Return-Path: <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id fBBIkH014040; Tue, 11 Dec 2001 13:46:17 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 13:46:17 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3C1653C2.5000206@net-serv.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Karen McIntyre <kjmcinty@net-serv.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:497] Netiquette, subscribing and unsubscribing -- apology for length! X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Status: O Content-Length: 3934 Lines: 69 This list is only one of many I monitor in my position as a school librarian. I've been involved in lists since before the INET was graphical! There are simple rules of courtesy in using a listserv that ALL of us need to learn and follow. Many people are new to using a list, and there is a sense of camaraderie that exists when we find a group of people whose interests and opinions are similar to ours. Especially when there are so few of us in any one professional setting. The response to that warm feeling is to be chatty. When I first joined LM_NET (the school librarians list) there were fewer than 2,000 recipients. We could be a bit more chatty. As the list grew (it now numbers over 10,000) we either had to face splintering the list or modifying our desire to chat. We opted for the latter. We even go so far as to begin a message with TECH if it concerns technology, H.S. if it pertains only to high school librarians, if we are seeking an answer to a question we put TARGET in the subject. Then those people who can contribute to the answer email the individual who posted the message (NOT THE LIST) and that person posts a HIT which is an edited version of all the responses -- it is the only way we could maintain such a broad group without going over the edge. For those of you who are new to lists -- no one is angry with you for posting messages to someone individual on the list, but we do ask that you learn how to email that person directly rather than taking our time in deleting your message. It is also a waste of computing resources. Something we don't talk much of anymore since the pipeline is so enlarged. Since I monitor so many lists it is inconvenient for me to find messages directed at an individual here. Nancy has been quite generous and calm about this issue.....I have been in lists where the manager would simply give you a warning and then remove you from the list for continuing to not follow the rules. Nancy -- I might suggest that when someone joins that there be a standard message sent explaining the rules of the list and giving the directions for unsubscribing, setting the list to digest format and so on. You can find this information for yourself by getting a book about the Internet and finding the listserv commands. Most of the time you can use those and you will be able to terminate or initiate list membership even if you do not have the original message telling you how to subscribe and unsubscribe. http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~edweb/command.html is a site which will help you know a little bit about what a listserv is and how to get it to do what you want. All listserv lists use very similar commands. If you send an angry message about why you want to unsubscribe to the list it does nothing but irritate the 1,000s of people who receive it. To be effective you must send messages telling the listserv computer what you want it to do -- this is an entirely different email address - I hope this helps some of you understand that it is not rude or unreasonable that we request you make personal comments to one another off the list. It isn't so much an issue of patience as it is efficiency. -- Karen McIntyre,Librarian, kjmcinty@net-serv.com http://www.telelink.net/~westmead/Library/westmeade_library_page.htm Westmeade Elementary School 6641 Clearbrook Dr. Nashville, TN 37205 (615) 353-2066. *********************************************************************** Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions, themselves. Do not seek the answers which cannot be given because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answers. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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