Recently some questions or problems have surfaced with some of our users. Here is a sort list of the questions/problems. 1. Questions about "regular" and "digest" modes for the mail list. 2. Formatting issues (plain text vs "html") for sending messages to the PRA Mail List. This has resulted in messages being "bounced" and not posted. 3. Some messages are getting rather lengthy because people are including the original message attached when they reply. I thought it would be helpful to review some of the "basics & guidelines" for this list. You may want to save this for future reference. Gene Pennington (Group 7) Chairman Research Director Pennington Research Association, Inc. www.PenningtonResearch.org ============================================================================ ========================= BASICS: 1. To send a message to this mail list, send it to --> pra@rootsweb.com (notice the "L" has been dropped from the address) 2. You can ONLY subscribe to this list in EITHER the "regular" mode OR the "digest" mode but NOT both. (This will NOT affect most of you. I don't know why somebody might want to do this but it is no longer possible to do it) 3. This list is set to AUTOMATICALLY send your reply to the ENTIRE list. If you mean to reply ONLY to an individual, you will have to proactively change the address to exclude the list address and to include the individual's address. GUIDELINES: If you are responding to a message posted earlier, please DO NOT leave the message attached. If you must quote the other message, please keep it to the minimum amount of information to make your response understood. Everyone that is subscribed to the list will have already received a copy of the earlier message. If you leave the message attached, it makes the message you send that much longer to read. If somebody then replies to YOUR message, it now makes it that much longer. Just use copy and paste and quote (") marks if really needed but just for that word or sentence that you're discussing. Please check your subject line to be sure it is in agreement with the topic of your post. This is especially helpful when a discussion evolves through several generations of messages and no longer reflects the original posting. Sending a NEW message with a NEW subject line is many times the best way to help discussions stay focused on the original topic. Please TURN OFF your HTML or RTF (rich text format) coding and any automatic signature lines before posting to this list. Do not send attachments (attached files) of any sort to this mailing list. This includes URL shortcuts, v-cards, GEDCOM files, zipped files, and any other type of attachment. Do not send graphics to this mailing list. The server does not like them and your message will not post. Please keep signature lines to four lines or less. Do not include the names you may be researching in your signature lines as it will result in others getting a false positive result when searching on surnames. When they come to your message they will find that it does not respond to their query in any manner, except that you have listed the name. This makes searching more time consuming and frustrating than it need be. It also trains readers to ignore your messages as irrelevant. Do not cross-post messages to multiple mailing lists on the "To:" line or the "Cc:" line of the e-mail message. If you need assistance, contact me at this address: PRA-admin@rootsweb.com Thank you! Gene Pennington, Listowner/Administrator PRA Mail List