1. No flames
If someone says something you find offensive, either respond to them politely, or take it off the list. If someone attacks you personally, it is _not_ OK to attack them back. I don't care who started it. Personal abuse and inflammatory language will not be tolerated. You can argue ideas, but only in civil language. Repeated violations of this rule are the only grounds for removal from the list.2. No spam.
The mailing list is not an appropriate place for non-indiepop-related commercial messages (Skinny Dip Thigh Cream, Make Money Fast, Green Card Lawyers, Drug Test Beaters, etc.) or the retailing of Urban Legends (Sick boy wants business cards, Neiman-Marcus cookie stories, Olga seeks American men, Joe Blow wants a million emails, chain letters, etc.). Most of the funny stories have been passed around the internet for years and years; we don't want them. Any message you receive that includes the words "please forward this message to as many of your friends as possible" should _not_ be forwarded here.3. Commercial posts
Commercial messages from listmembers advertising their own indiepop-related products or services (bands, labels, gigs, records, fanzines, radio shows, web pages, etc.) are actively encouraged. All other commercial posts are forbidden.4. Content
Discussions on indiepop-list@eskimo.com are frequently wide-ranging, and only tangentally related to independent pop music. This list is a form of community, and we are interested in what you have to say, whatever the subject. However, you should try to include _some_ content in your messages. One-line replies along the lines of "Yes", "No", "Me too", "I don't agree", "What?" and so forth should be avoided. If you have something concrete to add, do so; if you don't, please refrain.5. Message formatting
Email is a plain-text medium. None of the expressive indicators of speech, handwriting, or even word-processing, are available. This means that things like spelling, grammar, punctuation, paragraphing, and clear writing are extremely important if you wish to be understood. No one is going to flame you (see #1 above) if you misplel some words, but if your messages come in solid unpunctuated, unparagraphed blocks, people will tend to ignore them. Use short paragraphs!Messages should be no more than 80 characters in width; 72-76 characters is better, to allow for replies. Most mail software will wrap messages appropriately; if yours does not, you may have to insert hard returns yourself.
There is a 20,000 character limit on the length of messages to the list. This is well over ten 24-line screens of dense text, so you are unlikely to hit this limit. If you do, your message will bounce to the listowner (that's me), and I will tell you to reformat it or break it up into multiplemessages. This limit is imposed by the software, not by policy.
5. Replies
This is a busy mailing list; there are a lot of messages, and often the subject header alone is not sufficient to tell us what you're referring to. When you reply to an existing thread, either include some text from a previous message, or summarize briefly, so we know what you're talking about.Don't go overboard with quoted material, though. Trim as much as possible from the included text without losing the meaning. Remove header and signature information. It is extremely frustrating to read an entire long quoted article only to find a single line of added material.
Please set off the text of the message you are replying to in some way from your responses. The usual way is by preceding the lines of the original text with '> '. Your mail software should do this for you; if it doesn't, find some other way of indicating whose text is written by whom.
Always add a blank line between blocks of quoted text and your own. If people cannot clearly distinguish your material from the quotations, they may miss it.
7. Signatures
Some mailers do not process list mail correctly, and fail to indicate the original sender. You should always append a short signature file of some sort that indicates at least your name and email address. Please resist the temptation to include gigantic graphics and reams of clever quotes in your signature; anything over four lines is unnecessary and irritating.8. Help with email
There are literally thousands of different email programs, and they all work slightly differently. If your email behaves differently than you expect it to, or if you have any problems or questions about how to get it to function as you would like, your own systems support people are your best resource. However, if you want, you can always ask me. I'm happy to help people with their email, and with majordomo list-related questions.Email me at stevet@eskimo.com
