messages can take
so long to retrieve from the mailbox that the cost of the service
can be materially affected. If a message takes a long time to
download, it can also result in a serious inconvenience, even if
costs are unaffected. Always check the size of any graphic image you
are considering attaching to an e-mail message. If it is over 10,000
to 20,000 bytes, consider telling your correspondent about it, and
asking first if they would like to receive it. Some graphic images
can easily be 100,000 bytes or more. These file sizes can create
significant difficulties for many mail handlers, and annoyance for
users.
Copying E-mail Messages
and other Internet postings
E-mail messages and other Internet postings are very susceptible to
copying. It is intuitive and convenient; and often it is just what
is wanted on all sides. In the general case, we copy pieces of
messages or complete messages when we reply to others because it is
often the best way to provide context. It is so convenient that we
sometimes do it without much thought. We need to be careful,
however, when we copy something in a reply to a third party. And we
need to be very careful before including copied material in a
submission to a mailing list or in a
post to a Newsgroup. Always obtain permission from the original
author before copying any of his or her words in messages to others.
And always attribute the quotation appropriately (see the section "Replying and Replying with a
(short) Quote" below).
The flip side of that notion is to keep in mind that somebody
might send a copy of your e-mail message or other Internet posting
to somebody else. And if that happens more than about once, the
tendency is for subsequent parties to see it much more as a public
document than the product of an individual. Furthermore, anybody
can alter your original message before they pass it on. Nobody
receiving the altered message will know that isn't what you
originally wrote. You may wish, therefore, to write as if
you are going to be quoted (or mis-quoted). See the privacy caution for
additional details, and the "Big
Copying Hazard" section below.
The section "Copying E-mail
Messages" above, the overview
to the Privacy Caution
and the Copying
Hazard relating to privacy concerns might all give you pause
when preparing an e-mail message or other Internet posting. Perhaps
the biggest hazard resulting from the ease with which e-mail and
other electronic media can be copied, however, relates to the fact
that you can never predict where your messages will end up,
or how long they will be kept around.
The other hazards may lead to embarrassment; but this one can bite.
The informality of e-mail and other Internet postings makes them
nearly ideal for the exchange of humor. Many employers provide
e-mail facilities for their staff, and at least tacitly encourage
them to use it for a wide variety of communications relating to
their employment. Humor and enjoyment are often found in corporate
"values." The combination, however, can lead to unforeseen
complications in the absence of careful thought.
Consider, for example, a harmless joke sent to a colleague or
posted in an Internet forum. Such an exchange is unlikely to lead
to any difficulty. But it is not much of a stretch to move from
that to a joke with some racial, ethnic or sexual content which
somebody may find objectionable, even if it is perfectly harmless
as seen by you and your colleague (the only intended participants
in the correspondence). Humor tends to be exchanged, however. And
one of the things that will really amaze you sometime early in
your e-mail career is where your messages end up. I have
been doing this now for quote a few years; and I have been more
than a little surprised more than once.
The point here is that when you make a comment in writing (or
forward one from somebody else), and you do it using e-mail or
other facilities provided by your employer, you make them (and
you) a target of those who may find your comments objectionable
(see Records
section, in E-mail Privacy
Caution). Lawsuits have been filed for sexual harassment,
racial discrimination and related claims using e-mail messages and
other Internet postings as evidence.
Inevitably, any e-mail message you write has the potential to be
routed sooner or later to those who do not share your views on
good humor, or your other views. Messages posted to mailing lists or to newsgroups or
other Internet forums will get there sooner rather than later (and
they will very likely be kept for a very long time).
At any rate, by making your comments in writing you have assumed
the role of publisher
to some extent. It would be well to keep all this in mind while
preparing any e-mail message or other Internet posting.
When you reply to an e-mail message, it is often helpful to quote a
little piece of the message you are replying to. We emphasize
"little piece" here because some e-mail systems only allow you to
quote the entire message when replying. If that original message is
only two or three lines, there is not much of a problem quoting the
whole thing, of course. But if it is longer, then it is important to
quote only the smallest piece which will convey the context of your
reply.
If your reply is going to a mailing list, it is even more
important to trim the quotation to the minimum in your reply. List
readers often complain of being annoyed by reading most of a
quoted post followed by "right on!" or some such reply. Because we
say to keep the quotation to a minimum, however, please do not
think that no quotation would then be best of all. Very often, a
short quote is the very best way to put your reply in context.
Keep in mind that on mailing lists, and particularly in
newsgroups, the article you are quoting might not yet be available
to some of your readers. Quoting a small excerpt will provide
convenient context for everyone.
If you are using an e-mail system which does not allow you to
trim the quotation in your reply, export (or save) the message to
a text processor, trim the quote, and import the trimmed quote
back into your reply.
Quoting a part of a message in a reply, by the way, usually
involves editing in a ">" or other character in the front of
each line and prefacing it with "Fred Jones wrote:" or some other
identifier of the quoted material. It does not matter what
character you use to identify quotes. In fact, if you are quoting
a piece that already has another quote in it, you might choose a
symbol that is different from the one which has already been used.
Otherwise, the number of ">" characters indicates the depth of
the quotation sources. The section "Line-Length in E-mail
Messages" above points out the need to keep the line lengths
short as an aid in quoting excerpts.
Finally, if it improves clarity, insert a "<snip> " or
"<deletia> " note where you have cut material from the
original author's material. This is particularly helpful if you
quote two pieces of it, or cut a section out of the middle. If you
really need it, add a short description of what you have cut out,
such as "<snipped description>". Such a notation may be
helpful to others (especially on a mailing list) who did not see
the original post.
Always include a signature
file in your replies. (Note: The detailed steps for creating a
signature file are available; and they are written for those
not familiar with creation of plain text files).
The earliest e-mail handlers could handle only ASCII text
characters. When other files became commonly used, a method was
needed for easily exchanging them using e-mail. Various methods
(such as MIME encoding) have been contrived in which these files
are actually converted to strings of ASCII-only characters so they
can be conveyed by every e-mail handler on the Internet. Of
course, once a file is encoded on one end, your recipient needs
the corresponding decoder at his/her end too.
Files are "attached" to e-mail messages in two ways: the simplest
for you is like an attachment to a letter written on paper. The
file is actually conveyed with the e-mail message, but as a
separate document. The second way involves importing the
attachment into the mail message so that it becomes part of the
message (just as if it had been entered there from the keyboard).
Most mailers have a setting in which you can specify if you want
attachments to go as separate files (the usual way), or to be
included in the message (much simpler for most mail handlers to
deal with). To obtain a text version of a WORD file, use FILE |
SAVE AS and pick "Text Only." When the file is saved, all the
tags, fonts, tables, etc., are stripped away, leaving only the
text characters; and the file gets a .txt suffix. Text
files also contain no macro capability. The resulting text file
can then be included in your e-mail message using cut and paste,
using some "include" function in your mail handler.
Include attachments in messages where the attachment consists of
a relatively small number of ASCII text characters. Otherwise,
there is no alternative but to attach them separately. Older
e-mail clients can handle only ASCII text characters (plus maybe a
few others); and any file from a text processor (such as
WordPerfect, WORD, AmiPro, etc.) will be laced with special
characters, and will need to have its formatting and other special
characters protected by what is called "encapsulation."
Your mailer may handle attachments with great ease; but you may
then find that when your message with its attachment gets to the
recipient, s/he cannot decode it. Some free e-mail services do not
even allow attachments. They just strip them off before putting
the mail into the subscriber's mail box. Furthermore, novice
e-mail users often have difficulty knowing where the mailer
"hides" attachments after they arrive. If possible, make the
attachment a part of the message. Any mail handler can deal with
that. If you must make a separate attachment, help the person to
whom you are sending the message at least to the following extent:
tell the recipient (in your message) what kind of a file it
is (a WORD or .RTF document, a WordPerfect file or document,
etc.).
tell him/her what its file name is (REPORT.DOC, LETTER.WPF,
MEMO.WPD). Using .RTF (Rich Text Format in MS WORD, by the way,
is much preferred over the plain WORD document format. RTF is
preferred because it retains all the formatting such as bold
type, centered lines, etc., but RTF has no macro capability.
