650's Mailing List Frequently Asked Questions
revised 1998/02/11

NOTICE: By subscribing or continuing to subscribe to the YAM650 mailing
list, you agree to be bound by this docment. Your presence here is
certainly welcomed and encouraged, but it is a priveledge, not a right.
You may be unsubscribed at any time, for any reason or no reason at all.
You have no recourse. You were warned.

1 How about some disclaimers?
2 OK, what is YAM650?
3 How do I subscribe to YAM650?
4 Why don't I see my own messages when I post to YAM650?
5 What about "digest" and "mailing modes"?
6 How do I send a message to everybody?
7 How do I unsubscribe?
8 What if I'm changing my e-mail address or provider?
9 What can I send to YAM650?
10 Are there some posting conventions of which I should be aware?
11 Who can send mail to the YAM650 list?
12 What happens when I "reply" to a message on YAM650?
13 Who subscribes to YAM650?
14 Are there other related mailing lists?
15 What else can LISTPROC do for me?
16 Does YAM650 support the World-Wide Web?
17 What if this FAQ didn't answer my question?
18 How can I improve my e-mail skills?

1) How about some disclaimers?
Mail from this list is the exclusive responsibility
of the originators. It is operated by Bill Denton
yam650-owner@micapeak.com ("the listowner") for his amusement.
He makes all the rules, and he breaks his own rules when
it suits him. If you don't like it, you may volunteer to
help him run the list, or you may leave. Or the listowner
may terminate your subscription without any necessity for
justification or even explanation.

To the greatest possible extent permitted by law, the
listowner disavows, disclaims and renounces any and all
warranty, obligation, liability, or responsibility for any
action, failure to act, debt, guilt, sin, or other consequence
which may arise from any usage, failure to use, or indirect
consequences to subscribers, their employers or employees,
agents, heirs or assigns, common carriers, or any other entity
which may in any way become involved with or impacted by this
mailing list.

You, the subscriber, by subscribing or continuing your
subscription, agree that the value of the e-mail discussion you
receive from this mailing list is fair and just consideration
and compensation for the obligations and limitations imposed
on you by this document.

The listowner doesn't promise you that anything at all will
happen. The listowner warns you that anything at all MAY
happen, and it's all your personal responsibility, not his
or anyone else's.

By subscribing or continuing your subscription, you agree to
hold the listowner and each and all individual subscribers,
their heirs and assigns, employers and employees, agents and
all other persons and legal entities harmless from any claim
or legal action which may arise from any usage of this mailing
list, to the greatest extent permitted by law.

This mailing list is run without consent, permission, or
knowledge of the corporations and/or other legal entities
which own the computers and Internet connections over which the
mailing list operates. These corporations and/or other persons
and legal entities share no responsibility or liability.

2) OK, really now, what is YAM650?
The YAM650 mailing list is for discussion, general chatter,
chaos, ride reports and announcements of upcoming motorcycle
events concerning, even remotely in kind (or not) the
Yamaha 650 upright twins worldwide. Anyone is welcome to
subscribe. The list is not moderated, and is intended for
socializing and information exchange among 650 riders and
owners alike. Non-owners and non-riders of 650's are also
welcome, but please keep to the topic, which is the Yamaha 650
upright twin and anything having to do with it. Topics will
be as narrow or broad as the readership deems appropriate by
power of their collective wisdom.

3) How do I subscribe to YAM650?
Use the automated server software. Send mail to
LISTPROC@micapeak.com with no Subject: line and a message
body consisting of:

SUBSCRIBE YAM650 Joe Motohead

Please replace "Joe Motohead" with your NAME - what people
call you. NOT your e-mail address - what computers call you.
Your e-mail address is picked out of the headers of your mail.
This means that you should send all administrative mail from
the same place where you initially subscribed, and will get
all list-mail at that same address.

4) Why don't I see my own messages when I post to YAM650?
Because the default mailing mode is NOACK. See next question.

5) What about "digest" and "mailing modes"?
"digest" is one of several "mailing modes" of the list.
Your subscription is always set to EXACTLY ONE of these modes,
which control how and when you get mail from the list:

ACK - Undigestified list mail
You get back a copy of your own mail to the list.

NOACK - Undigestified list mail (THIS IS THE DEFAULT)
You do NOT get back a copy of your own mail to
the list.

