It's the first of the month. From time to time we post on the first of a month to remind people about our "rules". We're both really busy at the moment. As a result things have been slipping a bit, and we have not had as much time or patience as we would like and we feel we need to remind EVERYONE of our rules. We do NOT moderate this list. You are expected to moderate yourselves. This means sticking to the rules. If you can't we will moderate you as individuals. When we do this your messages get trapped and are only released when we allow them through, having vetted them. It's slow, it's tiresome, it takes our time and makes us grouchy, so stick to the rules and we can all be happy. Subject Lines: make them relevant, change them if you need to on a reply, DO NOT use DIGEST number blah as a subject line as this makes us really see red! If you reply to an email with ADMIN in the subject line-remove the word ADMIN as it is not for you to use. Signatures: Please sign your email and say where in the world you are. This helps people to answer you appropriately. A quick comment about the weather is fine but 20 lines on what you had for tea, how your neighbours garden is looking and what you are planning to wear to a Spring Ball is probably best left for personal replies. As a default the reply function defaults to list-so you are replying to everyone when you hit reply. Remembering this saves egg on your face :-) Snipping of previous emails is actively encouraged but please leave a line or two to remind us what the original poster said. Please CAPITALISE surnames, but not the whole name. Please also be specific about places, use Chapman codes for UK venues i.e. Leeds YKS or Liverpool LAN and if you are talking about places outside UK make sure it is obvious as there are sometimes several places with the same name around the world. The list remit is BRITISH Jewry. This includes dependencies, colonies, former colonies and member countries of the British Empire. However, be reasonable. We know the USA was once a colony but there are other lists dedicated to other areas and so they might be better places to post certain queries. Poland and Russia were never part of Britain. Emails about ancestors who came to Britain (in it's braodest sense) from there, or went there from Britain are fine. Emails about direct migration from one place outside of Britain to another are NOT within the remit of the list. We really don't want to be cranky with anyone so it would help us enormously if people could just stick to these rules and then we can put the headache tablets away and come out of our darkened rooms. Thanks for your understanding. Best wishes, Sherry & Jackye