1. When subscribing to a mailing list, please do not send your subscription request to the list itself.

2. When posting a message, be sure to sign your message by including your name and email address on the bottom of the message. You cannot assume that your email address will be automatically included in the headers of the message, since some email systems do not retain all of the message headers.

3. Try to use a descriptive Subject line for your posting. If your Subject line is carefully written, it will allow list subscribers to decide whether your message interests them without having to read the message body.

4. Keep your messages short and to the point.

5. Use a line length of 75 characters. Lines longer than that are hard to read. Also make sure that your mail program inserts carriage returns at the end of the line. Some mail programs wrap the lines without actually inserting a line break. It is best to hit the carriage return yourself at the end of each line.

6. When replying to a message, please consider whether the reply should be sent just to the author of the original message or to the entire list. Remember that each list has hundreds or even thousands of subscribers. A message should be sent to the list only if it is likely to be of interest to a large subset of the list. Personal messages, "me too", "test", "please send me a copy", and "I agree/disagree" messages should never be sent to the list.

7. If you are replying to a message, include only the relevant text from the previous posting. Better yet, summarize the key points to which you are responding. If the author of the previous message used a sufficiently descriptive Subject line, you may not need to include any text from that message in your posting! Never include the entire text of the previous message in your posting. Moreover, if you do include the previous message, remove headers, trailers, and excess signature lines, since these lines sometimes cause the message to be rejected as a potential loop or bounce.

8. Wait a while before responding to a message. Read the rest of your email to see if someone else has already answered the question.

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