North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Road's End Farm <organic87@frontiernet.net>]

On Jan 18, 2009, at 7:49 AM, Ginda Fisher wrote:

> 3)  It's helpful to sign your post with your name and some indication  
> of where you live and grow stuff.  I usually say "eastern Mass, zone  
> 6" after my name, but don't always bother if I'm writing about  
> something that doesn't depend on my geography, such as this note.
If you use an email program that allows you to set up different signatures, just set up one for NAFEX (and any other garden or farm lists you post to) that includes your zone and approximate region. Then this information will be included automatically.

A couple of other things I think not yet mentioned:

Try to stay on-topic: that is, only post things within the general subject area of the list, or questions etc. about this specific list itself. There is obviously a little leeway granted on this; but try not to push it too far.

Instead of sending pictures or other attachments with the post, put them on line somewhere (there are sites that will host them for you) and post a link to them; or mention them and say that those who want them can request to have them emailed directly to them, off list. Some on this list still have dial up service, and some for other reasons would prefer plain text only in emails. (Note that the NAFEX information added automatically at the bottom of each post says specifically "plain text only".)

If you're addressing multiple subjects in one post, and if you can do it without making the subject line extremely long, try to mention them all in the subject line, to aid searching: for instance, if you're discussing fertilizing grapes and also talk about pruning grapes and apples, the subject line might say something like "fertilizing and pruning grapes and apples".

Other than that: let me just repeat Ginda and others on this: please, please, please: change the subject line if needed; do not include digest name in the subject line; and delete unnecessary material when replying to posts, leaving just enough so people can tell what you're answering.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly