Dear All, It will probably take us all a few weeks before we can figure out the best way to send messages to this list so please be patient while we sort it out. I have been advised to compose FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) with answers of course. We will want to post this on our web site when it is up and running. I will work on this as I have time. In the meantime I ask each one of you who posts to the group (or who has already posted) to go to the archives and see how your message is displayed. If what you has written is in html or includes a response from someone who has written in html you will find it is not easy to read the archives and you will want to change how you post. If you can write messages where you can change the color of the writing, create your own font, underline, make bold or do any other fancy formatting thing you are sending a message in html and you will want to turn that off when you post to this list (and any other list). Not only does this ensure your message will look funny to some people in our group when it is received, it will guarantee that your message will be printed twice in our archives and to those people who get the digest. This means we are wasting storage space and making digest members with slow download time or limited space very frustrated. It has been suggested to me that some of you will not know how to turn off the html on your email program and have not understood when I asked not to use it. Those of you who are computer savy can really help us in this regard if you can provide me with clear instructions for each mail program about how to send text messages for that program. Better still would be if someone from each program that understands how to use it would be willing to be a resource for me to help another who uses that program who needs help. I can explain Eudora, but we need an Outlook Express expert, a netscape mail, AOL, Pegasus, Yahoo, and what ever else Mac users might use. I don't know them all. If you have setup options that allow you to pick whether to send text or styled messages you need to pick text. If your email program allows you to check off when sending mail with styled messages (html), please ask whether to send it text, styled, or both, check this box!! It will be a reminder for you if you forget and compose a styled message. And then when it asks you, how do you want to send it, ALWAYS chose text only. If you have created a fancy signature for yourself that uses html, please compose another one to use for pbs that is plain (including your geographical information.) In your setup options you can often choose to include the whole message you are responding to when you reply. If you have selected this option, please delete the reply when you post to this group. If you must include part of the message for identifying purposes, please only include the significant parts and NEVER include any of the previous message if it is in html as that may turn your message into html too. Just add an introductory sentence to explain what you are replying to. It doesn't take much time to delete the previous message and you will be improving the way our archives look, saving time for digest readers, and most important lowering the blood pressure of your administrators! If you are changing the subject, please start a new message and do not hit reply and use the same subject heading. When someone searches the archives they may never read your message not knowing it is about something entirely different. This is very easy to do as every message you receive has this on it: List-Post: <mailto:pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> If you click on this a new message will be started. This is an unmoderated group, but Arnold and I will be reading the messages. Please do not clutter up the list by posting messages that could be better sent privately. We do no want people to quit in droves because of the volume of messages. And if I write you privately trying to sort out problems please do not take it personally. I am only trying to make this a good experience for the entire group. Mary Sue PBS Adminstrator