Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 18:24:49 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Norm Saunders Subject: Some Notes at the New Year MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Ospreyers, Just a few thoughts for you as we enter our second year of operation at MDOsprey's new location. First, let's do our best to curb inflammatory language. If you must yell at someone, please do it in a private message. Thank you. Second, we ask that every submitter sign their messages with their name, location, and e-mail address. This information is seldom evident from the header of a message you might submit and can go a long way to helping others answer questions you might have. See my signature block, below, for an example. Virtually every mail program I'm aware of allows you to set up a default signature block such as the one I use. Third, please make an effort to find and get acquainted with the MDOsprey archives. The web address is: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/mdosprey.html Once there you can do some very sophisticated searches on the list. So far I have the archives for one entire year of operation and plan to allow the archives to expand to cover another year. I just did a search on "snowy owl Frederick", for example, and found 21 messages. A quick scan of the subject lines yielded "Directions to the Snowy Owl" posted by Pete Webb back on December 17. See how easy it can be to find this information yourself rather than continually asking the list to repost something which may have appeared many times before? At the same time, if you are honestly puzzled and can't find some piece of information, please don't let me shut you up from asking. The only silly question is the one that goes unasked. Next, it is inevitable that from time to time a private message gets inadvertantly posted on the list. Please just ignore these and let the red-faced individuals live down their embarrassment in private. When this happens, I will clean the offending messages from the archives (now that I know I can do it without destroying the archive files!) so it makes my job easier if you just let the original message pass without comment. Finally, if you're one of the legion who never post here but just listen, please get more active and let us know what's going on with you and your birding experiences! We will all learn more as a result. All told I would have to say Fran and I are enormously pleased with the way MDOsprey has become accepted among Maryland birders. Keep up the great communication that we've established! Norm Saunders MDOsprey list owner ======================= Norm Saunders Colesville, Montgomery County, MD marshhawk@worldnet.att.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================