Dear Recovery Loop Members,

Many people are going to receive and read e-mail that you will share with your loop. We take great pride in the number of considerate members we have and ask that you please not send anything to your list that will offend your fellow loop member.

When you share with your loop, try to use a very clear and specific subject so that others will know the content of your share. A lot of our members will delete a share with no subject. And, if you are responding to a particular share which has become a thread (a lot of shares related to the same subject) if/when that topic changes, be sure and change your subject line to the new topic.

Probably one of the things we get more complaints about than anything is excessive quoting. So many mail programs will configure your mail to quote entire letters and that is, not only not necessary, but harmful to the list and to our list servers. Some of our members pay long distance charges and long downloads can be very expensive ... especially in the digest versions of our loops. So please quote only the section of the text applicable to your share.

It is proper to quote a previous letter when replying to it, like this:

> One of the best recovery books I ever read was "For Today" > published by Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. This little book has > inspirational writings for each day of the year.

Notice the angle brackets ">" These are put in automatically by the e-mail program. BUT ... many programs do this to the ENTIRE e-mail by default. Please do not allow that to happen. People do not want to reread an entire letter they just read. Just quote the exact section of text you are referring to, like shown above.

Another irritating thing to many of us is the use of all caps. THIS CAN REALLY GET ANNOYING. In addition, all caps generally looks like you are yelling.

Use a spell checker. All of the good e-mail programs come equipped with a spelling checker and they are very easy to use.

Never, never, never send messages like, "Take me off this list RIGHT NOW" to an entire list. Nothing is ruder and offends more people as one person not writing something privately and, instead, sending it to hundreds of people who can do absolutely nothing about it.

Nearly every list in the Recovery Group has clear instructions for removing your address from the list. If you haven't saved your welcome letter and instructions, if you can't find the instructions on one of the many posts coming to you ... please then just e-mail your coordinator or any Trusted Servant privately and they will be happy to help you set your mail the way you need it to be.

In general, do not send attachments through the list. Unless you have specific instructions and/or permission to send a file through the list, do not send it. Files can generate a huge amount of mail and people usually are not interested in the file anyway. Some people actually configure their mail programs not to receive files because they are burdensome and, in rare cases, even carry viruses.

Some mail programs, like Netscape, will default to "Send HTML" or "Send MIME." These are actually attachments and often result in your message being posted twice to the list. Once as text and once as HTML. This is just an annoyance to your readers. Turn the HTML setting off. (Sometimes these messages are just bounced back to you, so you have to turn it off.)

Dear Loopies, please be mindful of other people's feelings. It is easy for a reader to mistake your "tone of voice" in an e-mail. If you are discussing a hot topic, hold the e-mail for a few hours after you've written it and reread it later. Be careful of areas that could be misinterpreted. Learn also to make a smiley face. :-) Those dear little faces can make even the harshest sentence more tolerable.

Thank you for being a member of the Recovery Group. We're very glad you're here.

The Trusted Servants of The Recovery Group

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