This means that you cannot transmit a macro virus to
anybody--and the recipient knows he cannot get a macro virus
from anybody if the file is in the .RTF format). Just use the
FILE | SAVE AS options, and select the Rich Text Format (RTF)
option. Then attach the *.RTF version of the file.
These hints help the recipient to know where (into what directory)
the attachment should go. Many users keep all their WORD and/or RTF
documents in a specific directory, for example. If you let him/her
know that, then they can detach it to the directory where it belongs
in a single step. It also helps him/her to know what software to use
when trying to access the attachment. Here again, experienced users
are good at guessing about these things; and some mail handlers even
tell the recipient about attachments without your having specified
what you are sending. New e-mail users will appreciate knowing about
attachments; and experienced users are not put off by the additional
information.
If you are sending a message to multiple recipients, keep in mind
that you may have to attach the attachment using a separate method
for each one. The only universally acceptable method is to include
it as part of your message. If the attachment is large, experiment
with a smaller version of a similar file. When your recipient is
able to receive it, detach it, decode it and read it, then send
the bigger one using the same technique.
Attached files are sometimes treated as if they were encoded when
they are received by the other person's mail handler, by the way.
Be careful to test the result before discarding the file that was
attached to an out-bound message. You may receive a plaintive call
to have it re-sent.
If attached files are in plain text, limiting them to the same line length as the
e-mail message might be a thoughtful consideration.
Be very careful of attached files
in messages to be posted to mailing lists, however. Most mailing
list servers have a dreadful time with attachments. Check with the
list owner before sending any e-mail message with an attachment to
a mailing list. Additional information is contained in the Mailing
List cautions
below. If the attachment is large, consider just announcing to
members of the list that it is available. If they want the
material, they can then ask you for it individually (and you can
send it to each of them, tailored individually to their equipment,
systems and level of experience).
Virus Threats
Keep in mind that Microsoft WORD documents, Excel spreadsheets
(and some others) contain macro capabilities which can introduce
viruses into your desktop computer and your internal network. In
addition, any file with an .exe suffix is an executable
program which may contain a virus. Always consider the source
before executing a program or opening a WORD or Excel file you
received as an e-mail attachment. If you have any suspicion about
it, see your technical people or delete the attachment without
opening or executing it. You can save your correspondents from the
same dilemma by only using attachments when they are really
required, and by being sure you do not inadvertently pass on a
file containing a virus. Using RTF files instead of WORD documents
will always be helpful. Remember: they will see you as the sender,
and will figure you have satisfied yourself that the file is safe
before sending it on to them.
"Spam" is unsolicited e-mail, much like junk postal mail. The main
point here is that one person's innocent announcement is another
person's "spam." Spam is the label that e-mail users put on messages
they receive but don't want. Any unsolicited e-mail message can be
seen as "spam" by the person who receives it. On the other hand, we
all receive e-mail messages we did not ask for, and which contain
information we are grateful to have. And, of course, we all receive
a bunch we didn't ask for, but which don't really annoy us either.
Usually, the label "spam" is used for the ones which annoy us.
New e-mail users need to be conscious of putting e-mail messages
in other people's e-mail boxes that these other people might see
as "spam." Early in the game, having lots of messages in your
in-box can be quite enjoyable, and informative. As you gain more
experience, many of these messages become redundant, then
annoying. Keep in mind that some people pay for their Internet
services by the number of bytes transferred to their mail boxes.
You don't want to cause another person to incur costs to receive
your announcement unless you are dead certain they would
want that.
Advertisements are somewhere near the top of the
universally-recognized "spam" list. Almost nobody wants to receive
e-mail advertisements. Off-color or objectionable messages (or
their associated graphics), often masquerading as humor, are also
high on that list. And they can be risky, too. See the "Big Copying Hazard" section.
The thing to remember before clicking on the "reply to all"
button of a message sent to lots of people is "does everybody
really want to hear this reply of mine?" If not, then select those
whom you know would like to see it.
When you make an announcement or endorsement, make it only to
those who will want to hear it. Making your announcement or
endorsement based more on facts and less on hype and opinion will
help too. Give your reasons, and make them rational and coherent.
When you make either an announcement or an endorsement in a post
to a mailing list, be sure you learn and follow the guidelines for
that list before doing so. All lists will have some rules about
these kinds of posts; and it is worthwhile to be seen as a
responsible subscriber when you have something to tell them about
(particularly if they might think you have something to gain from
it). See the Mailing Lists -
Posting Messages for Distribution to All Subscribers
section.
One pretty safe way around being seen as a "spammer" is to let
people know with a very short message that you have something to
announce. Give it a really good descriptive subject, so that some
people can delete it without even opening it, and others can read
your offer in two or three sentences and easily discard that if
they are not interested. Then, invite those who are interested to
ask for the details. That practice at least keeps the size of the
unsolicited message to a minimum. Even in this case, however, be
sure to follow the conventions for the mailing list before posting
such a message to a list, and be sure it is "on topic" for the
list (not merely likely to be interesting to most subscribers).
If you are in doubt if somebody else would like to receive your
message, don't send it. Think of another way to let them know what
you are offering.
Marcia Yudkin has written a really good
book: Marketing Online: Low-cost, High-yield Strategies for
Small Businesses and Professionals that has been
surprisingly well accepted by experienced e-mail users,
considering the topic. She has three chapters on-line (Table of Contents) which are must reading
for new e-mail users who want to use the Internet and e-mail
inoffensively in their businesses. Marcia distinguishes between
"schmoozing" and selling with some excellent examples and the
responses they evoked. Her writing is down-to-earth, easy to read,
and very informative.
Your mail handler's Address Book is generally adequate for
maintaining both internal and Internet e-mail addresses. There is
some subtlety here, however, in that when you move, you need to be
able to take your e-mail address book with you, and after you have
gone your former employer will need the means to deal with the
e-mail messages that come to your former e-mail address. If you
subscribe to mailing lists this
question becomes especially acute.
A good practice is to maintain an address book which will allow
you to inform all your correspondents of your new mailing address
before you leave. Failing that, you can at least inform them of
your impending departure so they don't cause somebody a lot of
extra work after you have gone.
This file can be copied to a removable medium (floppy, jump
drive, etc.), and taken with you to your new location. And it does
not hurt to keep a copy of your address book on a removable
medium, and take it home as a matter of routine. You will be
amazed at how lost you are if you cannot find an e-mail address
you once had.
Mailing lists are a natural extension of e-mail. They are much like
any regular mailing list in which you send the same thing--maybe it
is a newsletter--to lots of recipients (or subscribers) via plain
old mail. Using e-mail, the distribution is more-or-less
instantaneous, of course. And since there is no paper involved,
there is no need to collect the articles together for monthly
circulation (or whatever). If desirable, articles can be circulated
one at a time as they are ready.
Rather than employing editors and writers, most mailing lists are
run like cooperatives in which any subscriber posts his or her
contribution anytime he or she has something to say. The
"something to say" may be an original article, of course, or (more
often) it may be an expansion, reply, rebuttal or new point of
view concerning an article posted by another contributor. It is
this interactive and "many-points-of- view" character that makes
mailing lists such a powerful communication tool.
Mailing lists and other Internet postings are used to inform
people with common interests. They are one of the important
and powerful vehicles which aid in the formation of interest
groups (also called communities
or
associations of interest). The section below,
entitled "What Does
Access to E-mail and other Internet postings Mean?"
describes these groups, and provides a glimpse of their potential
to change the way we think.