DIGEST - Digestified list mail
You do NOT get back a copy of your own mail to
the list. Instead of receiving one e-mail message
for every message anybody sends to YAM650,
you get two BIG "digest" e-mail messages per day,
with all the traffic since the last digest batched
up into one wrapper.

POSTPONE - Your record stays on file, but you get NO mail
from the list. NOTE: it also doesn't "save up" the
mail while you're gone; you are simply ignored until
you re-set your mode.

You can set yourself to any one of these modes by sending
mail to LISTPROC@micapeak.com with no Subject: line and a
message body consisting of:

SET YAM650 MAIL <mode>

E.g.: to get back to "normal" mode after setting your mode
to postpone or digest: SET YAM650 MAIL ACK

6) How do I send a message to everybody?
Send anything you want to YAM650@micapeak.com and your
message will be distributed to all subscribers.

7) How do I unsubscribe?
Send mail to LISTPROC@micapeak.com with no Subject: line
and a message body consisting of:

UNSUBSCRIBE YAM650

(No name is required - it's keyed on your address from the mail
header) NOTE: see below if you're just leaving temporarily.

8) What if I'm changing my e-mail address or provider?
There is a SET ADDRESS command, but everyone who tries to
use it has trouble with it. First, it MUST be sent from
you OLD address - you can NOT use it if you've lost access
to your old provider/address. Second, you MUST get your NEW
address exactly right AS SEEN BY LISTPROC (this isn't as easy
as you might think - what your ISP tells you is your e-mail
address ain't necessarily so), or you'll never be able to
send commands again until the Listowner get involved.

The best route is to first UNsubscribe from you OLD address
(see above) and then re-subscribe from your NEW address.
If you've lost ability to use your old connection, please
contact the Listowner.

9) What can I send to YAM650?
The charter of the group is given above in answer to
question 2, is available anytime by sending a message to
LISTPROC@micapeak.com consisting of "info YAM650", and
is sent automatically to each new subscriber.

This charter does not permit restriction of messages to
suit anyone's taste or job situation. As a rule of thumb,
anything you'd say in a biker bar to a group of computer
geeks is permitted. If that means that some folks must
un-subscribe for fear of their jobs, we'll be sorry to
see them go. This "freedom hall" approach cuts both ways,
however: if anyone wants to lobby the group and encourage
Political Correctness, this activity is also permitted.

Listowner does stipulate, however, that it's his ball and his bat.
As administrator and chief bottle-washer for the software
which connects you fine folks to voluminous senseless drivel,
Listowner reserves the right to make unilateral decisions about
individual subscribers or messages if he feels the need to
take action immediately. If you feel you've been unjustly
treated, refer to Question 1. Or get a life.

10) Are there some posting conventions which I should follow?
The users of this mailing list should conform to the
Internet/NetNews convention of appending new material AFTER
the minimum quoted portion of the message to which the new
stuff refers. Please be courteous! Trim down the text from
the original message so that your reply includes ONLY the
minimum quotation necessary to establish context.

Habitual users of some PC mailers typically seem to have
a particular problem with this, often inserting 2 lines of
reply at the top of ~100 lines of quoted material. This is
irritating to readers of your message, who end up scanning
all that quoted volume looking for new material and not
finding any.

It is also considered good form on the Internet to have a
"signature" that reasonably identifies you. "CB Handle" style
screen names like AOL uses are NOT an example of this. A
particularly bad instance is when a new user blurts out a
request for information with no signature and only a screen
name; no information on location at all. This makes it very
difficult to respond to the info request without inflicting
the response on all the subscribers of the mailing list.

Many of the people on this list have met each other, and over
the course of time have gotten to know each other well enough
that they truncated names or started identifying themselves
by some funny nickname or legendary feat. Even at that,
their address usually provides more complete ID and so this
approach can be acceptable. But to start up on the list with
nothing but a cryptic ID puts some people off.

You should remember also that many people are reluctant to
respond when a post comes only with an anonymous ID with no
name and little address info.

11) Who can send mail to the YAM650 mailing list?
Participation of a *purely commercial* nature from the general
public is NOT welcome here, EVEN IF it's motorcycle-specific.
If you join in our chatter, attend our events, and
generally behave like you're one of the group, and you ALSO
have a business which lets you answer questions, respond to
wanted-to-buy ads, etc. with commercial information related to
your business, then that's OK. But don't send messages here
just to make a buck. It's rude; this is a SOCIAL mailing list.
It's purely the Listowner's judgement call.

