This is one of the info files maintained and posted at irregular intervals by The Mad Bibliographer Cathy Krusberg Internet: ckberg@ix.netcom.com This info file was last posted June 5, 1998. Material added since then: "Is the server dead?" (In chunk 2.) VAMPYRES NETIQUETTE INFO FILE BEGIN CHUNK 1 OF 2 Why is there a Vampyres netiquette info file? Basically the same reason that there are any Info Files. These are my attempt to provide information in a systematic and accessible form, both for newcomers to the list who need to be informed and for any whose memories may need to be refreshed. This info file duplicates some information in the Vampyres welcome letter that majordomo automatically sends to new subscribers -- but some people get Vampyres through a newsreader and never see the welcome letter. There are also netiquette basics useful for newcomers to the Internet that the welcome letter doesn't cover. The Vampyres Netiquette Info File: Guidelines and Suggestions for Posting to the List * There is a limit of three (3) posts per subscriber per day. Please try not to exceed this limit! Posts on multiple topics are fine. Historically, the three posts per day quota has not applied to fluff posts. The listowners are the ultimate arbiters of how many posts per day is too many and what posts count or don't count against a subscriber's quota. * Stick to the subject. The topic of the list is Vampires; posts should be related to that subject and to similar areas (weres, shape-shifters, ghosts, etc.). Announcements of Vampfests (listmember get-togethers) and such are entirely appropriate. * Include a Subject line on your posts. This is especially important for fluff postings, but it's good manners to announce the topics you are going to address. If you have more to say than will fit on a subject line, use an abbreviated subject line and indicate your topics on the first line or first few lines of your post. A contradictory word of caution, however: there is no firm limit on the size of any individual posting, but some mailers/systems have difficulty dealing with files greater than a certain maximum, and larger files are often delayed. Shorter posts are more likely to be received (mailers won't gag on them) and read (listners have time for them). A maximum of 200-300 lines per post will be easier on the mailers and attention spans of everybody involved. * Send personal mail via PRIVATE e-mail, not to the list. It may be more appropriate to send your reply to the originator of a post via private e-mail rather than to the list at large. In order to cut down on personal posts, the From: line in posts reflects the original sender's e-mail address and not that of Vampyres. When you REply to a Vampyres post, it goes to the originator of the post, NOT to the list. Keep this feature in mind when doing a reply. Actually, where your reply goes depends on how your mailer is configured. Some mailers *do* send replies to Vampyres, in spite of the server's best efforts. :-) You're having problems reaching the person? You don't know how to set up the address correctly? Your system operator does and can show you how. You can also contact any of our listowners for help in contacting listmembers offlist. (Their addresses are in part 2 of this file.) * When you do make a reply on-list, be sure the subject of your reply matches your posting. For example, do not reply using the subject PARTY FLUFF if your posting deals with Vampires and the nature of evil. * Avoid "me too" posts. If your comment doesn't advance discussion, you might want to consider whether it's worth "spending" one of your quota of posts. * Keep it clean. Use of vulgar or obscene language is strongly discouraged. List-related fiction ("fluff") containing potentially objectionable language, graphic violence or explicit sex should include the word WARNING in the subject line and include a label (explicit sex, violence, both) at the top of the piece. (See the How to Post Fluff Info File.) * Keep it civilized. Personal insults (flames) are discouraged, as is any form of intolerance. Readership of Vampyres is extremely diverse, and there is room for *all* stripes of opinion. Adults can disagree without stooping to flames. Tolerance needs to extend not only to those with differing opinions but to posters new to the Net and new to Vampyres. We were all new once, and even those of us who have been around for a while make mistakes. New folks can have interesting views, valid opinions, and fresh information for all of us. * Don't post when you're upset. (Goodness, I've broken this one enough times.) If you compose a heated response to someone's post, set it aside and cool off before pressing the SEND key. A few hours' reflection may lead you to change your mind, or at least the tone of your post. You may decide to take your reaction to private e-mail. You might even delete it. * DON'T WRITE WHOLE POSTS IN ALL CAPS. ALL CAPS MEANS SHOUTING. SHOUTING IS RUDE (also hard to read). SO DON'T, OKAY? It's fine to use caps for emphasis or to delineate sections of a multi-topic post. Just don't go on and on in all caps. * Limit your signature file to six lines or less. A .sig file is meant to be seen many times; two screens of ASCII art and/or philosophical reflection get old quickly. Netiquette dictates a maximum of four to six lines for a .sig file. If you *must* use a big, creative .sig, use it occasionally -- no more than once or twice a week -- instead of every time you post. * Do *not* reproduce an entire long post when responding to only part of it. Quote only enough to make clear what you are responding to. Usually 5 or 6 lines is enough. If you quote a whole screen of text, you are probably quoting too much. The 5 or 6 line maximum is a guideline rather than a rule. You may want to respond point-by-point to a long post, for example; you may have some reason for *needing* to quote a lot. But quote only as much as you need to. Don't clutter your post with material you were just too lazy to edit out. And DON'T quote header garbage. * When quoting material, use > in the left margin to show what you are responding to. This is a net convention, and many systems automatically include > marks in a reply (mine does). If yours does not, *insert them by hand*. You can use quotation marks safely for *very* short bits -- say, a line or two at most. For more, use the > marks. Quotation marks don't show up vividly enough onscreen to set off more. If you're posting a long article from another source, it's okay to set it off from your introduction with rows of === or *** or the like at top and bottom instead of goobering up the left margin for several screens. But for most quoting, particularly of a post that you are responding to, the > marks are the least ambiguous. If you *do* post a long article from a published source, like a newspaper or even a Usenet group, it's also good manners to name your source. You may want to add a note to the effect of "reprinted without permission." (Reproducing a whole article or post without the copyright holder's permission is technically an infringement of copyright. In the case of a newspaper article, consider quoting bits and summarizing the rest; for Usenet posts, consider asking the author whether it's okay to repost to Vampyres. Most people will give you permission.) Some items, such as announcements or press releases, are designed to be publicized as widely as possible; usually no permission is needed for posting/reposting such material. * Do *not* post private e-mail without permission. Private correspondence sent over the net is private correspondence and should be treated with respect. Ask the sender if you may post the letter or relevant excerpts. Also ask whether he or she wishes to be credited by name. Some of us may not want our bosses/employees/professors/students to know our opinions on certain things! If you *must* quote something and cannot conveniently ask permission, don't name your source. I've done this when quoting letters from snailmail pals. (To protect the privacy of your source; this applies only to short bits for which copyright would probably not be an issue.) * Post only plain ASCII files. Please do not post encoded files of any kind, or attachments. Readers of Vampyres access the Net via a wide range of systems: some are using systems that will let them read only ASCII; others who have word processors may not have software compatible with yours. We can all read ASCII, however -- please use it to post. Some mailers automatically MIME-encode or UUencode attachments. When posting material that you have already written, paste it or merge it directly into your mail file; do not use the attachment feature for posting. If you want to share something other than ASCII text, such as graphics or a word processor file, it's fine to *offer* it onlist, but please distribute it only through private e-mail. * When you reply on-list to a post, do not also cc the author (or reply to the author and cc the list). Doing this will cause the author to receive two copies of your response, a result many people find annoying. (The exception, of course, is if you *know* the author is not currently subscribed and will not get the copy posted to the list.) * Do not send the list virus warnings or announcements that a particular address wants to receive as many e-mails as possible (as part of a survey, promotion, or whatever). Virus warnings are often hoaxes; calls for e-mail messages may be part of a campaign to get a recipient snowed under with mail; or if valid, may be out of date by the time you see them. Some such messages are valid, however. If you get one that you think is legitimate, please forward it to a listowner. If the listowners validate it, they will forward it to the list. END CHUNK 1 OF 2 VAMPYRES NETIQUETTE INFO FILE CHUNK 2 OF 2 What if you haven't heard from Vampyres in a while and wonder, is the server dead? Listowner David Zeiger offers these suggestions for those times when you wonder whether there is a problem with the list or with your e-mail, as alternatives to sending a "test" message to about 350 people. 