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Saxifraga Discussion Group Guidelines and FAQs
Back to TopWhat is the saxifraga discussion group?Welcome! The purpose of this discussion group is that it is a way for people with a shared interest in Saxifrages to communicate freely and conveniently with each other. If you have something that you want to share with to all the people who are in the discussion group, all you need do is send an email to the special group address. Please read the information below to find out how to use this discussion group. It is a small group at present and, on average, there are only 1 or 2 emails per day, so, unlike, larger, less specialised horticultural groups, you will not be inundated with a torrent of emails. Although many subscribers are members of the Saxifrage Society, this discussion group is freely open to people interested in the genus worldwide. Neither is there any restriction by expertise; beginners and experts, growers and botanists are all equally welcome. How does it work?To participate, simply send email to saxifraga@yahoogroups.com and this will be forwarded to all the members of the discussion group. If you only want some people in the discussion group to read your message, you should mail these people privately. Anyone in the discussion group can, if they wish, post a reply to any message. When you select the "Reply" option in your email program, the To: address will be set to saxifraga@yahoogroups.com by default. This means that the text of your reply will be sent to every member in the discussion group. To send a confidential or personal reply to the author, make sure you modify the To: address field to the sender's personal e-mail address. When replying, in general don't change the default subject line entered by the originator (other than the "Re:" and the "[saxifraga]") unless you are completely changing the topic. This enables message threads to be followed by members and on the web site. Also, if you include quoted text from a previous messages, it is helpful to indent, or mark the start of each line in some way to distinguish it from your words. Also, consider editing out any text you are not actually referring to; just leave enough to give it context, otherwise long threads tend to generate long repetitive messages. If you no longer wish to belong to the discussion group, you may unsubscribe by sending an email to saxifraga-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. You may also visit the Discussion Group web site to modify your subscription: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saxifraga. Here you will find a searchable archive of all messages posted, and more. Back to TopWhat can I post?You can if you wish just listen; many people do, but it's much more fun and useful being active in a discussion group than "lurking". Suitable subjects for messages are:
Back to TopWhat shouldn't I post?Off-topic and inappropriate postings can annoy members, however well-meaning the sender, and sadly sometimes they are followed by someone opting to leave the discussion group. Please avoid the following:
Members that do not abide by these guidelines may prompt action by the moderators. Please also review Yahoo's overall terms of Service. Back to TopWhy can't I send file attachments?The discussion group has been configured not to forward file attachments to email messages for the following reasons:
If you send an attachment it is stripped away by the system before being forwarded to members, leaving the message : [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] There are occasions where you wish to show other members a photo or other file. The way to do this is to post the file to a web location and to include an URL address in the message. The saxifraga discussion groups website has a limited amount of webspace that you are welcome to use if you don't have your own website. This is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saxifraga/files/. Please upload the files into an appropriate folder here with an reasonable description. For pictures please try to make the file size as small as you can while retaining sufficient resolution. 50 to 70K should be more than ample for ID'ing a plant. The easy way to reference the file is to drill down the web site until the file you uploaded appears on screen. Then use cut and paste to copy the address from your browser to your email message. When you upload a file to the web site there is a check box saying "Send a message to the group announcing this file". This might sound a good idea, but please don't as it generates an automatic posting which frankly isn't very meaningful. Instead post a normal message to the group quoting the address as described above. If a member uploads a file a moderator will check it as soon as is feasible. We cannot however be held responsible for any viruses or other damage caused by accessing these files. The moderators may remove files that are not considered fair use of copyright material, or are oversize. As there is an overall 20MB limit, older files may be removed without any other consideration. Back to TopWhy are there adverts on every message?The saxifraga discussion group costs you nothing to belong to. Neither is there any cost to the Saxifrage Society to run. The service, though, is hosted by a commercial company, currently Yahoo. The indirect cost to us is that they add adverts to our emails and to the web site. This, I am afraid, is the way of the Internet world. For an annual fee Yahoo would remove the adverts for everyone, and if someone was willing to pay this, there would be no objection. But it's probably not worth it, so I'd suggest that unless you're actually interested in a product you see advertised (unlikely I know!), please just ignore them. Undoubtedly Yahoo use your discussion groups registration information for marketing purposes. My advice is to provide as little as possible. Back to TopWhat if I don't want to receive every message?Perhaps you find there's too many emails, or you are only peripherally interested in Saxifrages, or you are considering leaving the group. There are 2 other options that you should consider:
Back to TopWhy can't I access the web site?The web site for the saxifraga discussion group is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saxifraga. Access to this is secured by your Yahoo ID, not by membership of the discussion group. This is a change from the previous site under eGroups. If you used to have access to the eGroups site but haven't checked lately or have subscribed by email to the discussion group, you may find that when you access the web site, the messages are grayed out and the message "You are not recognized as a member of this group". You can still send and receive emails to the group, but can't browse the archives or view uploaded files. The solution is to get a Yahoo ID and associate it with your email address, and the groups it belongs to:
Additional help about this subject is given by Yahoo at http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-34.html Back to TopHow do I change my settings?If you wish to change your settings for this group go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saxifraga/join?referer=1. If you do not have web access, mail me at saxifraga-owner@yahoogroups.com and I can change the settings for you. To change your overall Yahoo Groups settings (this affects other Yahoo discussion groups you belong to) go to http://groups.yahoo.com/myprefs. Further information from http://groups.yahoo.com/. Back to TopWhat happens if someone breaks the rules?A small number of members are designated as group moderators. It's the moderators' job to police the group, to make sure that the members' interests are best served according to the stated aims. However, we do not wish the group to be heavily moderated, since this would impose an unnecessary workload, and impair the group's function somewhat. To have got this far we figure you must have a real interest in Saxifrages, so the default policy of the group is that email postings are delivered to all members without further intervention. If it's been sent it's too late for us to do anything about it in any case. Should a member infringe one of the posting guidelines above, it's most likely through unfamiliarity with the way email groups work. Normally a moderator will deal with this by sending the poster a friendly personal email. If you receive a message like this, please treat it in the spirit intended. If, though, they transgress again, the moderators do reserve the right to set their account to be fully moderated; that is, all posts from them must be approved by a moderator before being allowed onto the discussion group. In more serious cases we also have the right to ban members from the group entirely. Back to TopWhat if I have another question?You answer may be in the general Yahoo Groups help pages at http://help.yahoo.com/help/groups/. If not, feel free to email me at saxifraga-owner@yahoogroups.com, but please don't post the message to the group address by mistake. Back to TopCompiled by Paul Kennett,
listowner, saxifraga discussion group
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