Mailing lists and other Internet forums also quickly grow in
terms of the numbers of participants when Internet access is
available. And most mailing lists and other Internet postings are
free to subscribers because of low costs. These factors led long
ago to their automation. Typically, therefore, when you subscribe
to a mailing list, or post a message, you are mailing to a
computer rather than a human. This relieves a lot of tedium; but
it creates a few problems too. The Learning Organization Mailing
List has a very friendly and helpful page
of
instructions which describes how that mailing list works
(written for the general reader and the new Internet user). They
use Majordomo, so the specific instructions apply to that list
server (which they call a robot). The page
of instructions is very well done, however; and the
principles apply to most mailing lists. They also provide some of
the best explanations of the whys and wherefores of mailing list
practice. This page can be very helpful as an introduction for
those new to mailing lists.
Below are some of the guidelines and suggestions which have occurred
to me. I will add more as I learn them. None of them is canonical or
even definitive. Some are preferences; others are personal biases.
They should be considered as one place to start, and definitely in
light of similar guidelines from others, a few of which are listed below.
When you subscribe to a mailing list or participate in other
Internet forums, be sure your in-bound mail handlers can handle
the volumes generated by the mailing lists you plan to subscribe
to. Your e-mail administrator can advise you concerning this
question. But the point to keep in mind is that mailing lists
are staffed mostly by volunteers. If e-mail sent to you bounces
(is returned to the sender) because you are away, or because
your mailbox is too full, or for any other reason, somebody will
have to deal with it. By anticipating these questions to some
degree, you can save these volunteers some needless extra work.
When you subscribe to
a mailing list, please keep a file somewhere that you
and others can find. When you move, somebody will have to deal
with your e-mail; and you likely will want to unsubscribe
(or signoff) from mailing lists before you leave
to avoid that. For mailing lists with infrequent mailings, you
need to have a reliable place to find their address, and their
instructions for unsubscribing. The usual drill, by the way, is
to unsubscribe when you leave, and resubscribe from your new
e-mail address when you get there, rather than attempting any
change to your e-mail address. Moreover, some mailing lists will
only accept your posts and changes if they come from the e-mail
address which you were using when you subscribed. If you leave
that until after your e-mail address is expunged, you can cause
lots of people a lot of needless extra work.
Keep in mind that some mailing lists can have several
distributions per day. I subscribed to one list early in my
experimentation that sent me 46 messages over a weekend. A few
have much larger distributions. Other lists can go for weeks or
even months without a single distribution.
You need to know what
all the rules are for each mailing list (such as how to
unsubscribe, how to change your status, and how to make a
posting); and you need to have the means to handle the volume of
messages which you will receive. These are described in the
welcome message.
You need to be very careful to
distinguish at least three addresses when you deal with
mailing lists: (1) is the address of the list server (which is
also called the listserv address), (2) is the list address,
where you submit your postings, and (3) is the list owner. The
first two are typically computers (often the same computer, but
with two different addresses); and the third is typically a
human.
You use the first address to send commands such as
SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, INDEX and HELP.
You use the second address when you post a message
to be automatically circulated to all the other subscribers
including yourself.
And you use the third address when you want to talk
to a human.
The whole thing is
complicated by the fact that every list has different commands,
is implemented using different list server software (listserv [1], listproc [2]
and majordomo [3] are the three I have
encountered most often), and mailing list information may or may
not identify an owner.
You also need to know
what the mailing list's commands are. Every list is
potentially different; and you can be really embarrassed if the
in-bound volumes become unmanageable, for example, and you do
not even know how to unsubscribe, or where to direct your
unsubscription notice. Everything is made more complicated if
you are away when a problem comes up. There are lots of other
commands, such as how to request the list's submission and
posting guidelines, how to switch your subscription to the
"digest" edition (see below),
whether there is an archive
(and how to access it), and a great many others. This
information is usually contained in a HELP (or FAQ or INFO) file. There are two
schools of thought about the HELP files: one is that you should
get it and keep a printed copy on file; the other is that you
should wait until you need it so you can get the latest one.
Both arguments have merit: the main thing is to keep the welcome
note. If it contains directions for unsubscribing and for
obtaining the HELP file, you can probably wait. If it does not,
then you should probably request the help file straightway so
that at least you know how to unsubscribe or signoff.
If the owner is identified, my
advice is to suppress the impulse to send him/her a query about
the mailing list. Keep in mind that people sponsor lists largely
out of the goodness of their hearts; and nobody wants to add a
bunch of administrative chores to his or her workload. There are
a number of frequently asked questions (FAQ), for which
there is usually a file of standard answers, called a FAQ file,
a HELP file, or simply FAQ. More than likely your initial
questions are all answered in the FAQ. When you subscribe to a
mailing list the list server will frequently send you an
acknowledgment and include a mini-help file (sometimes called a
welcome note) that tells you a little about the list, how to
post a message, and with advice about how to unsubscribe as a
minimum. The more helpful welcome messages also tell you how you
can get a HELP file or the FAQ file, whether there is an ARCHIVE, and other
useful information. All this goes into your file for that
mailing list; and it is used to build the proper entries in your
Address Book. Remember, when
you have a problem with a mailing list, it usually relates to
the fact that you do not know which address to use, or you can't
find the right one, or the one you thought was right causes a
bounce. If you don't have a file of this information, the next
result is lots of risk of embarrassment (both for you and your
employer or Internet service provider).
Some mailing lists have a "digest"
edition to which you can subscribe. In that model, some
administrator (or more likely, some computer) accumulates the
postings for a day or a week or until a certain number are in
hand (or until some other criterion is met). Then, the mail
handler sends the collected "digest" to all the digest
recipients as a single message. This can reduce the number of
messages, but it does not change the total volume of
information, of course.
Most mailing
lists keep an archive of past distributions (that are
kept for a very
long time). In those cases, you can view them by subject
or author and download the ones you want. If you are restricted
in your e-mail volumes, there are often ways to become a passive
subscriber in which you have access to the archive, but you do
not receive any of the regular distributions. This can change
the volumes dramatically; but it requires you to take action
every time you want to see what has been distributed recently.
And this defeats one of the principal purposes of subscribing to
a mailing list.
Some mailing
lists are one-way (or distribution- only) lists, and some are
two-way or interactive. In a one-way list, some
moderator collects the material and receives all the posts (or
simply thinks them up). He or she then picks what is distributed
to those on the list. More common are the interactive lists
in which the subscribers are all contributors. In this model,
everybody hears what everybody else wants to say (though the
relevance criteria tend to be interpreted much more broadly).
If you subscribe
to an interactive list, be sure you know what you are
doing when you reply to a post. Remember that in some
mailers, when you hit the "Fwd/Reply" button, it will pick up
the e-mail address which sent you the material and prepare to
send your reply to them. For an individual e-mail message that
is exactly what you want. For a mailing list message, you likely
will get the mailing list's address, however (because that is
who sent you the message). Whatever you reply will then go to
the mailing list, which will be automatically distributed it to
all the (perhaps hundreds or thousands) of subscribers. You can
really be embarrassed if your reply was intended only for the
author of the post. See also section "Replying and Replying with
a (short) Quote" above.
Warning: When
you submit or post an article in an Internet forum or to a
mailing list (by whatever means) you need to keep in mind that
you then take on the role of publisher in some important
respects (particularly as it relates to the law). I am no
lawyer; but you might like to keep in mind some of the
following:
to be certain that you have permission for all your
quotations (see Copying
E-mail Messages, above),
to be careful about libel and slander, especially if you
are hot under the collar about something. [In general, by the
way, if you are going to dispute something, take it up
individually with the person with whom you disagree.
Admittedly, this is less satisfying, especially for some egos.
But it is quite a bit better for the welfare of the list.
Later, you and your adversary can post your differences in a
form which contains more light and less heat. Or maybe the two
of you can even collaborate in a really elegant exposition of
both sides of the issue.]
See also the "Big Copying
Hazard" section above. When exchanging humor, you need
to really think about this one.
Mailing Lists and Other
Internet Forums - Guidelines for Posting
In posting messages to mailing lists or any Internet forum, the
following
general guidelines may be helpful. These apply equally well, of
course, to Weblogs (or blogs), social networking sites, and the like.
