Okay, so aside from teaching list members how to unsubscribe (a losing
battle), how do you get them to listen and pay attention to list rules?

One of my mailing lists is for people with a chronic illness. List rules
say no excessive quoting, no private email, since the list uses topics, use
a topic that matches your message and use a detailed subject line. Needless
to say, almost all of these rules are ignored by half of the posting list
members at any time. So 1138 people get all this useless mail from people
who don't know how to take a conversation private.

So we post public reminders about list rules. We send private reminders to
the offenders and we are ignored or worse yet get hate mail because someone
is offended that we ask them to follow the rules. We put the repeat
offenders on review, send back mail for editing, or, being
nonconfrontational, often edit out the quoting or change the subject lines
ourselves. Earlier today, I got so annoyed at some of these people, I just
blew away all the messages in the review mailbox without even looking. (I
know that was wrong, I might change my mind.)

I don't want to kick people off the list ... I know that they are ill and
that sometimes they are cranky and mean and sometimes they need extra
help... but since I am more ill than they are, I just want to find some way
to get them to listen for a change.

So, how do you get your list members to pay attention to the list rules?

Karen Strauss
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Network
[log in to unmask]