YAM650@micapeak.com will accept and distribute
meaningless text from anyone, subscriber or not. Obviously,
non-subscribers won't receive copies of their submissions and
won't see any of the responses. If this "permissive mode"
becomes a problem because of Spammers or other e-mail abuse,
this policy may be changed.

12) What happens when I "reply" to a message on YAM650?
Depends on your mailer. In general, using most mailers'
"REPLY" command will send your reponse to the entire mailing
list - NOT just to the originator of the message to which
you're replying.

13) Who subscribes to YAM650?
As a Spam-suppression measure, the usual listproc REVIEW
feature is disabled for YAM650.

14) Are there other related mailing lists?
YAM650 is hosted by micapeak.com which supports
a large number of other motorcycle mailing lists. To get
more information about micapeak.com and its other services,
please point your browser to
http://www.micapeak.com/

15) What else can LISTPROC do for me?
Several other features are available. For a list of possible
LISTPROC commands, send mail to LISTPROC@micapeak.com
consisting of

HELP

16) Does YAM650 support the Word-Wide Web?
Yes, for many things. There's a YAmaha 650 Society Home Page at the
URL http://159.218.3.3/650.htm It contains some
good info and links to other places. As with most part-time
WWW efforts, this page is permanently "under construction".

17) What if this FAQ didn't answer my question?
Send mail directly to Bill Denton bdento59@ix.netcom.com

18) How can I improve my e-mail skills?

If you're genuinely interested in improving your e-mail skills,
we highly recommend a book:
Lamb, Linda and Jerry Peek, _Using E-Mail Effectively_, O'Reilly
and Associates, 1995, ISBN 1-56592-103-8
Order it from O'Reilly at 1-800-889-8969 or http://www.ora.com/

GENERAL ADVICE

What do you want to achieve?

Understand your medium:

- Remember that e-mail isn't like being there. People can't hear
your tone of voice or see your body language - hence the
development of the smile :-) and frown :-( conventions. But you
also need to think about your writing style and make sure that
your message conveys what you want to say clearly and simply,
without appearing angry, curt, whining, dictatorial, etc. unless
you intend to do so.

- Also remember the above when READING messages. Not everybody
has your superb writing skills, so give them the benefit of the
doubt and don't infer emotion or bad intent from somebody's
message without reality.

- Be sure you understand to whom your message or reply is
directed. Most mailing lists will send replies to ALL
subscribers, NOT just to the person who wrote the original note
to which you're replying. To quote an Lissa saying: "Mailing
lists are like picking your nose at a traffic light. You feel
like you're all alone, but everybody can see you".

Reach a receptive audience:

- If you want your message read and acted on right away, make
your point in the plain text body of the message itself, NOT in
an attached document. The world is changing in favor of the
latter, but it's not there yet, and many of us read mail at home
or on the road where it's much more difficult to deal with
attached documents.

- Use space intelligently. Even though you may have a wonderful
windowing system and cute mailer, not everybody does. Your
message is most likely to be enjoyable to everyone if each line
contains a newline/return after no more than 75 characters, and
you do NOT use any spiffy PC text "extra" characters, boldfacing,
etc.

- Use whitespace and paragraphs effectively. I have a very hard
time reading a solid two-page block of text with no paragraphs,
ESPECIALLY if it's in e-mail. Your message may get lost because
of how you presented it.

- Please be courteous and trim down the text from the original
message so that your reply includes ONLY the minimum quotation
necessary to establish context. Some users of popular PC mailers
seem to have a particular problem with this, sometimes inserting
2 lines of reply at the top of 100 lines of quoted material. This
is irritating to readers of your message. The Internet convention
is to append new material AFTER the quotation to which it
applies, often with multiple blocks of new stuff interspersed
with the quoted stuff. Thus, readers end up scanning all that
quoted volume looking for new material and not finding any.

Configure your mailer properly:

- Do NOT use "QP: or "Quoted Printable" options. This is a sneaky
and usually-ineffective way some mailers use to slip in PC text
characters. It just makes regular mail look ugly when read with a
mailer (like elm) which doesn't understand QP.

- Avoid using colors, fonts and other fancy features supported by
your mailer. If you want to make an elegant presentation, do it
in an attached document. Yes, "everybody" should be up-to-date
and use the same new whiz-bang mailer that you do. Are you more
interested in getting them to use the "correct" mailer, or in
getting your message across? If the latter, don't use all those
neat mailer features unless you're SURE that EVERYBODY in your
intended audience has them - you'll just annoy those who don't.