Read the items posted by others for a while before
considering your own posting. By reading a while, you gain a
much better understanding of the purposes, relevance criteria
and subject matter of the list. [This "read-only" activity is
called "lurking," by the way. And some people who, after lurking
for a while, actually make a post, call it "de-lurking." I would
be more inclined to call it "participating." But who knows?]
Post only questions, information and comments that are
relevant to the subject of the list and which are not
answered already in the FAQ or help files. Many
experienced Internet users are surprisingly short-tempered about
irrelevant or off-topic postings; and you save a lot of time and
embarrassment by checking the FAQ file before posting a question
answered there.
Please do not post personal messages (even if replying to a
post), complaints (sometimes called flames), or test messages.
Send personal messages and complaints to the person concerned.
Read the welcome post to learn how to post a message. If others
post contrary items, please do not respond to them, except
individually. In particular, please do not respond to nuisance
posts like "is anybody out there?" or "does this list work?" It
only adds clutter nobody wants.
Perhaps the most-appreciated guideline for posting is the
following: "if you do not have anything to say, don't say it."
[I wish I knew who coined it]. Perhaps its corollary is that you
probably do not need to post a reply to every post on which you
have an opinion. List readers often complain of being annoyed by
reading most of a quoted post followed by "right on!" or some
such reply. If you have a reply, make it a substantial one: tell
subscribers why you think it is such a good (or bad) idea. Add
your point of view with cited facts (not just opinion) whenever
you can.
If you are answering a question posed by another subscriber,
it is often a good idea to send your answer to that subscriber
rather than to the list. If the question was of interest to most
readers, and your answer is also of interest to most
readers, then direct your answer to the list. When you do answer
to the list, be sure your answer is substantial. In a busy list,
it becomes very tedious to wade through a number of fairly
obvious one-line answers. Assume the person has a rudimentary
understanding of the subject matter; and if it is clear that
they do not, then that is a signal that you should answer them
individually, perhaps with a reference to the FAQ or other
introductory material that will point them in the right
direction.
If you ask a question, request answers be sent to you at your
individual e-mail address, and indicate that you will post a
summary of the answers when you have them all in hand. [Then,
don't let it slip]. Although this reduces the immediacy of the
distribution of the answers, it also keeps redundant and very
specialized answers from cluttering the list. The summary, when
it comes, is a more-or-less complete answer in a single post
(convenient for filing by those directly affected). For
questions of wide general interest, the summary is then also a
good candidate for posting in the frequently-asked questions
(FAQ) file. [Remember that you are receiving a favor from other
readers when they send you the answers to your questions. Your
opportunity to return the favor is to prepare a timely,
well-prepared and complete summary of the answers.]
Be sure your post is signed with your name and e-mail
address. If your post is garbled in any way that loses or
mangles your "reply-to" header, nobody has any way to reach you.
Moreover, some mail handlers (curiously) hide the e-mail address
of the sender when the message is distributed by a list. If you
provide your e-mail address as part of your message, then a
backup is available. A signature file
is useful for this purpose; and it should be included in every
e-mail message to a mailing list. (Note: The detailed steps for
creating a
signature file are available; and they are written for
those not familiar with creation of plain text files).
In any posting to a mailing list, be sure to turn OFF any
request for a confirmation or acknowledgment of delivery that
your mailer allows. These confirmations (also called "confirm
reading" or "confirm delivery" options) create a monumental
annoyance to mailing list administrators. There is hardly a
quicker way to reap scorn or get yourself dropped from a list
than to ask for a confirmation. In fact, for your Internet
e-mail generally, turn off the confirmation request option.
Every mail handler is different; some can handle it; some
cannot. And it doubles the amount of e-mail traffic for very
little return. It is about like sending out every letter at the
post office by "return receipt requested." You would not want to
impose that on anybody unless it was really necessary. Just rely
on the reply to your e-mail to confirm that the original message
was received.
Before replying individually to any post, be SURE that the
"To:" address is NOT the mailing address of the list, but rather
the individual to whom you are responding (see above).
Do not post advertisements. Most e-mail users are more
annoyed by it than you might think. If you have some information
that could look like an ad, check the welcome note and FAQ for
announcement or endorsement guidelines, or (as a last
resort) be in touch with the list owner about your post before
the fact. Announcements or endorsements that are free from hype
are often acceptable; but they need to be very low-key
to avoid offense of any sort. "Tell me; don't sell me" is often
the sentiment of experienced subscribers. They want to know
about things; they just don't want the hype, or an attempted
sales job. See also the section "Avoid
Sending 'Spam' E-mail Messages to Anyone" above.
Keep in mind that many lists have subscribers in many
countries, with many different social norms, different
religious, racial, political and sexual preferences, and
different styles of humor. You will need to think carefully at
times to be sure that your post is not unintentionally offensive
or confusing to those not sharing your cultural heritage or
traditions.
Don't send
attached files in a message to be posted to a mailing
list until you have checked whether it works or not. Some list
servers can handle it ok, of course. Others just ignore the
attachment. Worse, some list servers are really fouled up by
attached files. Don't give yourself and possibly your employer a
bad name by doing it without knowing how it will work out. Find
out who the list owner is, and ask him. But check the FAQ first,
there will likely be something in there about attached files.
If your post is a reply to another post, quote a little
piece of the post you are replying to in your post. See the
section "Replying and
Replying with a (short) Quote" above.
Always include a signature file
in your posts to mailing lists. There are always new subscribers
who do not know you and your affiliations yet. (Note: The
detailed steps for creating a
signature file are available; and they are written for
those not familiar with creation of plain text files).
.
WARNING: Keep in mind that there is virtually no way
to stop any kind of an Internet post once you have sent it. You
can't "undo," retract, recant, renounce, repudiate, withdraw,
call back, stifle or suppress it; and you can't "cover it up."
It is just gone (and it will be "out there" for a very long time).
Theoretically, the list manager (or any forum manager) could
intercept it before the listserver broadcasts it; but in
practice you will be very hard-pressed to find a list
manager who will even listen to your plea for a recall. The only
time to think, re-read, re-consider (and perhaps calm down, take
several deep breaths, or re-read from another point of view) is
before hitting the "send" or "upload" button. Once the
message is broadcast there is not even a theoretical way to
recall it, of course. Worse, every recipient has only his or her
sense of goodwill to keep from distributing it further, holding
it up to ridicule, etc. And, if all that weren't bad enough,
there are organizations who make it their business to archive
newsgroup, mailing list and other postings (and often to sell
lists of names and e-mail addresses harvested therefrom). How
long will it be until there is a forum "Life's Embarrassing
Moments" (or worse) that features all the embarrassing posts of
every sort that they can find?
.
This may be one of the best reasons, by the way, not to compose
"hot" responses in your e-mail client's editor. Ask yourself how
easy it is to hit "send" by mistake. Ask yourself how often you
have done that. Either leave out the "To:" address while
composing, or use your text editor instead. When you have
something that's safe to send, then enter the "To:"
address, or copy the message from your text editor to your e-mail
client's editor, or hit the "upload" button. [Then, re-read it again
before you send it. :-) See also our caution on privacy,
especially the section on "records."]
.
And while we are in "by-the-way" mode here, another thing to keep
in mind about posting to mailing lists or newsgroups or any
Internet forum including social networking websites (see our note
about "Social Networking Websites and Living in a
Digital World" in the Getting Started ... section) is that it
virtually guarantees that your message will be kept "alive"
for a very long time. It is often easy to think of a
comment, made more-or-less in passing, particularly one made in
response to a claim by another subscriber, as being somewhat akin
to a comment in any conversation: pertinent for the moment, and
then forgotten. Remember, however, that most mailing lists and
other forums have archives
of historical posts that are kept substantially forever.
