Dear Spiders, Here is a first draft of the Arachne FAQ. Feedback and corrections are welcome! Let me know if I've missed anything or if something should be written more clearly for non-English speakers. Thanks.
I could send this out on a quarterly basis if this is of any use. Best wishes, Avital >>> ARACHNE FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Version 1.0 (17 June 2004) 1. I just came back from vacation and want to read what I missed. Where are the archives? http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] 2. I haven't received a digest for two days. What should I do? Go to the archives (see above). You can view the messages by date. If you see a lot of messages that you haven't seen before, then you are probably missing a digest. Remember that the digest does not appear every day. The list is configured to send out a digest when 22K (about a dozen) messages accumulate. If the list is quiet, you might not see a digest for a day or two. 3. I checked the archives and definitely missed a digest. Where can I get it? E-mail Avital, the moderator, at [EMAIL PROTECTED] (take the "nospam" out of the e-mail address). I keep backups on CDs. Occasionally I miss a digest, but my collection is fairly complete. 4. What are SPs (Secret Pals)? Secret Pals are a monthly gift swap. The current coordinator is Brenda Paternoster. E-mail her at [EMAIL PROTECTED] (take the "nospam" out of the e-mail address) if you want to participate. 5. How do I thank my Secret Pal? Send your thank-you note to lace-chat, not lace. If you are not subscribed to lace-chat, then you must type "SP Thanks" (exactly as spelled, with same capitalization) in the subject line. That should allow non-subscribers to post their messages to lace-chat. 6. Who runs the list? Liz is the list owner and I am the moderator. I take care of the day-to-day business. 7. I just got a virus from Arachne. Should I send a warning to the list? No, you shouldn't. What you got is a virus from someone else who has Arachne in their addressbook and makes the "sender" look like Arachne. Arachne is a majordomo list on unix machines and is currently not affected by viruses. 8. I just got a virus warning from my brother-in-law's best friend's ex-wife's boss, who used to work for Microsoft and plays golf with Bill Gates. Should I send it to the list? No, you shouldn't. Even "reputable sources" and computer experts slip up and there are a lot of viruses hoaxes floating around. Check it first at http://www.symantec.com or http://www.snopes.com or ask me to check it out. 9. Are the archives private? No, they're not. Mail-Archive is a free service and you get what you pay for. They are able to disguise the addresses so you won't be spammed, but it's best not to post personal details to the list like your address and phone number. 10. I'm going on vacation. What should I do? You should unsubscribe. The list does not have a "no-mail" option. If your account gets full and starts bouncing, Liz will ignore it for a few days. If your account bounces for more than a few days, then she will unsubscribe you. 11. I just sent a digest by accident to the list. Should I unsubscribe, change my name, and move to a place where no one knows me? Relax. The list will not accept a message as large as a digest. It will probably bounce to me and I'll trim the digest. 12. What's the rule about advertising? Generally, we discourage advertising by professional vendors because that would greatly increase the volume of the list. It is okay for a vendor to say "Hi, we have blue matte contact paper" if someone asks for it. It is okay if you want to sell your extra bobbins and pillows or announce that your guild has a book or pattern for sale, because those are one-off announcements. What we want to avoid are messages like "This month's thread special is xxx and I just got the following 18 new books and I accept Visa, etc., etc." Announcements in sigs are perfectly okay as long as the length of the sig isn't excessive (if the sig contains 3 pages of advertising, then that defeats the purpose of this rule). 13. How can I be a model of good Net behaviour? Trim quotes: Remember that most of us have pretty good memories and it is usually not necessary to quote more than a few lines of the posting to which you are responding. Use meaningful subject lines: If you are a digest subscriber, change the subject line to something meaningful, instead of the number of the digest. Stay on topic: If it's lace-related (including lace you may have seen on vacation), it's okay to post it to lace. If it's a joke, recipe, description of your daughter's wedding, your reaction to a political figure, a movie, or a TV show, then it probably belongs on lace-chat. Please do not send a posting to both lace and lace-chat. (If you're not sure where it belongs, feel free to ask me.) 14. What is Arachne-7? Arachne-7 is a sister list for planning the joint Arachne entry for the (?? I'm having a senior moment. Is it the John Bull Trophy?) competition. Membership is limited to Arachne subscribers. For more information, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/Arachne-7. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
