Foxhunters OnLine E-Mail List

Subscriber Instructions

Welcome to the Foxhunters OnLine email discussion list. This is a group of approximately 500 foxhunters around the world (with the heaviest concentration in North America) who are using the internet and email to discuss the sport of mounted foxhunting and related topics. It's a very diverse group with interests in all facets of the sport, and topics for discussion include such things as hound breeding, horse and tack care, hunting attire, fox habitat, etc. The amount of discussion here varies widely, depending on the season and people's moods. During busy times, you might receive an average of 30 messages per day on topics such as these; at other times, the traffic is much lighter. If you have something to contribute to the discussion, feel free to join in. If not, you're welcome to hang around and eavesdrop.

All subscribers here are expected to comply to some simple "netiquette" guidelines. If you've participated in other Internet email discussions or newsgroups, you've probably seen a lot of this before (and seen the chaos that sometimes results when people forget). If you're an internet veteran, you can probably skim most of this page and confirm that it's basically the same stuff you've seen before. If you're new to this medium of communications, please take the time to read this page thoroughly. Failure to follow these guidelines might annoy other subscribers. And if you persist, the list administrator may react in unpleasant ways.

List Rules (short form):

Here are the basic commandments that you need to follow. As I said above, you may have already seen similar guidelines in other places. If so, and you understand them, great. If not, they are explained in more detail below, following the general instructions. You can click on any one of them to scroll directly to the explanation, or you can just scroll down to read them all.

• Stay on topic
• Trim previous messages from your replies
• Use a meaningful subject line
• Avoid one-liners; this is not a chat room
• Identify yourself
• Act like mature, intelligent adults, and treat each other courteously
• Know when to drop the subject
• Do not send unwelcome private e-mail to users of this list
• Take private discussions off of the mail list
• Do not post copyrighted material
• Avoid commercial advertising and solicitation
• Messages must be plain text only! No attachments, HTML, pictures, etc.
• Avoid email auto-reply programs
• Never send administrative requests to the list
• You must be a subscriber to this list to post to it
• Admin: messages from the list manager
• Read and save or bookmark the instructions!

General Instructions

If the above rules make sense to you, you're ready to play. If not, please either read the explanations below, or just go away.

If you're ready to play, the first step is to subscribe, if you have not already done so. To subscribe, send an email message to FOL–subscribe@Foxhunters.Org. The contents of the message are not important; it can say anything (or nothing). Any message sent to this address will result in a subscription request, using the email address from which your message was sent. Any text you include in the message will be blissfully ignored; your message is being read by a computer, not a human.

When your request is received, a confirmation message will be generated and sent to the address from which you sent the request. You must reply to that confirmation message before your subscription is complete. This confirmation guarantees that email sent to your address actually reaches you, and it provides verification that you really did want to subscribe and the request was not accidental or the result of a virus or spoof.

After replying to the confirmation message, you're on board. You will soon be receiving email from fellow foxhunters around the world, and you can send mail to them by addressing it to FOL@Foxhunters.Org, or by replying to one of the messages you receive. Messages you receive from FOL have a header directing replies back to the list, so in most cases, simply clicking reply will direct your reply to the entire list and not just an individual. When replying, please keep in mind the guidelines about trimming replies and changing the subject line if appropriate. (And if you intended to reply to just an individual and not the entire list, verify that your reply is addressed correctly before clicking send. Forgetting this is a common source of embarrassment for the sender and amusement for others).

New subscribers are encouraged, but not required, to post a brief "introductory" message telling a little bit about themselves, where they are, and maybe their hunt affiliation. Some hunts are a little concerned about having information about them posted here, so please be sure you're not going to incur your hunt's wrath before you publicize any information here.

While it's the active participation of subscribers such as yourself that make this list as good as it is, "lurkers" who simply read the list and never contribute are perfectly welcome. If you have nothing to say, if you're bashful, if your hunt has imposed a gag order, you're welcome to hang out here and say nothing.

