As early as 2008, members of various Rootsweb mailing lists have been displeased to find unintended question marks inserted into their posts after they have composed and mailed them. This also makes things confusing for the readers, since sometimes it's hard to tell where the actual question is, whether or not a question exists, or if the writer is indicating uncertainty about the statement s/he made. I checked on the Unintended-Question-Marks problem in January 2009, and learned that this happens very frequently to members with AOL addresses or whose server runs through AOL, in messages that are composed in AOL webmail, with the RTF/HTML editor ON. Rootsweb recommends the use of plain-text messages only, and this recurrent problem with unwanted question marks is one good example why that is good practice. If members want to prevent these extraneous question marks from being inserted into their text, they must send messages to the list in plain-text mode. To send in plain-text, simply turn off the RTF/HTML editor before composing a message. Here's the procedure for AOL webmail, which takes about 10 seconds: In AOL's Web Mail, on the mail page there is a link in very small print to "Settings." Look in the upper right corner of the AOL webmail page. 1. Click on "Settings" 2. On the page that appears, below the "Back to Mail" button is a list which includes: General, Accounts, Compose, Spam Controls, Calendar, Instant Messenger. 3. Click on "Compose" --which is where you change the settings of your e-mail composition window (where you type messages). 4. Find where it says "Use Rich Text/HTML Editing" --and UN-check this. 5. Click on "SAVE" 6. Then Click on "Back to Mail" where you will now be able to compose messages in plain-text. Later if you want to use RTF/HTML to send a private message to someone (with formatting or smileys or what-have-you), just repeat the above procedure to turn RTF/HTML editor back on. Then next time you compose or respond to a post to a mailing list, you can simply turn it back off again. Good luck, Liz J > Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:43:34 -0400 > From: [email protected] > Subject: [PaOldC] Many thanks for Social Security Application > > My sincere thanks to all who responded to my inquiry.? I sent it off yesterday, so time will tell if my needed info is provided.? I'd also like to say that I don't know where those question marks came from in my original post.? I didn't type them! > > Thanks, > > Lorraine