Remember also that inasmuch as your message goes to lots of
subscribers and visitors (at least hundreds, and perhaps
thousands), it will be in in-boxes (and therefore logged into
in-box queues) in lots of places. You will almost never have
access to delete these messages anytime, even though you wrote
them. These in-box and other queues are routinely backed up on
every machine that holds your message. I encountered a log of
messages on a desktop computer not too long ago that still had
messages from 1991 (!) because the person did not know how to
purge their own messages (or even that such a thing might be
necessary). Heaven knows how many backup files those messages are
on. The point here is that sometime in the future you will be
pleasantly (or perhaps not) surprised when somebody dredges up a
message you wrote years ago, have forgotten about entirely, and on
the subject of which you have changed your views completely over
the intervening years. It is tough enough to be repudiated in an
argument; but when your opponent can quote YOU, it can be seen as
quite ridiculous.
.
In case you want to check two interesting possibilities in this
area, here are two businesses who will snoop around and see what
others are saying about you or your business or your brand name.
One is Cyber
Alert Internet Monitoring and the other is Cyveillance.
Hey, this is the Information Age. And there is no
shortage of outfits who will do this sort of thing in less than
ethical ways, too.
.
It is worth the effort to be seen as a team member on a
mailing list by following the rules. Keep in mind that
some mail handlers have what are called "filters" or "kill
files." When the owner puts your name on his/her kill file, any
in-bound message with your name is deleted before it even gets
into the mailbox. About the second time he is really annoyed by
a message from you or your employer, he might even put the
entire domain name in his kill file. Then nobody's mail will get
through. We don't want to be painted with that brush under any
circumstances.
Mailing Lists - Vacation
Messages and Closing your E-mail Account
When you go on vacation or when you leave your employment where you
subscribed to mailing lists, it may be helpful to keep the following
ideas in mind:
If you subscribe to high volume mailing lists, your mailbox
could become full while you are on vacation (see above).
When this happens, your mail handler starts "bouncing" all
your messages back to the senders. In most mailing lists, these
bounces are directed back to the owner. And all your
messages are bounced: not just the messages from the high-volume
lists. As you might imagine, it is more than a little tiresome
to be running a list in your spare time, and having to deal with
bounces from people who have not even thought far enough ahead
to unsubscribe or hold their messages while they are away.
A similar thing happens if you leave your employment without
signing off from your lists, and your erstwhile employer
subsequently deletes your e-mail address. Since you then become
an "unknown addressee," mailing list messages start bouncing.
Furthermore, after your e-mail address is deleted, only the list
owner (or other privileged operator) can unsubscribe your name,
because most list servers are configured to accept list commands
only from the e-mail address you used when you subscribed. Don't
be the one who visits that on the head of some poor
volunteer list owner. Signoff all your mailing lists several
days before you leave, at least. This gives time to respond also
to messages from a few lists you forgot about. Of course, this
can happen any time you close an e-mail address, whether or not
it relates to your employment.
Signoff lists first; close e-mail addresses second. :-)
If you have a problem with mail volumes filling your mail
box, switch to the digest edition (above),
or see if your system administrator will cache the posts for
access by everybody at your installation. This tends to be
better received by sysadmins when several people at the
installation all want to subscribe to the list.
If your mailer has a "vacation message" or "out
of office" option, be very careful that you know how it
works. Typically, it is an option to automatically send an
out-bound message (or reply) that is triggered by any in-bound
message for you while you are away. The out-bound message (often
called the "vacation message") simply states that you are on
vacation at the moment, sometimes indicates when you will
return, and may even refer callers to others for satisfaction of
immediate needs. Some handlers will only send one single
vacation message to any caller (no matter how many messages they
send you while you are away). Others are not so well-mannered.
In these cases, every message from a mailing list will trigger a
"vacation message" response. That would be bad enough by itself.
In some cases, however, the message is sent to the mailing list,
where the list server thinks it is a new post for all the
subscribers. It duplicates it dutifully and sends it to
everybody on the list ... ... one of whom is you. In an
instant you have created what list managers and owners call a "vicious
loop." Most list servers can handle these problems by
noticing that the messages are repeating without changes. Others
do not handle them well at all. In every case, many people are
annoyed. Don't use any kind of vacation message unless you are dead
certain that you have signed off all your lists first. It
is a very efficient way to make enemies big time.
In a related vein, be very careful of using automatic
forwarding filters or options on your e-mail account if you are
subscribed to mailing lists. If you want some mailing list
distributions at some other address, either forward them
manually, or else just sign off that list and re-subscribe at
the address where you want it delivered. The problem with
automatic forwarding is that when there is a problem at the
ultimate address, the mail is bounced. There is nothing
surprising about that, except that when the bounce gets back to
the mailing list owner (who is a volunteer, doing this out of
the goodness of his/her heart, remember), the bounce shows an
address fault for an address s/he does not have on the
subscriber list. Now the poor list owner has a problem with
bouncing mail, and s/he has no idea where to start looking
for the culprit. Please don't be the one who visits that
on the head of some poor volunteer list owner, either.
There are thousands of Mailing Lists on a very large variety
of topics. Several web sites maintain searchable data bases of
mailing lists. Topica's Liszt site contains a comprehensive index of
thousands and thousands of lists in its data base. It is convenient
to use and quickly searches on your key word(s). Its developers say
they will keep it very current with list offerings. It is often very
busy, however.
The CataList Reference Site by L-soft
International describes thousands of public lists out of many more
thousands of LISTSERV lists, and can also be browsed by size
(number of subscribers), country, topic, etc. It may be more
up-to-date than some other mailing list indexes.
Search engines will no doubt return other useful sites in
response to a query such as "Mailing Lists."
Most mailing list descriptions are far from ideal in helping you
to decide whether or not to subscribe. Partly this is because
everybody is a volunteer, and nobody has time to write a nice
description. Partly it is because everybody is a contributor in
most mailing lists, and therefore the subject matter (and
certainly the emphasis) tends to shift with time and the current
interests of contributors. You may also be interested to know that
most lists have seasonal content shifts which relate to how busy
the contributors are. What you saw in June, for example, may be
quite different from what you will see in September when all the
academics, at least, start a new school year. The only reliable
ways to find out if you can benefit from a mailing list is to
subscribe and read the posts for a few weeks, or to examine the
archive of recent posts.
Upon locating a Mailing List whose purpose suits your needs,
subscribing is fairly easy. Generally it consists of sending an
e-mail message to the Mailing List Server leaving the subject line
blank, and with a message (starting in the first character of the
first line of the body) such as:
subscribe LISTNAME Yourfirstname Yourlastname
if it is a LISTSERV or LISTPROC server, or with a message
such as:
subscribe LISTNAME
if it is a MAJORDOMO server. If you foul it up, but have the
mailing list server address right and the "sub" of "subscribe,"
the list server will typically send you some suggestions about
subscribing correctly. The description of the Mailing List which
is returned from any of the mailing list data bases above will
also contain subscription instructions. Remember when subscribing
to a mailing list that your subscription request is going to be
processed by a computer. Not starting in the first character of
the first line of the body of the message, or including your
signature file, or including any other comments or questions will
only confuse the software.
There is a caution,
however, about subscribing to Mailing Lists. Keeping track of
the addresses of the servers, the mailing lists and their
owners (which are all separate, but easy to confuse), and
knowing when to send a message to the server, to the mailing
list or to the owner (or sometimes even the manager) can be
taxing for new Internet e-mail users. Furthermore, sending a
message to the wrong address can be embarrassing to you and/or
annoying to others. For those new to Internet e-mail and
Mailing Lists, see the section on Mailing
Lists above. For those new to e-mail, you may wish to
review our Caution on
Privacy before doing much of anything with e-mail or
other on-line services.
You may also wish to keep in mind that the subscriber list for
most mailing lists is public information. On most lists, you can
conceal your subscription, but you need to take specific measures
to do so (and most subscribers do not do it). The welcome message
will usually detail these steps. If you conceal your subscription,
then those who locate contacts by that means will miss you, of
course.