If you're new to foxhunting, or have questions about hunting topics that may have been previously discussed on this list, you might want to spend some time browsing the list archives. It would also be a good idea to take a look at some of the other pages listed on the FOL home page.

List Rules (long form):

• Stay on topic. This mailing list is for the purpose of discussing mounted foxhunting and related subjects. "Related subjects" is pretty fuzzy, and there's a lot of tolerance for discussion that is only indirectly connected to foxhunting. One of our subscribers contributed this list of sample topics that have been discussed here. And we're definitely not "strictly business". Jokes about the lighter side of hunting, funny things that happened at hunts, etc., are all welcome and encouraged. And sometimes a discussion goes off on a wild tangent that becomes completely unrelated to foxhunting.

  Up to a point, some digression is fun, and some leeway is allowed when a legitimate topic starts to stray. But don't start a discussion about something totally unrelated When people stray completely from the topic and post completely irrelevant stuff, other subscribers start to get a little testy. Not everybody here has the same interests outside of hunting, or the same amount of time to spend reading their email. Remember, when you post a message here, it's going to hundreds of people that you don't know, and that don't know you. All you know is that they're interested in foxhunting, or they wouldn't be here. They're not necessarily interested in any other topic that you suddenly feel an urge to discuss with total strangers. If you've got the time and interest to swap blonde jokes or cookie recipes with other people, that's fine, but this isn't the place for it.

  This also applies to any "urgent" message you receive from well-meaning but uninformed friends, that requests you to pass it along to everybody you know. Everybody gets these things occasionally; if you haven't gotten one yet, you will. Sometimes it's a warning about kidney theft; or maybe a note urging you to contact your Congressman about the new Internet tax; or a warning that some product is dangerous; or a plea to raise money for a terminally ill child by forwarding the mail; or a warning about some new devastating computer virus. The first time you get one of these, you might think that this list is a good way to spread the word to as many people as possible. Don't Do It!!!! Most of these things are completely fictitious, and have nothing to do with the purpose of this list (foxhunting). Even if you think you're being helpful, spreading false information never helps anybody. In most cases, about 30 seconds with a search engine will find a web page documenting that whatever myth you have received is a hoax; send that link back with a nasty note to whoever sent the junk to you.

  Also remember that this is not a computer diagnostic facility. Please do not send "test" messages just to see if you are receiving email properly; that's a nuisance to others. If you think you're having a problem, work it out with your Internet Service Provider, and see the FAQ for more information.

• Remove unnecessary text from your replies. This is probably one of the most annoying problems, here and elsewhere on the Internet. When replying to a previous message, please avoid repeating the entire message to which you're replying. Quoting snippets to give context to your reply is fine, but we don't need to see the entire message repeated.

  Depending on what email software that you're using, it's possible that whenever you click Reply, the entire text of the original message will be copied into your reply, and your message will be added above the original. If this is how your email software works, please delete all the repetitive stuff from your message before before sending it.

  This may seem like nitpicking, but it's a major pain to those people who have slow connections, and/or subscribe in digest mode, and/or have to pay for their online time to download and page through a bunch of stuff they've already seen. To reinforce that it's not just me who doesn't like this, check out these pleas from your fellow subscribers.

  Also consider the cumulative effect of this process. There's a lot of back and forth discussion here, and a message is likely to be replied to several times. If every reply includes the previous message, which includes the message before it, etc., the messages keep getting bigger and bigger as people keep replying, and pretty soon we're seeing huge messages with gobs of stuff that we've already seen several times before, with only a little bit of new material. The best place to stop that is before it starts.

  Others have also pointed out that, when you do need to include some of a previous message in your reply to make your point, the quoted portion should come BEFORE your reply, instead of after it. That makes sense for a couple of reasons.
  1) If people need to see a portion of the previous message to know what you're talking about, they should probably see it first, instead of reading your entire message, and then seeing the previous one and saying "So THAT'S what he was talking about. If you expect them to read all the way to the end of your reply before they see what you're talking about, it probably doesn't need to be there.
  2) Putting the quoted text before your reply before your message makes you more likely to trim it appropriately, instead of leaving the entire mess forgotten at the end.
  I realize this is contrary to the way some popular but brain-dead mail programs normally work (such as those produced by Microsoft), but it really is more appropriate for a discussion list.