1) Send a "real" message/question to the list. If you never see it, there's a problem; if it does go through, it might generate real traffic. 2) Mail the listowners. If you don't recall their addresses, listowners@the-institute.net will get to all of them. 3) The web-interface at http://www.the-institute.net/cgi-bin/majordomo will tell you if you're subscribed or not. 4) If it's been more than a day, the archives pages at http://www.the-institute.net/vampyres/archives/ will have anything that you may have missed (updated just after midnight, Central time, with the previous day's posts). Needless to say, if your mail to the listowners address bounces, or the above web pages are down, it's a good bet that the server in general is down :-). ***SUGGESTIONS TO MAKE YOUR POSTINGS MORE READER-FRIENDLY*** (These are freely adapted from SUGGESTIONS TO MAKE YOUR FLUFF MORE READER-FRIENDLY, from the How to Post Fluff Info File.) * Put a blank line between paragraphs. * Check your spelling. Proofread. Use the spellchecker if you've got one. Use a dictionary if you don't. And PROOFREAD before posting! * Check your grammar and word usage. Spellcheckers are great, but they don't know the difference between your and you're. So -- one more time -- PROOFREAD! * Make sure that your lines fit on one line. Some editors will not wrap lines properly if you just type merrily to the end of the line without inserting a hard return. This causes a blank line to appear before the next line of your precious prose, making it *really* *confusing* to read. (In fact, some listmembers react to this practice by deleting on sight!) Optimal line length is 65 characters or less; anything more causes problems on some freenet systems and WordPerfect Mail. A generous right margin also allows respondents to quote your text (using > marks) without cutting off the ends of the lines or pushing them awkwardly to the next line and creating yet another of those nasty blank spaces. If 65 columns is too conservative for your big screen, at least try to keep it to less than 72 for those of us on IBM systems. * Avoid the dreaded TAB key. Different systems interpret them differently, and a nice 5 character tab on your system might be 50 on someone else's. (The Mad Bibliographer has used a system where TAB turns into a bizarre little symbol that looks like a semicolon with a macron over it. Go figure!) If you want to indent, use the space bar. If you're using a word processor that converts your work to ASCII text, check the resulting file. When some programs convert files to ASCII, tabs become spaces and indented or centered text becomes flush left. Characters such as em-dash from proportionally spaced fonts or "smart quotes" may be converted to strange-looking codes. And those are the *nice* things that can go wrong! * Keep your left margin (column 1) free of non-alphanumeric characters. On some systems, many characters other than letters or numbers in the first column can do bizarre and unpleasant things to the display. (Query to the technically knowledgeable: what about the characters > and " ? It's *hard* to avoid placing these in column 1!) ============================================================= *) To post messages to VAMPYRES, the address is: vampyres@the-institute.net *) To send commands to the VAMPYRES server, the address is: majordomo@the-institute.net To subscribe in the normal way, the command is subscribe vampyres To subscribe to Vampyres in digest form, the command is subscribe vampyres-digest OR, if you are already subscribed to Vampyres: unsubscribe vampyres subscribe vampyres-digest To unsubscribe, the command is: unsubscribe vampyres There is also a web-based subscription/unsub form available at http://www.the-institute.net/cgi-bin/majordomo ******* Names and addresses of VAMPYRES listowners: ******** Name Internet James Payne japayne@iupui.edu David Zeiger dzeiger@the-institute.net Drac drac@tp.net Inanna Arthen vyrdolak@net1plus.com ************************************************************** Credits and miscellaneous stuff: This info file is compiled from quite a few different sources, including the Vampyres welcome letter, various posts to Vampyres, _Zen and the Art of the Internet_ (first edition; available in cyberspace), things I've seen here, there, and everywhere on the Net, and private e-mail responses to earlier versions of this file. DISCLAIMER: I am not a listowner and have no official powers: this is a source of information, NOT authority. Suggestions for improvement are welcome. If you think something needs to be added to, deleted from, or changed somehow in this Info File (or any info file), please drop an e-note to The Mad Bibliographer Cathy Krusberg Internet: ckberg@ix.netcom.com