Mailing List Rules

These mailing list rules apply to the WAPA Members List, which is intended for use as a members forum for technical discussions, raising general issues and sharing

Content

  • No Politics or Religion
  • Off Topic messages are not permitted.
  • Don’t post me too! emails – they are not useful in any way
  • Don’t post Thank you emails
  • Don’t spam the list (use the wapa-offers list for mails of a commercial nature)
  • Send them directly to the person – not to the list unless they contain additional information that would be useful to anyone following the thread.
  • Also, messages like “Thanks, I will try this” are not useful. Rather try it first, and then report back on whether it worked or not.

Netiquette

  • Don’t start a new thread / discussion by replying to an old email
  • Decent email programs will consider your message to be part of the old thread and members won’t see your message.
  • Changing the subject isn’t enough – there are headers in your message that link to the one you replied to.
  • Don’t perpetuate long threads unnecessarily
  • We have lots of members but that doesn’t mean we all want to read 3 screenfuls of mail every day
  • Research your topic before you post
  • If googling the subject line of your message answers the question, you shouldn’t have posted the message ?
  • Write nice text emails
  • Turn off HTML
  • We don’t want fancy flashing colours and fonts – just your message.
  • Limit lines to 70 characters
  • If you must use Outlook, you will have to use the Enter key to achieve this.
  • Don’t attach files
  • (except for small text files where relevent) – i.e. scripts
  • Rather put other files up on your own website.
  • Edit Quoted Messages
  • Cut out irrelevant sections of the message you are replying to
  • Put your reply below the question. Do not Top-Post.
  • Choose a descriptive subject
  • i.e. none of “Help!”, “Questions”
  • Keep your signature short (under 4 lines)
  • No disclaimers please.
  • Don’t send winmail.dat attachments, send standard MIME attachments. How to disable winmail.dat for Outlook users.
  • Don’t Cross-post
  • That means don’t send your email to more than one mailing list (any list, anywhere).
  • Be polite – No swearing please
  • Remember your email is being read by hundreds of people.
  • “Flaming” is far less useful than posting a good solution to a problem.
  • See also RFC 1855 – the Netiquette RFC
  • See also Configuring Mail Clients to Send Plain ASCII Text

Conduct

In the advent of misconduct related to the above, members will be given three warnings via email following which their subscription will be put on moderation.