To All Bulletin Board Subscribers:
Welcome! This Technical Support Bulletin Board (BB) is brought to you as an adjunct to the operations of our 2000 Member Southwest Florida PC Users Group. BB subscription membership is free, and it is an "opt in" and "opt out" sort of thing.
Our General Policy is as follows:
1) Our email BB is subscribed to as a "tool" for our computer using community. Users are welcome to post any "computer-related" question, observation, or response.
2) Notices of "computer-related" events and/or opportunities of benefit to our subscribers, are welcomed.
3) Postings of the availability for donation or sale of "computer-related" equipment and/or accessories are always welcomed.
4) Computer-related humor and cartoon attachments are welcomed *in moderation.* General humor by contrast often has an eye-of-the-beholder quality, and is discouraged due to its very diversity and ability to overwhelm our system and its subscribers
5) Inquiries of a general nature are always welcome. However responses to those general "non-computer-related" inquiries should be addressed to, and directed to, the sender alone. Of necessity, that will involve the extra step of manually "Cutting 'n Pasting" their address into a "new" email. Remember, choosing "reply," sends your every thought to many potentially uninterested subscribers at swfpcug-general@swfpcug.org.
6) Political, Social, and Religious Statements always a "hotbed" of controversy and sentiment, and are therefore unwelcome here.
7) Charitable Solicitations and other news of Non-Profit activities, must be submitted to our Board of Directors, for approval, and will be posted it if it meets the SWFPCUG criteria for posting. You may contact the group's president at fmbigal@embarqmail.com for information on the club's criteria for non-profit support.
8) Advertisements outside of those contained in responses to member questions provided by our *SWFPCUG technical consultants* are unwelcome and considered spamming.
9) New subscribers are always
welcome. Out-of-town friends and relatives may subscribe, they need not be club
members. Subscription can be for regular subscription using the form
on the Bulletin Board page. If
you would prefer to receive the "digest" version of our email BB --
remember to select "digest" before pressing "submit."
10) Some user tips:
A) Use plain text formatting were possible when sending messages, not formatted text (Colors, Boldface, Underlining, and etc,) otherwise known as HTML, as for many of our members it comes through as the original text with the addition of lots of unrecognizable garbage. If you don't know how to achieve plain text formatting for your particular email client, post a message to our subscribers to the BB asking for information.
B) Clearly state a SUBJECT on the subject line of your email. HELP! is not considered descriptive. Use statements like "Computer freezes when I . . . "
C) State your question, comment, or issue definitively. Summarize the matter first, provide details as to your operating environment (i.e., Compaq 800 Athalon w/128 Meg, OS, Application Software and Version etc.), then detail the conditions that exist prior to its occurrence along with any remedies you've attempted to apply.
D) Provide us with your name as you conclude your message, so that we might address you as other than ACK3489@xxxx.com. It not only invests us with a greater sense of community, but also lets us recognize you when we are introduced at a General Meeting.
E) Do not use ALL CAPS. This is interpreted by many as SHOUTING, and is harder to read.
F) Do not attach large files to messages as many subscriber's ISPs only allow 64K attachments. Large attachments of dubious value are also time consuming to download. It is better to first inquire if there is membership interest, and then send it as an attachment to those who respond. Again if you don't know how to determine, more-or-less constrain the size of an attachment, post a message to our subscribers to the BB asking for information.
G) Don't add swfpcug-general@swfpcug.org to any general mailing list you maintain for contacting your friends.
H) Be mindful of maintaining Virus protection on your machine, as your email containing a Virus directed to the BB could possibly spread to our subscriber community.
I) Be patient. All the contributors are volunteers, have jobs, families, lives -- sometimes a response takes some research. If you don't get a response in a few days, re-post your question -- possibly with additional editing for increased clarity. People won't respond to an email they don't understand.
J) Personal responses to Subscribers, other than responses to their postings, should be addressed directly to the individual subscriber, not to the general membership
K) Don't FLAME (reprimand) anybody because you take issue with their post. Accidents happen, let it pass. Areas of redress are the domain of the moderator.
L) Address Bulletin Board Management issues, inquiries, suggestions, and/or requests to swfpcug-general-approval@fanfic.net, and not to the Bulletin Board itself. These would include problems you have with BB Mail reception, or difficulties you might have changing your address or type of service, or responses to messages from the Moderator.
Subscribers who consistently ignore the wishes of our majority subscribers and evolving policy will be added to our "Moderated List," and their submissions may then be subject to editing or rejection as an alternative to immediate posting.
Our Board, to better serve our members, is continually expanding our service area and the amenities Club Membership provides. We are continually adding new subscribers to this Support Bulletin Board who will look to its content to determine the appropriateness of their contemplated contribution. So be thoughtful, adapt to necessary guidelines, and take that extra second to direct chit-chat on "general issues" to the inquiring member only. Also direct your general humor only to those you know among our community will appreciate your selection. Be ever mindful that our every "sneeze" so-to-speak, gets deposited into our 330 member (and very likely a total stranger's) mailboxes, but please keep those computer-related questions, comments, and replies coming to the BB, as they are invaluable lessons for a quiescent majority of subscribers who parse every word appearing here.
Tom Kinnen swfpcug-general-approval@fanfic.net
Your Bulletin Board BB Moderator,
and Member, Board of Directors,
Southwest Florida Personal Computer Users Group
Please Print this for future reference. (Select the text, then Copy and Paste into a word processor is one way. "File > Print" is another.)
09/11/2007