SBL E-Mail Submission Instructions & Guidelines

The list address

The To and Cc headers

Format & formatting

Taking surveys

Replying to email

The list address

	sbl-list@barefooters.org

• Administrative requests (like a request to change your email address) to the list.
• Email to be forwarded to the list.

The To and Cc headers

	To: other@isp.com, sbl-list@barefooters.org

	To: other@isp.com
	Cc: sbl-list@barefooters.org

	To: sbl-list@barefooters.org
	Cc: other@isp.com

1. Some individuals would get two copies of your message (somewhat annoying).

2. If your message is not immediately approved by the moderator, the other recipients will get a copy anyway and may be prompted to respond to the entire list. The list, however, never received a copy of the original message, so things will be out of context and, if the original message is eventually approved, out of sequence.

In your mailer, when you select the Reply function, you may need to edit the To or Cc headers to delete the other groups or individuals — please do so. It takes only several seconds to do.

Format & formatting

Plain Text Only
Please use only plain text (having a MIME type of "text/plain"). Do not use "enriched text" (having a MIME type of "text/enriched"). Do not use HTML or plain text in conjunction with HTML (having a MIME type of "multipart/alternative"). Do not use a weird character encoding. Do not use MIME attachments.

The reason for the prohibitions is that (1) many people's mailers may not be able to handle anything except plain text and (2) it bloats the size of the digests. (See item 2 under Replying to email regarding digests.) Aside: there is no compelling reason to use enriched text or HTML in email. Ever.

Note that the prohibition on attachments does not mean that you can not include text from some other source. You simply have to append the text to your message by reading (or pasting) it into your email editor rather than attaching it.

Formatting
The only thing requested here is that you make some effort to make your message readable. The best things you can do include:

1. Remembering to hit Return at the end of lines (like you would on a typewriter) even if your mailer "auto-wraps" text like a word processor unless you are sure your mailer will insert return characters for you. Many people do not use mail readers that auto-wrap text. Email without returns at then end of lines read using such mailers is very difficult to read since it's one big line with no auto-wrapping.

2. Assuming you do hit Return at the end of lines, remember to also keep your lines 78 columns or less even if you are composing your message in a wider window. That means your lines should be no longer than this:

            1         2         3         4         5         6         7       7
   ---------0---------0---------0---------0---------0---------0---------0-------8
   

   Many people use mailers in environments that have 80-column terminal windows and longer lines look terrible because they wrap funny. The easiest thing to do is to make your window 80 columns.

3. Use a monospaced font and not a proportionally spaced font. Characters in a monospaced font are all the same width so, by using one, you can correctly limit your lines to 78 characters. Characters in a proportionally spaced font are all different widths and therefore you will be unable to limit lene length correctly. For example:

   Font	10 letter 'i's	10 letter 'w's
   Monospaced	iiiiiiiiii	wwwwwwwwww
   Proportionally spaced	iiiiiiiiii	wwwwwwwwww

4. When you are quoting somebody else's message, try to do the following:
   1. Set off or distinguish the text you are quoting so it's clear which text is quoted and which text is your response. Most mailers prepend a > character to quoted lines and this is good.

   2. Insert a blank line before and after text you are quoting and your response otherwise it's difficult to see your response amidst the quoted text. (The lack of a > character in the left margin isn't very effective by itself.)

Taking surveys

Replying to email

Quoting of previous mail

PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE ENTIRE MESSAGES GRATUITOUSLY. For example, do not quote an entire message before your response and also do not append an entire message to your response. A good guideline is that your response should be longer than what you are quoting.

Excessive quoting, which increases message size, would cause a few non-obvious problems:

1. It increases the cost to those members who have internet service that is metered (as opposed to flat-rate) and who download their mail to a mailer resident on their computer otherwise known as POP mail (Eudora and Netscape are two examples).

2. Increases the frequency with which digests are generated. Digests are currently generated when either a maximum of 20 messages is accumulated or a maximum bulk message size is reached. The SBL members who receive their mail in digest format do so in part to receive fewer individual messages. Increasing digest frequency goes against this wish.