[MOSAIC] Some important details about new list (KEEP THIS)

[Keith Mack]

I'd like to officially welcome all the Mosaic List people to your new home.
Ginger and I worked over the last week or so to get you up and running. 

We may have a few wrinkles to workout and settings to tweak yet. Here's a
couple things to keep in mind.

1. GETTING HELP
Contact Ginger (read.think at sbcglobal.net) or me (Keith
kmack at literacyworkshop.org). Please do not send a help message/request to
the thousands on the list. We've moved everything to a new server so please
be patient as we work our problems.

2. YOUR MEMBER SETTINGS
http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org.
This link is posted at the BOTTOM of EVERY message. This is where you can
change all your settings email, password, digest, etc. You can even turn off
getting any messages if you are going on vacation. You will need a password
to login. This was sent in the WELCOME message that was first sent to you.
Go find the password and login. Then change the password to one of your
favorites. You'll be reminded of your settings and password at the start of
every month.

3. DIGEST (there is a digest - please be patient for the change)
Ginger and I would prefer that you make this change yourself. Please try the
link for settings (above). If you have tried to change to digest at least
TWICE and can't get it to work, email Ginger or me and we'll take care of it
for you. There were hundreds of you on the digest and there was no way for
us to set this up when we did bulk member registration. 

4. EMAIL TRAFFIC
In making this move, my biggest concern for this list was traffic on the
mail server. There are over 1000 people on the list. Every time a member
sends a test or says "Thanks" or "I agree!" it is sent out to over 1000
people. I ask that you be very careful when doing this as we can't be
sending out 10,000+ emails an hour. When possible, please send these types
of messages to the individual and not the list.

5. REJECTED POSTS (please contact Ginger or me for any help)
I set up a pretty aggressive filter on messages. This is necessary to
relieve Ginger and me from having to manage hundreds of bogus messages each
day. Rejected posts are immediately discarded and you should get a message
from the system. Some reasons messages are rejected:
   * Too many URL's, especially when there's no content, just URL's.
   * Too much file space. Be sure to delete all but pertinent text to your
reply - this especially true for those on digest. 
   * Sending attachments. You cannot send attachments to this list.
   * No content. If message has too few words or "wrong" words it may get
rejected.
   * Excessive HTML. Quite a number of people send HTML mail. It may look
pretty, but HTML can contain bad scripts. People on digest have to read all
the code to make it look pretty (it's not fun!). It is always a good idea to
send "text only" messages to listservs. I can help you figure this out if
you are interested.

I'm glad to hear the excitement from people on getting this list up and
running again. I look forward to making your new home a great place for your
community to share ideas and resources.

Keith Mack
Web Administrator
kmack at literacyworkshop.org
Office 360.398.2479
Mobile 360.739.6477
Fax 360.398.2679