Getting off a mailing list is
easy if you kept the welcome message which tells you the rules and the commands (one of which is
unsubscribe or signoff). This information is also usually in the
list's "help" or information file (see rules and commands, above).
The general form is to send an e-mail message to the mailing list
server (whose address is in the welcome note, or in the help file)
with the command "unsubscribe" or "signoff" and the name of
the mailing list (and sometimes including your name or
e-mail address). There are several forms; and you need to get the
right one from the list's welcome note or help file.
The big thing is to suppress the impulse to write to the list
owner and ask him/her to sign you off. S/he is a volunteer, who
is running the list in his/her spare time and who does not need
the additional work either.
Starting your own mailing list can be a very rewarding experience.
You can assemble a community
of interest that is not presently being served; your list can
provide a significant incentive for some people to enter into and
participate in the Information Age; and you can do it (mostly) on
your own terms. Any mail handler can be used to operate a list with
a small number of subscribers; and there is no shortage of list
server software and services if your list grows.
That's the up-side.
The down-side is that it can also become a monumental source of
grief, especially if the list topic is interesting to a broad
spectrum of subscribers. It can make or break long-standing
friendships; and it can change your life in fundamental ways.
The notion of list "ownership" is changing in important ways as
global information exchange becomes a popular means of
interaction. In the not-too-distant past a list owner was king of
the mountain. It was his "baby;" and he did whatever he liked ...
more or less. Anybody who wanted to start a competing list with a
slightly different charter was welcome to it. The latter is still
true, of course; but ownership is gravitating more and more toward
the body of subscribers now. They always were the owners of the
content, of course. But now they are being seen as having a
greater entitlement to control of the list, its operations and its
charter.
Most new lists go through fairly predictable phases. (See "The Natural Life Cycle Of Mailing Lists,"
a classic from Kat Nagel (1994) that talks about some of the
social aspects of mailing lists). There is the initial
enthusiasm, lots of posts and lots of new subscribers. After a few
hundred subscribers have joined, inevitably some sort of
disagreement arises and is hashed out. Also inevitably, somebody
becomes rude or makes personal attacks, and a whole bunch of
subscribers opt out (often many of the best contributors,
unfortunately). And sometimes the offending subscriber(s) is(are)
ousted. Then the list either slowly dies, or comes to some sort of
equilibrium with the remaining subscribers, and on a more subdued
level. Moderated lists can defer the fight phase to some extent,
of course. In some (so far, rare) cases, list members who have
been ousted from the list have threatened to sue the list owners.
I don't know of any suit that has actually been tried; but even
the threat can be unsettling. As one harried list owner said, "...
and the tormentors have pretty much fallen to just wondering why
we're willing to do all of what we do for free. And ya know ... I
don't know if there's a real good answer for that." If nothing
else, this evolution of ownership will add interest to the life of
a list owner.
The best advice I can offer is to be sure you talk to lots of
list owners before you start. And subscribing to a list or joining
a newsgroup or other forum for list owners to see what they talk
about, what the problems are, how they are resolved, etc., might
be a good eye-opener.
List-Managers Mailing List - a web page
describing this mailing list "for discussions of issues related
to managing Internet mailing lists, including (but not limited
to) methods, mechanisms, techniques, policies, and software (in
general; questions about specific software packages should be
directed to the mailing list dedicated to that particular
package)." Alternately, to get the information letter via
e-mail, send an e-mail message to {majordomo@greatcircle.com} ..
[direct e-mail]
Leave the subject line blank, and enter the line below, starting
in column 1 of the first line of the body of the message. Then,
delete your signature file, etc., and send the message. Their
robot will send you the information letter by return mail.
info list-managers.
Jakob
Nielsen (web design and usability guru) has posted an item
on Mailing List Usability (Aug, 2000), which
covers lots of points for new (and established) mailing list
owners.
"Mailing list content must be ultra-short. Provide separate
email addresses for subscribing and unsubscribing and include
info on how to get off in every mailing list message. Improved
usability increased subscriptions by 128% in one case study."
"Email
Universe" says it is an open, unmoderated discussion list
for the benefit of list-moderators. It is a gathering place for
list- moderators to share their experiences and wisdom, and for
newly appointed list-moderators to learn the trade. Discussions
which would be on topic include techniques and tools to assist
moderation, how to deal with troublesome posters, encouraging a
particular list culture without appearing too authoritarian, how
to spot posters attempting to use and abuse the system,
text-layout styles for newsletters, etc. Subscription
information is at the above website.
Two articles by Anita Blanchard, who has studied virtual
communities, why they are formed and how they are maintained may
be of interest. Both articles shed light on the loss of
nonverbal, social and other interpersonal communication cues
through e-mail use, the early theories about which were called
"cues-filtered-out" theories. They predicted that "participants
in CMC could not maintain relationships because of the medium's
inability to convey an awareness of the presence of others and
the lack of other important social cues. The development of
virtual communities was thus quite unexpected in light of these
theories." [The quotation is from the Blanchard Paper "Virtual Behavior Settings: An Application of
Behavior Setting Theories to Virtual Communities."]
What Does Access to
E-mail and Other Internet Postings Mean?
Access to e-mail and other mechanisms for global information
exchange can be as trivial as a quick method to send someone a note,
or a convenient way to send what would otherwise be sent in a fax.
Of much greater significance, however, is the ability to join, form
and contribute to global communities of interest, and the
opportunities for intellectual interaction which they foster. It is
difficult to overstate the longer term and strategic implications of
these associations. They will be a pivotal component of the Information
Age, which will change forever the ways we think, learn, work,
play and live. Below is an excerpt from a draft background paper
concerning Strategic
Planning for Information Technology and Telecommunications
(100 Kb) which gives a hint of the potential of these communities of
interest and their intellectual interaction.
Global communities
of interest have been assembled through use of mailing
lists, electronic bulletin boards, chat lines, blogs and other
discussion forums, Internet Usenet or Bitnet Newsgroups, etc.
Traditional communities of geographic proximity are augmented by
these communities of interest, where hobbies, medical conditions,
professions, athletic and sporting news, automobiles, movie and
video heroes, political and religious leanings, and virtually any
other interest are discussed and debated with world-wide
perspective and participation. A posting in an Internet Newsgroup,
for example, may be read by tens or even hundreds of thousands of
individuals from among the 30 to 100 million (or more) Internet
subscribers within a few hours. These communities of interest are
formed substantially without regard to geographic proximity or
political boundaries. And in the foreseeable future, if costs
continue to decline and accessibility continues to expand, the
only limits will be the levels of interest themselves. The
associations thus formed are without precedent for humanity, and
promise great potential for cooperative problem-solving, skill
exchange and unified action. These dynamic communities of interest
may be long- term or short-term as associations are formed to meet
particular needs, and dissolved when they are no longer pertinent.
Traditional communities, formed by proximity to employment, will
become communities of choice as increasing numbers of people
relocate near centers of recreational, family or creative interest
rather than near centers of employment. Increasingly,
telecommuting will become an important enabler favoring both
desirable employment options and desirable living locations.
The exchange of e-mail
messages, participation in mailing lists, bulletin boards and
Newsgroups, and the browsing of information on the World-Wide
Web stimulates intellectual interaction unlike any that
humanity has seen to date. Print and broadcast media have
traditionally provided a degree of one-to-many intellectual transfer,
but very little interactivity. Because of their large
and relatively heterogeneous audiences, and because of the
financial requirement to please both sponsors and larger and
larger audiences, only relatively low levels of intellectual
sophistication have ever been reached. In these processes, scope
is inevitably narrowed. There are also many people, who, by
nature are not skilled participators in traditional social
interaction. Some of these will emerge as significant
participators or even leaders in these associations of
intellectual interaction. When these abilities for intellectual
interaction are carried out in communities of interest which are
very specialized (but can ultimately contain a great many of
those like-minded people from around the globe) the potential
for creativity and unified problem solution rises substantially
above what is otherwise attainable. In the foreseeable future,
it may be possible to form a community of virtually all the
persons on the planet who share a common intellectual interest.