  Disregarding this rule is the most common cause of subscribers not being allowed to post messages. A lot of leeway is granted in this area. An occasional slip will probably be tolerated (depending on how bad it is). And as long as you're making a good faith effort to comply, nobody is going to quibble over whether you included one or two lines more than necessary. It's just those who seem to never make any effort at all to clean up their messages who will get muzzled.

• Use a meaningful subject line on all your messages that accurately describes the content of the message. Not all subscribers are interested in every subject discussed here. Accurate subject lines allow people to quickly delete messages they're not interested in. Be especially careful of this when replying to someone else's message. If the original subject line doesn't match what you're saying, change it.

• This is not a chat room. Mailing lists are not the same as chat rooms -- your messages may be read long after they are sent, and so the "one liner" type of postings aren't effective. If you have something to add to the discussion, that's great, but please don't post messages that say nothing more than "me too", or "I agree", "That's so funny" etc. And especially don't send a public reply whch repeats an entire message just to add a trivial little one-liner (see rule above about excessive repetition).

  Some people spend all day in front of their computers, and it is easy (maybe too easy) to fire off an instant response to a message, which frequently leads to a rapid-fire back-and-forth chain of messages between two or more subscribers. If you are one of these people, please remember that your chitchat is piling up in the mailbozes of others who are out walking hounds, cleaning kennels, exercising horses, etc. When they finally collapse in front of their computer in the evening with a well-deserved cold drink, looking forward to some stimulating foxhunting discussion, they may not be thrilled to see 100 or more messages between a couple of people exchanging witty but pointless remarks. PLEASE be considerate of your fellow subscribers. Many who could have much to contribute to this discussion give up after being swamped with some of these chat marathons.

• Identify yourself. Please "sign" your messages by including a signature line giving your real name and email address. Geographic location and hunt affiliation are also welcome if you don't mind disclosing that information. There are lots of different mail systems out there, and they don't all handle message headers the same way. Some people have systems that tell them only that they're reading a message from FOL, without identifying the original sender. So if you don't include some identifying information in your message, some people won't know who wrote what they're reading. The use of false identities for the purpose of stirring up controversy will not be tolerated; if you're not willing to stand behind what you say, don't say it.

• All subscribers are expected to act like mature, intelligent adults, and to treat each other courteously. Pretend you're all in a room together, and that your Mother is watching. If you wouldn't say something while you were in the same room as a person, don't say it on the list. The purpose of this list is to constructively communicate and discuss issues of common interest to foxhunters. It is not to bully, dominate, threaten, abuse, harass or insult anyone else

• Know when to drop the subject. We do not subscribe to the idea of "he who yells loudest or last wins the argument", in fact we don't believe that most arguments are worth winning. don't be a net-bulldog, chewing away on something until you ruin it for everyone. There's a lot to be said for "agreeing to disagree" and moving on to something else. When you've had your say, drop it. If you can't add something new to a discussion, don't just repeat your old arguments until everyone else gives up.

• Do not send unwelcome private e-mail to users of this list. If user is sending private e-mail to users of this list that is abusive or harassing, or "harvesting" list e-mail addresses for commercial solicitations or other reasons, you will be removed from the list and possibly reported to your local system administrators. We consider private e-mail sent in response to things said on the list to hold to the same rules as public postings -- If you wouldn't say it to a person on the list, don't say it via private e-mail. Note that this does not mean that you should never reply privately to a list message. As you will see below, sometimes a private response is more appropriate than a public one. But just use the same courtesy in private that you would in public.

• Take private discussions off of the mail list. Please don't publicly chat back and forth with another subscriber about personal topics that aren't of interest to others here. If you see a message from an old friend that reminds you to ask him about something totally unrelated to foxhunting, please do so via private email.

