Eczema Mailing List - Rules and Guidelines for Posting

Rules and Guidelines for Posting

1. Be Nice
2. Identify Yourself
3. Quote Sparingly
4. Plain Text Only; No Attachments
5. Keep Signatures Short
6. Stay on Topic
7. Use an Appropriate Subject
     7.1 Subject of a new message
     7.2 Subject of a reply to a message
     7.3 When to change the subject of a thread
8. Respect Copyrights

This page describes the rules and guidelines to be observed when posting messages to the Eczema Mailing List. These generally reflect standard netiquette. They are also intended to make the use of the List and the List's archives as easy and efficient as possible for all subscribers.

Note: It is not up to subscribers to "police" the List. If you have a problem with someone's behaviour on the List, you should contact a List owner rather than take it up on the List or in private e-mail.

1. Be Nice

This mailing list has succeeded in its purposes primarily because of the tone set by the List founders and long-time members. The prevailing attitude has been that everyone's experience is respected and everyone's eczema is different. You should keep this principle in mind when posting to the List.

Subscribers are encouraged to speak from their personal experience rather than generalize that experience to everyone. This does not mean that controversial topics cannot be discussed in a general way.

Consider the following examples:

Post: Since I've been trying X, my E has been so much better.
Reply: I tried X. It didn't help me at all, but I'm glad it's helped you.
or
Reply: I think you can get the same thing by Y, which is much less expensive.
or
Reply: I had a terrible experience with X that I think you should be aware of.

Post: I read about X on the Web. Anyone tried it or have any thoughts?
Reply: This sounds totally goofy to me, because ...
or
Reply: This is nothing but quackery, because ...

All of these replies are OK and we are sure you see the difference between the first and second sets. This is generally how the List has managed to stay open and supportive and the way we would like to keep it.

Please keep in mind that the List includes subscribers from around the world, who reflect many different backgrounds and cultures.

Flaming, bashing, trolling, and profanity will not be tolerated.

2. Identify Yourself

Anonymous messages are not allowed. Your messages to the List should include your real name either in the From line or in the body of the message.

3. Quote Sparingly

If you are replying to another message, it is useful to include relevant parts of the other message, or "quote" the message. However, you should not quote excessively, which bloats the size of messages and adds much unneeded text to the daily Digest and to the List archives. If you have your e-mail program set up to quote automatically, make sure to trim down the quoted text. Do not quote the entire text of a message either at the beginning or the end of your message.

4. Plain Text Only; No Attachments

Do not use HTML or Rich Text Format in your messages to the List. Many e-mail programs cannot read it and many people simply do not like it. Set your e-mail program to use plain text, 7-bit characters, as either your default or for messages to the List.

Do not send quoted-printable encoded messages to the List, as they format oddly in many e-mail programs and in the List archives.

Do not attach anything to a message sent to the List--ever.

5. Keep Signatures Short

Keep signatures to a reasonable length, ideally no more than 4 lines. Do not include ASCII text art.

If you precede your signature with:

--[space][hard return]

most e-mail programs will automatically delete all text following this delimiter in replies.

6. Stay on Topic

The discussion of eczema legitimately ranges far and wide; however, messages should not get completely off the topic and away from the purpose of the List. The List is not for general discussion of any and all health matters, child-rearing practices, and the like.

Should you wish to continue an off-topic discussion with other subscribers, you should e-mail them directly. Subscribers' e-mail addresses appear in the From field of their messages. Note, however, that not all people wish to receive private e-mail from other List subscribers.

You may also wish to review the List archives and the resources available on this Web site. You will find that many topics of interest to you have been already been discussed at length on the List.

7. Use an Appropriate Subject

It is very important to the usability of the List and the List archives that you use an appropriate subject in a message you send to the List.

In the daily Digest, the subjects of messages are used to create the contents listing that appears at the beginning of the Digest. Whether subscribers receive messages in the Digest or individually, good subjects help them focus on messages of interest to them and follow a thread of interest to them. (A thread is a series of messages on the same topic.)

In the List archives, messages are sorted by the subject. Good subjects help subscribers more easily locate messages of interest in the archives and follow a thread on a topic.

7.1 Subject of a new message

When posting a new message, that is, not a reply to someone else's message, use a descriptive subject. A subject that is a little long, but communicates more about the content is better than a brief and fairly mysterious subject. If you are asking a question, it is common practice to end the subject with a "?".

Examples:

"Recommendations for Soaps?" rather than "Soap"
"Air pollution's effect on E?" or "Air pollution?" rather than "Air"
"My derm sucks big time" rather than "Dermatologists" (kidding, sort of)

Do not put subjects all in capital letters, but please begin subjects with a capital letter.

7.2 Subject of a reply to a message

When replying to messages, use the subject of that message exactly. Exactly, means exactly, down to the capitalisation and punctuation. Any deviation whatsoever in the subject will break the thread. "Re:" before the subject is OK, as it is ignored by most e-mail programs and the archiving software. But, "Eczema flare" and "eczema flare" will be treated as two different subjects, for example, as will "Eczema flare" and "Eczema flare!".

If you do not receive the Digest, you need only use Reply in your e-mail program and the subject of the message to which you are replying should be inserted automatically. However, you may need to delete extraneous text that some e-mail programs put in the subject of a reply, particularly the "-Reply" at the end of the subject.

If you receive the Digest, the best thing to do is to copy and paste the subject of the message from the Digest to your message, adding the "Re:" before the subject if you need to.

In replying to a message:

Reply to one message at a time rather than combining your replies to several messages in one long, multi-subjected message.
Do not post a message to the List by replying to the Digest, then leave the subject unchanged, resulting in a subject like "Re: ECZEMA Digest - 27 Jul 1999 to 28 Jul 1999".
Do not add people's names in the subjects of replies or post a reply, for example, "To Fred". Fred knows what the subject of his message was and he'll be looking for replies. If you want to be extra sure that Fred sees your message, copy the message to his e-mail address. If you are sending a message that only Fred would be interested in, send it to Fred, not the List.

7.3 When to change the subject of a thread

If the topic being discussed changes significantly, which it sometimes does in a long or complicated thread, then it is appropriate to change the subject and begin a new thread, even if you are replying to someone else's message. If you do change the subject, it is useful to use the common convention of including the old subject in this way:

New Subject [Was: Old Subject]

8. Respect Copyright Rights

Copyright protection is a complex topic and you should understand that you alone are responsible for ensuring that you do not violate copyrights.

In general, you should assume that you need to obtain the explicit permission of authors or other copyright holders to reproduce any material in a message to the List. Additional permissions may also be needed from Web sites that provide access to materials, even if the materials are not copyrighted or you have obtained the permission of copyright holders.

To avoid possible copyright infringement of material found on the Web, you should include the Web address of the material in your message, rather than reproduce the material in your message. You may include a short excerpt from the material, but since what "short" means is legally debatable, it is preferable to summarize the content in your own words. This approach has the added advantage of reducing the length and size of the daily Digest and of the List archives.

If you include copyrighted material from any source in a message to the List, you should identify the copyright holders and include a statement that you have received their permission to reproduce the material. You may also have to abide by any conditions of the permission. Web sites may give permission if, for example, you include a link to the site in your message. Your permission needs to be broad enough to cover reproducing the material on a public mailing list or it needs to explicitly state that you have permission to do so.