Forwarded to all subscribers with permission of Cyndi Howells. This was written for the benefit of Listowners, but I thought that there is a lot of good advice here that should be considered by subscribers/users of these Lists. SgtGeorge Listowner **********Forwarded Message********** Hello all - Karen Isaacson and I have talked many times about how January effects our incoming e-mail flow. It is clearly a well-documented event now as we are already beginning to see it coming into play for the fourth-year running (since we first noted the phenomenon). I'm sure many of you will be seeing the same thing as List Owners and/or webmasters, so I thought I would pass on a bit of advice and food for thought. Each January we see a huge influx of newbies joining us online because Santa was generous and left a sparkling new computer under the tree. There are also many after-holidays sales which offer people the opportunity to purchase a snazzy new computer or modem. Many people get online for the first time and enthusiastically don their cyber-bikinis, hitting the surf with gusto. They are excited to be here and they are (much as we "oldbies" were) rightfully overwhelmed by all that there is to see and do. The language here is foreign to them. The technology is newer, fancier and zippier than they may have used in the past. And the way that we all participate in our giant, online genealogical society, while being very similar to offline groups, is still a bit different than they may be prepared for. In other words, it is a brave new world to them. I would like to put out a call to each of you to show these newbies that we are a friendly, welcoming and helpful group of online genealogists. To do so we all need to pitch in and show patience, understanding and kindness. We also need to put on our teaching caps and be prepared to show them the ropes. 1. Don't make assumptions. 2. Explain things in detail, include URLs and complete instructions. 3. Verify details and addresses before you send them to people. 4. Offer to help people privately via e-mail, off of the mailing lists. 5. Be prepared to explain things more than once, in more than one way. 6. Keep in mind that we were all new at one time. 7. Keep in mind that we all learn something new every day. There are several places online to which you can point newbies in order to help them learn about this new research venue. I have tried to make these easy to locate by setting up links on my site: Internet Stuff You Need To Know http://www.CyndisList.com/internet.htm Also be sure to point them to these basic starting places online: Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet http://www.CyndisList.com Your genealogical research portal onto the Internet RootsWeb http://www.RootsWeb.com See the RootsWeb Help Desk: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~help/index.htm Genealogy Resources on the Internet - Mailing Lists http://users.aol.com/johnf14246/gen_mail.html USGenWeb http://www.USGenWeb.org Good luck and successful surfing to everyone online - both newbies and oldbies, Cyndi ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Cyndi Howells Puyallup, Washington cyndihow@oz.net Cyndi's List - Over 39,400 links in over 90 categories! http://www.CyndisList.com My Book: "Netting Your Ancestors - Genealogical Research on the Internet" http://www.CyndisList.com/netting.htm