List Guide-lines

Boring but essential for us all! Please remember every message you send to the list is archived and stored on the Rootsweb computers who provide this mailing list for our use free of charge. We hope you find the following information helpful, please read it carefully.

Subject Headings

Please remember that informative subject headings are more likely to bring informative replies. Please, please, use CAPITAL LETTERS only for SURNAMES within the Subject Heading. This way is much easier for all and of course they will be archived in this way, so that future new members of this List may be able to search the back years for those very Surnames. These surnames will be hidden away under the subject ‘My Research Interests’.

Personal Mail & Chatting etc.

If you have a personal message for the sender, e.g. a non-relevant reply to the question asked of the List, please send it to their e-mail address, not to the list server address. Any mail sent to GLAMORGAN-L will automatically be sent to everyone on the list. Profanity/ swear words, and 'Flaming' are not permitted and are an 'unsubscribable' offence! If you feel you have a genuine grievance over something said to you by a fellow subscriber, please take it up with Jeff Coleman privately - that is what we're here for!

Replying to a List Message

To reply to a message you receive from the list you have two options:-

Bear in mind that your reply could contain information which would be interesting and informative to the List as a whole; so keeping the dialogue public is a good option.

The list is set up so that by using your & 'reply to' button, the post will in most cases go to the entire List. Be sure this is what you intend, otherwise use the 'reply' button or replace the list address with the originator's address. 

Writing to the List & e-mail etiquette

Writing to the List by leaving the 'CAPS LOCK' KEY SWITCHED ON IS REGARDED AS 'SHOUTING', AND CAN PROMPT SOME ANGRY RESPONSES. IT DOESN'T LOOK FRIENDLY DOES IT? Similarly, writing your messages all in lower case, is not good e-mail etiquette.

When posting to the list, please sign off with your location, as well as your name! The location is so that we can guide you to appropriate resources in your area. The Country and County where you reside is fine, as for security we do not wish you to broadcast your full address.

See also Malcolm's List etiquette.

Glossary of terms for mailing lists & e-mail

Flames Also 'flaming' or 'being flamed'. A slang term for e-mail messages sent to someone in order to express an opposing view or to criticize or reprimand another user for what might be considered inappropriate behaviour.

Lurking

Lurking refers to reading mailing list messages and learning the ins and outs of that group for a little while before you actually join in and begin posting messages yourself. By lurking, you can learn a lot about how newsgroups or mailing lists work, about netiquette and about what types of researchers are out in cyberspace with you.

It does become rather sad if you always lurk though as you will never actually discover the joy of communicating with others on the List and finding links with other researchers.

Signature 

A small text file that is automatically attached to the end of each outgoing e-mail message that you send.

Signature Etiquette

gives a whole lot of answers to any problems that you may have with subscribing to a Mailing List.

Thread

A string of ongoing discussions on a certain topic which takes place on a mailing list or in a newsgroup. A user will "follow a thread" when they read messages and continue to post inquiries or responses specific to some original posting on a mailing list or newsgroup.

Emoticons

Symbols & acronyms used to express an emotion or inflection of tone in e-mail messages. Visit the following web site for more examples of emoticons:

The unofficial smiley dictionary

You have unsubscribed me!!

This is a phrase is often sent to List Owners. Yes, it happens. The Rootsweb computer will unsubscribe you after four e-mails are returned within a short period. Commonly, this is caused by: 1] You've had a change of e-mail address and forgot to unsubscribe under the old address and re-subscribe under the new one. 2] Your available quota (disk space) was exceeded for four messages in a row. 3] Your ISP is rejecting mail, either to you or from Rootsweb. Do not ask the Administrator to resend all the missed mail to you. He/she does not have time to find out when you were unsubscribed and which messages you might be missing. Use the List's Archive. If you are unsure if you have been unsubscribed or not, why not check this out at Password Central.

Cut & Paste

Use Cut and paste to reply to messages and to ‘snip out’ the bulk of the message that you are replying to. When replying to the List, "Snip out" the non relevant parts of the message, for instance all the rest of the message in digest mode............