Ok. This is a workaround that works for me.
Hartmut From: Ed Burkhead Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 11:51 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [ercoupe-tech] Poll results and determination of policy (long but worth reading) Y'all, I've done some testing and here are some findings: 1. If you want to send to an individual, you may set your account set to "Fully Featured New and improved." This will include a couple of lines in every incoming forum e-mail giving you complete control of to whom you are sending your reply. It looks like this: Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (2) As a test, I set up an e-mail only forum membership that was not linked to a Yahoo account membership. It, also, gave me the control line just under the message text. The downside for "Fully Featured" only applies to those of us who keep our own archive of the forum on our e-mail client: for a tiny, six-word message a fully featured e-mail takes about 18KB while a "Traditional" e-mail takes only 4KB. The extra is largely advertising. (Remember - advertising pays for this forum. If no one clicks on ads, Yahoo goes broke or drops the forum service. At least give them a glance from time to time and click on those ads that DO appeal to you.) If you want to keep your own archive, then "Traditional" makes sense to keep your archive size down. If you are NOT keeping your own archive and are going to delete virtually all messages, then it just doesn't matter how big they are, even if you are on dial-up. 2. If you want to get your mail in "Traditional" mode, then it are an extra couple of steps to send a reply to an individual. Each of the e-mail clients I have available to test allows me to copy the original sender's e-mail address, usually by clicking, double-clicking or right-clicking on the sender's name up in the message header. Once I've copied their e-mail address, I hit reply and can easily replace the forum address with the individual's or add the individual in addition to the forum. It takes me, on the average, 8-10 seconds to get this done once I get used to it in a particular e-mail program. So far, only 37 people have voted in the poll and the results are 70% in favor for "Keep <Reply> going to the forum" (about the same as the first poll). So, at this point, I'm inclined to keep the setting at <Reply> goes to the forum. We'll help those of you who must have "Traditional" mode messages and need help with finding the way to easily send replies to individuals. Advice: If you have a Yahoo membership, set your message mode to "Fully Featured." To do this, click on <Edit Membership> just above the wide dark bar in the upper part of the forum page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ercoupe-tech/ or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ercoupe-flyin/ Then scroll down to the "Message Preference" choice near the bottom. If you don't have a Yahoo membership, you don't have as much control. Just create a Yahoo membership and, if you are worried about them, don't give them any sensitive information. Feel free to use bogus stuff in your signup - except, the e-mail address must be valid. (I've never seen a problem with Yahoo selling e-mail addresses to spammers - I get virtually no spam in spite of my long-time Yahoo membership and their knowledge of all my e-mail addresses.) Finally, there's the issue of sudden inundations of many, many messages. I recommend those of you who get your messages via individual e-mails, set up a folder for Coupe messages and use a Rule (sometimes called a Filter) to toss all the forum messages into that box. That makes it very easy to choose what to read and keeps the forum mail from clogging up your main inbox. Here's general guidance on that: Many people use the digest to keep their inbox clear of clutter. That's my need, too, but I use a better method to accomplish it. Virtually all e-mail programs let you create folders of your own. They also support "rules" that will perform desired actions when mail comes in. I created a folder I call Coupe-inbox (actual name unimportant). Then, I created a rule where, if "ercoupe-tech" or "ercoupe-flyin" is in the subject line, the mail message gets moved to the Coupe-inbox. Along with this, I set my forums to deliver individual mail messages. Actually, since I'm a member of a bunch of forums, I have a rule for each forum group. Right now, I can see at a glance that my Sport_Aircraft forum has one new message, my FlyChallenger forum has 16 new messages, my Computer folder has 14 new messages and my basic Inbox has five new messages. Anything that's not identified by its subject line tag and moved by a rule falls through into my Inbox. This lets me give priority to non-forum messages. Check out the menu options at the top of your e-mail program. Under one of the menus, often <tools>, you'll find "rules" and will be able to set up your own rules. Try this out and use "Help" if you need. I think you'll like using Rules. Piteous protests may be sent to me directly, if you can figure out how. ;-D Ed Burkhead Forum Chief Muddler Througher
