Guidelines to posting emails to the group
Home page: www.hippos.com
Main FAQ page: www.hippos.com/faq.htm
1) What kind of messages can we send? Just about anything related to hippos--the
live ones or collectibles. Maybe you just found a new hippo, and you want to
share it with the group. Send us an email about it. If you have a digicam, or a
scanner, attach a picture of it. We love to see new hippos. Or maybe you just
made a trip to a zoo, and want to share your hippo watching adventure with us.
The best way to see what kind of messages we post is to watch for a few days,
and see what we send. Then when you are ready, step right in!
2) Please try and keep the content
hippo related. There are times when you feel you just have to share a
personal event with us--so do it. After all, we are like family to each other.
But please limit it to those truly special moments. And as a courtesy to other
members, put NHC in the subject. This lets us know the message has No Hippo
Content.
3) Please do not send virus warnings, jokes, hoaxes, urban rumors and other
emails of this type to the group.
Also, please do not post or forward emails about "saving the
environment", "how to put the oil companies out of business",
"go vegan day" or anything like this to our group. This is not a
reflection on the validity of these causes; simply that our group is not the
appropriate place for such messages.
4) If you have something you want to share,
but are not sure it is appropriate, send me a copy at stuart@hippos.com
and I'll give you some feedback.
5) When posting a reply to someone else's message, please don't quote their entire message. Use the editing keys on your keyboard and quote ONLY the most pertinent passage to help remind everyone what it is you're replying to. Remember: everyone's already received the previous post once before and
doesn't want to keep receiving duplicate copies of posts. Sometimes quoting is
helpful, at other times it’s not; use your judgment. If you are on digest
method, definitely do not quote the entire email in a reply.
Also, if replying to a digest, change the subject line to something informative, instead of the usual default "Re: [hippos] Digest Number 1315".
6) Don’t feel the need to respond to every email. If you have something to contribute, then do. But remember, there are lots of people getting every message; if we all responded to every one, we would drown in a sea of email. If you have something to add, great! Otherwise, please try to avoid the "me too" type of responses.
As a corollary to this, if you post an
email and don't get many (any?) responses from the group, don't feel bad. This
doesn't mean no one likes you, or that everyone is ignoring you. It simply means
no one had anything to contribute or add to that email; historically, over 50%
of our emails don't get a reply, but they are all read, so don't fret :-)
7) If you need to talk with one individual, usually you should take it to
private email (AKA b/c - back channel) rather than to the group.
8) We are a kid-safe group, open to all ages, Please keep your messages (and attachments) appropriate for all of us. No off-color jokes, stories or pictures, please. Other than that, you may say pretty much anything you want, so long as you're not rude and abusive to other members. Flamers will be warned, then removed from the list if abuse continues. We are proud as a group that we have never had to do this to any member.
9) Consider combining your replies into one email, especially if you are the type that likes to respond to everything <g>.