(As I composed this for another of my lists earlier today, I thought it
might benefit some of the rest of you...)
To the list:
Many of you are new to the internet and email etiquette, and I understand
that. So, whenever we reply to a message, it is best to do a few things.
First off, think about the content of your reply. Is it best suited to just
one person or does it apply to the entire list? Is it information that
might benefit others or only the recipient? If it is NOT something that
will benefit others, you will need to change the "TO" field in your reply to
show just the recipient's email address. Hitting the "reply" button makes
your message automatically go back to the list.
Secondly: Always type your reply ABOVE the original message. I know there
is some disagreement about this, but it is much easier on the reader to read
your reply and then scroll down to read the original message than to have to
scroll through the original to find the new.
Third: Always snip the parts of the original message that do not directly
apply to what you are replying to. For those who use the whole message to
reply to, you can always snip it after typing your reply. Most readers just
need a general gist of what the original post was about in order to
understand the reply. If you don't know HOW to snip, that's a different
issue. I know that some of you might not. On your computer, you can select
the text you want to delete by clicking at the beginning of it and holding
down the mouse button and dragging over the top of it. Once the text you
want to delete is "highlighted", just hit the delete key on your keyboard
and VIOLA!, your message has been snipped. If you are snipping a part that
is in the middle of a paragraph, or the middle of a letter, or whatever, it
IS appropriate to insert <snip> there to replace the words.
Fourth: Always, always, always snip off any previous posts. In other words
if you are replying to John who is replying to Susie, who is replying to
Larry, make sure you snip off all of Larry and Susie's posts, unless you are
directly replying to them. This will cut down on the size of posts.
Fifth: Always change your subject line if you are changing the subject. If
subject line is different from what your email is about, change it. You
can, as I have above, note the original post in brackets like so "Subject:
Smith Dunn (was RE: James Dunn)" This will alert the reader that your
message is in reply to his/hers but will also alert others to the change in
topic.
Sixth: There are many resources out there for you that deal with
"Netiquette" and basic computer skills. I would recommend the following:
Introduction to Network Etiquette:
http://jade.wabash.edu/wabnet/info/netiquet.htm
How to Turn OFF HTML or RTF in Various E-mail Software Programs
http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/listowners/html-off.htm
Internet Stuff You Need to Know
http://www.cyndislist.com/internet.htm (this
one has links to many other resources)
Everything Email
http://everythingemail.net/
The Help Web
http://www.imaginarylandscape.com/helpweb/welcome.html
Ehow.com http://www.ehow.com
Learn2.com http://www.learn2.com
And, if all else fails, try a search engine like
http://www.Altavista.com or
http://www.google.com (my two personal favorites). Just type what you are
looking for in the search box and hit search. You'll be amazed at what you
can find. If you want to narrow your search, use quotation marks around the
text. For example if I was searching for a recipe for brown bread, I could
type "brown bread recipe" without the quotes and the search engine would
return any web pages that included the words brown, bread or recipe (which
would be a LOT of pages) OR I could search WITH the quotes and return only
those pages that included all three words. I almost always use quotation
marks in my searches.
So, I hope that will help some of you "newbies" (the term for those new to
the net) with learning. After all, we are all newbies at one time or
another, it's just that some of us who have been around awhile tend to
forget that :)
Christi
Listowner - Barton, Blankenagel, Brogan, Burlingame, Calvert, Dunn, Dunne,
Don, Early-Barton-Research-L, Gildersleeve, Himelein, Perley, Towne, Voss,
Vos, Vose, Vass, Whitmer, Widmer, Witmer, Wittmer, and Whitmire
Visit our homepage at:
http://christi.is.dreaming.org
Visit our genealogy pages at:
http://genealogy.webhop.org