• Do not post copyrighted material. It's illegal to type in an article verbatim, or re-post one from an on-line service like Clarinet, ESPNet or any of the on-line newspapers. Check out their sites -- if they don't allow redistribution, then don't post it to the list. Very few do. (Yes, we know it happens all over the net. That doesn't make it right or legal.) If you do it, you put yourself and the List at risk if the copyright holder decides to sue. Instead, post the URL to the article and a short summary of the article to the list, so interested users can look up the article themselves. If you aren't sure that what you want to do is legal, don't do it. Posting copyrighted material is something that is taken seriously -- repeat violators of this rule will be kicked off of the list.

• No blatant commercial postings.This list is not set up to provide free advertising for your business. Occasional plugs from subscribers who have foxhunting-related businesses are acceptable, as long as it is not overdone. And if someone has asked for information on where to find a particular item or service, you should always feel free to respond if you know a source for what they're looking for, even if that source is your own business. We do request that you be honest and inform people whether you're plugging your own business or just passing along impartial information. We do not allow or tolerate off-topic commercial postings, bulk-e-mail messages or any commercial solicitation by non-members. People who subscribe to the list just to post their solicitations will be reported to their local system administrators and their access to our site revoked. Items for sale and other solicitations by individuals are allowed, as long as they are not overdone, and they are for foxhunting-related items (horses, tack, trucks, trailers, hunting trips, etc). If not, don't do it.

• Do not post messages with attachments or enclosures. This means images, sound files, word-processing documents, HTML, etc. The server will reject them. Too many users have clients that don't support them, and too often, all these messages are are very large wastes of download time. Please stick with standard e-mail text. Attachments and HTML-formatted email will be rejected.

• Vacation programs and other automatic mail programs: if you use a vacation program or other "mailbot" on your account to automatically reply to email in your absence, make sure it is smart enough to not respond to mailing lists. If it's not, then unsubscribe before you turn it on. If FOL mail sent to you is bounced back to either the list or the custodian by one of those things, you WILL be in deep horse manure.

• Never send administrative requests to the list. Requests to subscribe, cancel, etc. must be sent to the appropriate address to be processed, such as the specific addresses set up for subscribing ( FOL–subscribe@Foxhunters.Org ) and unsubscribing ( FOL–unsubscribe@Foxhunters.Org). Messages sent to the main list requesting unsubscription will not be processed (period. exclamation point). We do not respond to mail sent to the wrong address. Nobody here added you to the list, so don't expect someone here to remove you.

• You must be a subscriber to this list before you can post to it. If your e-mail address changes, you might still be getting messages but find yourself unable to post because the server no longer recognizes you as you. If this happens, please see the section on e-mail address changes on the FAQ page.

• Admin: messages from the list manager: if the list manager has something official to say, the message will come from the administrative address <FOL–admin@Foxhunters.Org>, instead of the mortal alter-ego used for normal list discussion. Also, if he remembers, the string "Admin:" will be at the start of the subject. All subscribers should read these, because they're about something you need to know (or they wouldn't be flagged as administrative messages....)

• Read and save/bookmark the instructions: Please read this page and the the FAQ page carefully, and either add this page to your bookmarks or save a copy of it as long as you remain subscribed to the list. You may need instructions or have questions in the future, and you should look at all the available instructions before requesting assistance from the list administrator. You may think it's no big deal to ask "How do I unsubscribe?" or "Is there a digest version of this list?" or "Why did I stop getting mail?" or "Can you resend me the message about ...?" or "My friend wants to subscribe. Can you help?" And individually, it is no big deal. But if everybody does it, it IS a big deal. The list manager simply does not have the time to deal with individual requests and inquiries from 450+ subscribers. So please make every effort to solve your problems yourself. If you can't find your answer here, ask for help, but if you don't receive an answer, it's probably because your question IS answered here and you just didn't look closely enough.

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