Global learning and understanding could be profoundly affected
by the debates, conclusions and actions of such a community.
In order to gain the considerable benefits of the Information
Age, we all need to become involved in and participate in
these communities of interest, and in the intellectual interaction
which e-mail and other mechanisms for global information exchange
foster. E-mail is the thin edge of the wedge with which we can begin
our voyage of discovery and participation. Let's jump in, take
advantage, and make our voices for improved ways of doing things be
heard.
The Rand Corporation has released an extensive research report "Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and
Societal Implications," a summary of which is also available.
Their conclusions indicate that e-mail should be made universally
available in the U.S., and that such an effort would have a solid
democratizing effect throughout the developed world.
"Predicting E-mail Effects in Organizations"
has been posted by the "First Monday" Internet journal (about).
In
the 2000s and beyond, "electronic mail (e-mail) will be a
pervasive communication medium creating new possibilities and
having unforeseen consequences in organizations. This paper
attempts to predict e-mail developments and subsequent issues in
organizations. System designers and managers need to look beyond
the efficiency and productivity gains of technology to second
level effects in order find the primary e-mail issue for
organizations with the continued expansion of global
telecommunications networks." The section "Looking Ahead at E- mail and Organizations"
advises systems professionals "to treat the user of an e-mail
system 'not merely as a customer or client of information
services, but also as a processor or co-processor to be integrated
into the system design'."
How to Cope with
Unwanted E-mail (often called "spam")
What do you do if you are receiving unwanted advertisements,
invitations to join pyramid schemes and requests to participate in
chain letters? What do you do if you receive offensive or
objectionable material in an e-mail message? What do you do if you
receive e-mail messages with very large graphics or other files
attached, and which are clogging up your mail box (or inflating your
service fees)? What do you do if you are subscribed to a mailing list which chokes your mailbox
with messages?
These are big problems in the Information
Age. The Internet was made for easy exchange of e-mail
messages; and e-mail addresses are easy to find. Unfortunately
that makes it easy for others to send you messages which may be
annoying or worse. These messages, by the way, are often called
"spam," and the activity is called "spamming." This label is
applied to the full range of unwanted e-mail messages, from
off-topic mailing list posts to the most offensive materials.
The following are informal suggestions for information
only. They are not legal advice; and none of them is
recommended or endorsed by me or anybody.
The best cure is often to ignore these messages as if you had not
received them. In many cases the lack of any response will cause the
offender to move on to other activities, dropping you from his list.
What I do is to first sort my in-bound mail by subject (or by
sender, if I am looking for some particular sender), and flag for
deletion all the messages which are spam. All the "make millions"
and "Read This First" messages are obvious; others are not. Anyhow,
I just delete these messages without even opening them. Some mail
handlers have so-called "kill files" or "filters" which can be set
to automatically delete any file from certain senders or with
certain subjects, etc., before they even enter your in-box.
Although you can follow the steps below for any unwanted
messages, your pleas for help will likely fall on deaf ears in the
case of unwanted advertisements, chain letters, etc. Advertisers
will soon tire of sending you invitations which you ignore; and
service providers can spend endless hours trying to track down and
discourage every new advertiser who pops up.
If your problem is that you
were subscribed to a mailing list you do not want, see the steps
above for vacation signoff
procedures, and follow them. If you do not know about
mailing lists, it is time for a crash course: see above. And, as a last resort, locate
the mailing list owner (one of three
important mailing list addresses) and ask him to unsubscribe
you. He will expect you to have tried to do it yourself
first, however.
When the messages are very offensive, and when simply ignoring
these messages does not work, you may consider trying some of the
additional steps below.
One potentially helpful initial response (which requires you to
set aside rule number one above, and which requires a good deal of
patience) is to make a copy of the offending message.
Whenever you make a copy of an e-mail message, by the way, be
sure you copy all the headers. The headers are the
"To:," "From:" and "Subject:" lines (and others). Most mail
handlers only display a portion of these headers in the routine
case, so you have to turn them all on (or ask for "full
headers") before copying the message. [Look in "Options" or in
"File | Properties" for ways to change how the headers are
displayed.] Other mail handlers, even though you have turned on
full headers, will only copy the message (or only the message
with abbreviated headers) to the file. My mailer is like the
latter. What I do is to turn on full headers. Then I highlight
or select all the headers and the entire message and copy it to
the clipboard. Then I go into my text editor, paste the whole
thing into a text only file, and save it (as text only) to a
file. Most of the full header text is incomprehensible to us
neophytes, by the way; but they contain important information.
Anyhow, the rest of this initial response is to then send the person
a message that very politely asks him not to continue. Your
objective here is to help him to see that there is increased risk in
continuing his practice without making him angry. Keep a
copy of your message(s) and any reply or replies. Avoid being drawn
into a discussion with the person, no matter how much his reply
offends you. The idea here is to make a record of the offense and
the fact that you have asked him to stop.
In lots of cases, your message to him will bounce. Most spammers
and many advertisers deliberately disable their "Reply To:" and
return addresses so that replies are not delivered to them. Some
spammers even forge some unrelated return address so that any
replies go to that person (and often annoy them too). In such a
case, just keep a copy of the bounced message when it is returned
to you. It contains lots of important information about the
"bounce" that will come in very handy later.
If your mail reaches him (or at least does not bounce), but has
no apparent effect, a helpful next step may be to write to the
postmaster at his Internet Service Provider (ISP) asking for help.
If the offender's "Reply To:" e-mail address is:
donkey@provider.com
for example, then you can send your message to his postmaster at:
postmaster@provider.com
Most ISPs have an e-mail name "postmaster" which is routed to the
person who oversees their e-mail services. Keep in mind that these
people are very busy, but are usually interested in helping if one
of their subscribers is doing something that is against the law.
Here again, make your case very politely and include copies
of the original offense, your request to the spammer to stop (and
any replies). This is where your "full headers" copy pays off. The
postmaster can tell from the full headers of the offending messages
whether one of his subscribers actually sent the mail, or whether
the domain name was forged, etc. If the message actually originated
at his domain name, the postmaster will likely take some action that
will help. Other times, of course, you get no response from the
postmaster either. This latter case arises most often in the case of
unwanted advertisements.
Another step you can take is to enlist the help of your own ISP.
Here again, there is likely a postmaster there who might help.
If your e-mail address is:
SensibleUser@good-provider.com
for example, then you can send a message to your postmaster at:
postmaster@good-provider.com
and, alternately, you can call your account representative at your
ISP and discuss it with him.
Here again, your purpose is to very politely ask him if
he has any suggestions concerning your plight. Include all the
pertinent copies mentioned above, and also your message (including
any reply or bounce) from the postmaster at the offender's ISP.
Frequently, your postmaster knows the offender's postmaster; and
even if the latter apparently ignored your message, your
postmaster may be able to reach him. Often, they have worked
together to solve other problems in the past.
Your ISP may have some suggestions concerning changes to your
e-mail address. Keep in mind that such a change might attract a
fee, and that you will then have to send messages to all your
correspondents notifying them of the change. Furthermore, any
message sent to you at the old address will then bounce, with
no forwarding information. That is what you want for the spammer;
but likely not for anybody else.
As this problem increases, thoughtful ISPs will develop services
to trap these unwanted messages, and forward you only the messages
you want. These services will likely be priced well above plain
old e-mail services, however, because they will require a lot of
manual maintenance to keep them current.
Finally, if all of the above fails, you can take the contents of
your file (printed on hard copy), and go see your lawyer. He may
have some suggestions for further action.
Related Thoughts:
At times you will see services offered that claim they will
end your spamming nightmares. Be careful of engaging these
services. Some of them put your name and e-mail address on lists
sent to spammers asking them to stop sending messages to these
people. All the worst spammers do is to look for names on these
lists that they do not already have. Bummer.
