Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 20:35:27 -0500 (EST)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] This list
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

"Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> This list cannot be used to propagate viruses.

Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Uh.  May not. ;D

No.  Cannot.  I wouldn't have started this list unless I could
guarantee that it was impossible to use the list to propagate viruses.
And almost impossible for spammers to either spam it or harvest email
addresses from it.

ronkean at juno.com wrote:
> There's a whole lot of Re:ing going on.

Sorry about the Re: RE: RE: RE: RE: Re: Re: Re:.  That was a side
effect of the code I used to make sure that "[WSFA]" appears once and
only once on each subject line.  Fixed.

Elspeth Kovar <EKovar at radix.net> wrote:
> ... it would be nice to not have to stare at things for several
> minutes trying to figure out who a message is from.  It makes it
> a bit easier if people sign their names to messages.

Doesn't your mail reader display the From: line?  That should always
display the name of the sender.  Or at least their email address.  I
recommend finding out how to get it to display the From:, Subject:,
Date:, and To: header lines for all messages.

Reminder:  Spell the name of the list correctly.  One person tried
sending to "WSAlist" this morning.  His message was seen only by me.

Reminder:  Don't send HTML mail.  Two people tried this today.  Their
messages were eagerly read by Judge Crater, Amelia Earhart, and Jimmy
Hoffa.  But not by any WSFA members.  Not even me.

It looks like I'll have to start working on a decent archive.
Currently http://www.wsfa.org/list/ simply contains all 51 messages
that have been sent, one after the other, without even a rudimentary
index.

Question:  Should I automatically discard everything that follows
"-----Original Message" ?  Several people are quoting ALL of the
message they're replying to, and are placing it AFTER their reply to
it.  Often the message they're including has the message IT is in
reply to appended to it.  In some cases they are nested as much as
five levels deep!  I find it hard to believe anyone is doing this
deliberately, or that anyone likes to see messages in that form.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.  Thanks.

Another email pitfall:  I've learned that Microsoft Outlook cannot deal
with lines in email which begin with the word "begin".  Microsoft's
recommended solution:  Everyone in the world should stop using the
word "begin," and use "commence" or "start" instead.  See
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q265230

This list has no problem with the dreaded B word, but some of its
readers might, if they're still using Microsoft's software, so until
every WSFAn upgrades to non-Microsoft software, I suggest avoiding
that word unless you can be sure it won't be at the beg... at the
start of a line.

Speaking of Microsoft, I'm getting warning messages that email to our
treasurer (who is on msn.com) is "delayed".  So don't depend on him
seeing your email in a timely fashion, if at all.
--
Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable.  Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.