The basic rule is that as long as your post has some content related
to the primary subject of the list, and does not contain much
off-topic material, then it is fine for the list.
Please note - Orchid is a flame free group! You should not post
inflammatory (aka flame) mail to the list. It is perfectly fine to
disagree with people publicly, but be careful how you do it. For
example, if you think someone is giving wrong on a
particular subject, it may be fine to say "this idea is wrong,’’ but
it is over the line to say “you are clueless”;
On the flip side, if someone posts something with which you are in
particular agreement, that’s great. You should not, however, follow
up to the list with a post containing no more than "Me too!’’ or
"Amen!’’ If you have something of substance to add to the
discussion, then by all means do so, but if you simply wish to
express a simple agreement, then do it in private mail.
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You should also not repost private email to the list unless you
have obtained prior consent from the author. Such reposting in some
legal jurisdictions may be a violation of copyright, or other rights
of the original author.
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Please do not send attachments to the list without getting
previous approval. It is good Net-practice to describe the file
available in a separate posting, and then send it on privately to
those parties interested. If it is an item of general interest, files
can be uploaded to Ganoksin’s free FTP site, where they can reach a
wider audience.
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When posting to Orchid please send plain text emails by default.
Using fancy formatting in emails can be nice, and all these
stationery and letter creations are fascinating. But not everybody
can or wants to receive rich text messages.
Some email programs are not capable of rendering the HTML used for
rich formatting in email messages. Others try, but fail.
Other recipients might have email clients that can properly render
HTML messages, but disabled rich formatting in email for various
reasons, mostly purity of the medium, bandwidth issues, security and
privacy among others.
If you did send rich formatted message to Orchid, The moderators
will manually remove all rich text formatting and attachments before
forwarding your post to the group.
– You should always provide some context to your replies so that
people who may not have been following the thread closely, or who
have other things on their minds will easily be able to determine
what you’re talking about. However, when quoting, be very careful to
edit the quoted sections down to the bare minimum of text needed to
maintain the context for your reply. Also be careful that you clearly
indicate what text you’re quoting (as opposed to what you’re
writing), and if possible, cite the author of the original text.
If your mail program wants to attach the whole message you’re
replying to on the end of your replies, please do not let it do this
if you can possibly avoid it. It is a good thing to include excerpts
from previous messages with your replies to maintain a logical flow
of discussion, but it is almost always a bad thing to include the
entire text of a message being replied to, be it at the start or end
of your reply.
For a better Orchid
Hanuman