AERGC Forum Administrators

Jim Kramer Joan Leonard Johanna Oosterwyk

Etiquette

Forum Do's:
Please Sign Messages: If you have something that you are offering for others to read, you should be willing to attach your name to it, and to give people the ability to reply to you privately about it, in case they feel that a public reply would be inappropriate. Please include your name, institution/company, and contact information (email address at minimum)

Identify Subject Matter: Not everyone has time to read all forum postings. To ensure that your message reaches the right people at timely manner, identify your subject matter clearly in the subject line. Subjects like "A question" and "Help needed" are not informative and when they are added to the archives, they reveal no detail to the contents of the message, making searching for relevant archive information more difficult.

Trim Follow-ups: Do not quote the entire content of the message to which you are replying unless it is short and concise. Include only as much as is necessary for context. Remember that if someone wants to read the original message, they can; it is easily accessible in the archives. A good rule of thumb is, don't include more quoted text than new text.

Care with Content: Posters are asked to use care when phrasing posts which to outsiders might seem suspicious in nature. Unfortunately, we live in an age with fears of bioterrorism and fears of the Patriot Act (that can even track down your library books). It is possible for our forum to be "watched" and ambiguous discussion of "uncontrollable" plant pests and diseases or the like may cause unnecessary alarm.

Know Who you Are Replying To (or Keep your Private Messages Private) Some subscribers have gotten themselves into embarrassing situations by not being careful about who they are replying to. By default, replies to the Forum are sent out to all subscribers. If you have a personal message to one of your good buddies, or are going to ask for more information on that job offer that was just posted because are sick of your current boss, that's fine, but please pause before hitting the send button and make sure you have the intended e-mail address in your e-mail's "To:" slot. This will keep your private messages private.

Respect Privacy: Unless a Forum member agrees to have their name and contact information given to parties outside the Forum, do not pass such information out. It is more appropriate to send the Forum member the contact information of the outside party for them to contact if they so desire.

Be Patient: A number of Forum members receive the posts in digest form in a daily single mailing at the end of the day. Several users are only subscribed through their work address and do not have access on weekends and holidays. This means that posts and responses to posts can take several days to be received and replied to.

Be Civil: No personal attacks. If you feel the need to flame someone, please do it in private e-mail. Do not feel compelled to defend your honor in public.

Forum Do Not's:

No Unsubscribe Messages: Click on the links above for information on how to subscribe, unsubscribe, access archives, change your archives password, get your password emailed to you, temporarily stop mail, change to digest format, etc. All these options are easily done via this page.

Don't Use Auto-replies: If you are going on vacation or will out of the office, do not use the "Out of Office" feature while subscribed to the Forum. Your automated reply will generate a response to every post while you are gone, which is very annoying. We will have to disable your account to stop it. If you do elect to use this feature, you should go to the list info page (URL above) and set your subscription to "no mail" which means no mail will be delivered to you but you are still subscribed. When you return, you can change it back. You can use this same feature to keep your mailbox from exceeding limits while you are away.

No Advertising. The Forum is a strictly non-commercial venue. Subscribers from the commercial sector are welcome (and often do) post informational replies and their own queries for information to the Forum. Their input is generally well received and usually highly regarded. If they happen to cross the line into advertising a product, to be sure, it will not be taken kindly to by many Forum participants. Where is that line? It's typically a judgment call. Keep that in mind, and you will likely not cross it.

"Thank-You"s are Not Required. The Forum, by its nature, is a helpful place. It is not necessary to post a thank-you for replies to your post. Please be aware that you are not likely the only one to benefit from the replies and you may get more (and even better) responses after you get the urge to send out a thank-you message. Save your efforts for the times you can assist others with a useful reply.

No Spamming: Nobody likes it. However, it is hard to avoid. Despite our best efforts, you will occasionally see spam. If you feel the need to flame the spammer, do not CC the list. Complaining about spam in public increases noise, but not signal. It may make you feel better, but it doesn't help. It is unacceptable, and potentially illegal, for Forum members to "harvest" email addresses off of the Forum for personal spamming or corporate use.

No Large Attachments: Do not send attachments. Many people read these messages through slow network connections; try to be respectful of them. If you have a large file that you would like to distribute, put it on a Web page and announce the URL instead of attaching it.

No Test Messages: Please do not send test messages to the Forum. If you are experiencing problems posting, contact one of the forum administrators.

No All Caps: Refrain from using all capital letters, excessive question marks (?) or exclamation points (!) in your subject or content. It's annoying.

Regarding Non-Member Replies: If you get a reply to your post that your message is being held for review because you are not a member (however you know that you have subscribed to the Forum), it is possible that your email address has changed since you first subscribed. The email address from which you are posting must be identical to your subscribed email address or the software does not recognize you and you will get this non-member reply. This is to prevent spamming. Often university email addresses will change slightly with email still being forwarded from old email to new email without you noticing. Eventually, they may stop the forwarding and you will find yourself no longer getting Forum messages. You will need to re-subscribe your new email address and unsubscribe the old email address.