PGWnet

Note: PGWnet participants sometimes take a nom de Plum (i.e., the name of a character from the Wodehouse canon). Here is the most recent list of Noms and instructions for acquiring your own.

PGWnet Guidelines

Electronic communities (such as mailing lists) are like small countries. They each have a unique style and their own little idiosyncracies and, just like when travelling to a foreign land for the first time, people wishing to visit would do well to familiarize themselves with local customs ahead of time so as not to embarrass themselves or give offense to the natives.

That said, we in the land of PGWnet have few rules and the ones we do have exist to make it possible for the greatest number of people to read and participate in the discussions. We try to filter the messages automatically so they don't break these laws too severely, but a mere machine cannot do as good a job as you can. Here is a list of the rules and a brief explanation of why they were created:

• Do not send attachments of any kind to the list.
• Do not send messages in HTML to the list.

• Trim your posts!

Why is this such a bad thing, you ask? After all, one can merely choose not to read the trailing garbage, right? Well, perhaps you can, but there may well be others on the list who pay real money for each and every character which appears on their computer screen. It is not kind to make others pay for our sloppy habits (try to think of leaving all that unnecessary text lying around as a form of electronic littering).

Apart from the financial issue, there is the issue of clarity - it becomes hard to figure out what you're responding to. And in the name of clarity we ask that you do not go too far the other way and delete the entire message to which you are replying! Since messages are sent to the list by so many different people at so many different times it is unlikely that members will see your reply immediately after reading the original post. Therefore, messages consisting only of "Yes, I feel the same way and Gwendolyn quite agrees with me," so far from advancing intelligent conversation, will merely serve to annoy the populace at large.

There is no mathematical formula which tells you the correct amount of text to include or to delete. We merely ask you to use The Golden Rule of Mailing Lists: Make each message stand up for itself. Every word in the message should be there because you, with deliberation and consideration, chose to put it there. YOU are responsible for EACH WORD of your message, even those included from others' messages.

Another point to remember (not so much a rule as a word to the wise) is that when you hit the "Reply" button your message will go to the entire list, NOT the individual whose post you are currently reading. Just something to bear in mind when you have a private remark to make.

To subscribe to PGWnet, simply send a message to majordomo@wodehouse.org with this phrase in the body: "subscribe pgwnet" (without the quotes). Once you are subscribed, messages sent by others will automatically show up in your inbox and you may send messages to the list by using the address pgwnet@wodehouse.org (or simply replying to a message). Of course your email address from PGWnet will never find its way to those junk mail lists, and you will never get junk mail ("spam") or viruses from PGWnet. Also keep in mind that if email to the account bounces for more than a few days for any reason -- perhaps your mailbox is full, perhaps your ISP is flaky, or messages are mistaken for spam -- it will automatically get removed from the subscription list. In the past we've had trouble with msn.com, hotmail.com and AOL accounts -- if you use one of those, use caution.

AOL users have an additional hurdle: they have instituted a two-tier email system. ISPs and others who are willing to pay AOL's extortion demands and fork over cash can send email to AOL users without interference ("guaranteed"); for everyone else it will be a crapshoot. Needless to say wodehouse.org will not be submitting to their demands. AOL users should expect to see disruptions and failures of PGW-net and other email. If you're on AOL and are having trouble with PGWnet or other email, we suggest you move to a different ISP; we will not be able (or willing) to help AOL users. (We recommend that with ISPs, as with all other things, you avoid the mega-corporations and patronise your local businesses.)

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