[MPWG] ADMIN: List Posting Guidelines and Stopping Computer Viruses

[Plant Conservation]

Hi everyone,

Recently various issues about posting have been brought up on this and
other lists, so I thought I'd publically bring up a few guidelines you
should be aware of when posting to the list.  These are simple courtesies
that will help make things easier and more useful for all of us.  They are
especially important for this list because it is not moderated.

- If you are posting about a specific event or job, please put the city
and state in the Subject line.  I cannot stress to you enough that this is
a nationwide list and even has a few people from other countries
subscribed as well.  Don't forget to include contact information for the
event and the specific date/dates.

- If you are sending out a notice to a long list of people, please use the
BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) option instead of the To option.  Most mail
programs should have this available.  If you don't know how to use it or
can't find it, try checking the help file or as a last resort please drop
me a note so I can help you find it.  This saves us from having to scroll
through dozens of lines of addresses and also keeps the addresses you have
collected private.

- Do not try to attach large files to your posts.  While you may have a
super-fast connection that allows you to download 2 meg attachments with
ease, this is not the case for all of the subscribers.  Please be
considerate of the dial-up users and don't subject them to having to
spend time (and in some places money, as other countries have per minute
phoneline charges) downloading a post that they may or may not be
interested.  Instead, have a summary of the issue and give people the
opportunity to contact you directly for the larger file.  If you
really cannot do that, send me and email and I am willing to be the
one to send the file to interested parties requesting it.  If it's
just text in a Word document that you're posting, simply copy & paste
the text into your message.  This makes the message size smaller and
also helps out people who don't have the software.

And as a last note, I want to encourage all of you to keep your computers
up to date in regards to the various computer virus issues that are out
there.  If you are running Windows, keep your computer patched.  To do
this for the newer versions, go to Windows Update
(http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/) every few weeks just to check that
you have all the latest critical updates.

You should also run anti-virus software to protect against viruses.  This
is especially important for users of Outlook as many viruses target that
program.  Even after you install the software and run regular scans
checking for & cleaning out viruses, make sure to download updated virus
definitions every few weeks in order to stay current with any new ones.

Currently due to viruses on other people's computers and the public nature
of this address, I receive anywhere from 50-100 e-mails a day and not all
of them can be automatically filtered.  This also explains why it often
takes me so long to reply to some of you...

Thanks for reading this! (A customized copy of this message is going out
to all the lists on this server, so just read one copy if you're
subscribed to more than one list and delete the others.)

Olivia
SER/PCA
http://www.nps.gov/plants/