The Anti-Defamation
League posts some suggested remedies for combating
unwanted hate and anti-semitism messages on the Internet. They
also provide links to other websites which may contain useful
information about unwanted or inappropriate e-mail messages.
JunkBusters
offers some ideas for dealing with unwanted ads, etc., too.
Have you received an e-mail message (or landed on a web page) in a
foreign language and had to scrounge for a friend to translate it
for you? Try Google Translate. You
paste a plain text version of the foreign language message (or the
URL of the web page) into the text box, and pick a translation
option. The result is far from ideal, but often it gives you enough
that you can at least figure out what the main thrust of the message
was. I wouldn't recommend it for translating messages going the
other way in most cases, however, unless you have a very
understanding correspondent in that language.
The HTML Writers Guild posts "The Netiquette Guidelines" which includes
the usual suggestions plus an "Actionable
Rules" section (giving reasons for suspensions, being
barred from posting, etc.).
"An email is not a text message or Facebook comment thread;
the process of composing an effective email requires more
thought and consideration on the part of the sender than most
other forms of online communication. An effective email is one
with a clear purpose that makes it easy for recipients to
respond."
The Rand Corporation has released an extensive research
report "Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and
Societal Implications," a summary of which is also available.
Their conclusions indicate that e-mail should be made
universally available in the U.S., and that such an effort would
have a solid democratizing effect throughout the developed
world. "Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic
Mail," is a Rand Corporation classic by Norman Z. Shapiro
and Robert H. Anderson, dating from 1985. It has a relaxed and
balanced tone, is written for the general reader and well worth
the time, especially for those new to e-mail.
An e-mail auto-responder (also called a mail robot, mailbot, mirror,
reflector, etc.) is a computer with an e-mail address and a bunch of
files handy. When you send an e-mail message to an auto-responder it
"reads" your message, and mails you back one or more of the files it
has handy. Typically, if it can't figure out what your message is
about, it mails you a HELP file that consists of a list of the files
it has handy, and the proper commands to have them sent to you.
Auto-responders are used to provide sales information and
to answer frequently-asked questions much as recorded messages are
used via telephone, and as auto-fax-back systems are used in
facsimile transmission systems. They run 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week; they don't take lunch or coffee breaks; and they always
answer immediately. As an example, BestNet
posts a page that describes their AutoResponder
service. Many such services are available, of course.
Early in the game mail clients handled plain ASCII text only. Then
others (inclucing those from Microsoft) added the ability to handle
different fonts, font sizes, colors, etc. [See the section "Using Rich Text Formats in
E-mail Messages" above]. The purists were all annoyed, of
course; but most people liked to see something better than plain
black Courier text. It wasn't long until somebody got the wise idea
to make a mail client that could interpret HyperText Markup Language
(HTML--the stuff web page source text is made of--see the definition of HTML
on our Help for New
World-Wide Web Users" page). Sometimes the mail client simply
transfers the HTML to the browser which interprets it as if it were
a web page. And sometimes the mail client just interprets the HTML
itself. Anyhow, the point is that it allows formatting, bold large
letters, colors, ... and can even handle tables, pictures, etc.,
much like a web page.
If you discover that your mail client can handle HTML Mail
Format, be careful not to use it (or Rich Text Format) in a
posting to most mailing lists. It can really rankle some list
owners. See the section "Using
Rich Text Formats in E-mail Messages" above. Of course, if
your mail client can read and display HTML Mail Format messages,
then you may also be able to create messages in HTML to send to
your friends. When you do that, be sure their mail client can
handle it first. Otherwise, what you have sent will look mostly
like nonsense to them.
E-mail Magazines (or just "Zines") are similar to mailing lists, but
often follow the traditional printed magazine (or periodical) model
more closely than mailing lists follow the printed newsletter model.
Zines are often distributed by e-mail (though some are also
distributed via web sites), and often have a small number of
contributors and a much larger number of subscribers. In some cases,
subscribers never contribute content to Zines. Zines also tend more
toward regular periodical distribution than being distributed as the
articles are contributed. Some mailing lists are classified both as
mailing lists and as Zines.
...Methods to access FTP, Archie, Gopher, Veronica, Usenet,
WAIS, Finger, Whois, and even the World-Wide Web via E-mail.
Bob Rankin (aka Dr. Bob) and Gerald E. Boyd have prepared a paper called "Accessing the Internet by
E-mail" to help those without access to FTP (file transfer
protocol), Archie, Gopher, Veronica, Usenet, WAIS, Finger, Whois, or
the World-Wide Web. He explains how to access these Internet
resources from e-mail. He also describes a bit about mailing lists,
and some other net goodies, along with his publications which can be
obtained for a fee.
If your e-mail is more reliable than your web service, Web2Mail
will regularly e-mail you a web page so you can watch for changes.
... thus avoiding toll charges and improving reliability.
CallWave
offers a service (ad supported, and requiring some demographic
information for targeting) in which they assign you a telephone
number you can advertise as your fax number. The fax is received,
attached to an e-mail message, and sent to your e-mail box (complete
with ads, presumably).
[1] Listserv was described at the no longer
available website "The Listserv Server." Sorry.
[2] Listproc, or ListProcessor, was
described at the no longer available website "ListProcessor
Version 6.0c Owners Guide Manual." Sorry.
[3] Majordomo - n. A person who speaks,
makes arrangements, or takes charge for another. The chief steward
or butler in the household of a sovereign or noble. From the Latin
"major domus," master of the house. ... Return to text.
________________________________
See also: The Rand Corporation's extensive research
report "Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and
Societal Implications," a summary of which is also available.
Their conclusions indicate that e-mail should be made universally
available in the U.S., and that such an effort would have a solid
democratizing effect throughout the developed world.
See also: "Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic
Mail," a Rand Corporation classic by Norman Z. Shapiro and
Robert H. Anderson, dating from 1985. It has a relaxed and
balanced tone, is written for the general reader and well worth
the time, especially for those new to e-mail.
See also: Rand Science and Technology Issue Paper: E-Mail Communication Between Government and
Citizens: Security, Policy Issues, and Next Steps. "Modern
network technologies--particularly electronic mail and the World
Wide Web--offer the potential for significantly enhancing
communication between government agencies and their citizen
clients. Because much of the communication between governments and
citizens involves the transmission of sensitive information,
however, the full potential of these new media will not be
realized until means are developed for secure interactions."
See also: The Harvard Business School Publishing website
posted a light reading piece "The Ten Commandments of E-mail: How
to cope with e-mail overload and more" which is unfortunately no
longer available, and which contained a number of good points:
Thou dost have several choices.
Thou shalt never print thine e-mail.
Thou shalt never send e-mail when furious or exhausted.
Thou shalt never substitute e-mail for a necessary
face-to-face meeting.
Thou shalt never delete names from thine address book.
Thou shalt never forward chain e-mail.
Neither shalt thou pass on rumor or innuendo about real
people.
Neither shalt thou do so about companies thou workest for or
may workest for one day.
Thou shalt remember the hierarchy and keep it sacrosanct:
First the meeting, then the phone call, then the voice mail,
then the e-mail.
Thou shalt send nothing over e-mail that must be error-free,
or secure, or private.
Title: The Meek Family Website - Help with
Internet E-mail and Mailing Lists.Contact for further information about this
page: Chet Meek. Voice: 780+433-6577; E-mail:
cmeek@ocii.comThe primary URL for this page is at:
http://www.GoChet.ca/h_email.htm Page last updated: 21 January 2020(Sm
2.33.n ff, w/SC; Win7pOn). Page
created: 10 June 1995.
Table of Contents for this page:
Return to Table of Contents. Go to Top | Bottom. 
Warning: When
you submit or post an article in an Internet forum or to a
mailing list (by whatever means) you need to keep in mind that
you then take on the role of publisher in some important
respects (particularly as it relates to the law). I am no
lawyer; but you might like to keep in mind some of the
following:
Return to the Table of Contents or the TOP of this page. 
). Page
created: 10 June 1995.