ALHFAM-L is an e-mail discussion list available only to ALHFAM members. Topics cover the diverse range of interests of the living history museum community in a current and lively format. Yearly Membership List: Current ALHFAM members receive a list of all members, both individual and institutional, each autumn. This list is for personal use only.

---

We all know how beneficial, enlightening, inspiring and just plain entertaining the ALHFAM list is.  For the enjoyment and consideration of all users of the ALHFAM list, we want to remind you of a few things that will make the list operate more smoothly.  Please contact your list administrators with any comments, suggestions or ideas.  We welcome your input.

Andi Erbskorn   or Alternate e-mail for Andi;

Martha Katz -Hyman;  

Edward Baker

Some general rules for the list:

1) Please sign your full name and location/affiliation/position to your message. This is simple courtesy for a professional discussion list and lets everyone on the list know who is posting the message, especially if your name or site is not immediately obvious from your e-mail address.

2) Commercial postings of any kind are not allowed.

If you would like to advertise your product or service, please contact Blake Hayes, ALHFAM webmaster (blake@cherryvalley.com), for information about advertising in the ALHFAM Bulletin and on the website. Also let Blake know if you will be exhibiting or performing at a particular location or event, as sometimes these events can be added to the website calendar.

Third-party referrals to specific vendors, products or websites in response to a query to ALHFAM-L are not considered commercial postings.

Announcements of exhibits, special events, professional classes and seminars, calls for papers, and conferences sponsored by other museums, historic sites, and non-profit organizations that would be of interest to ALHFAM-L subscribers and do not promote a particular vendor, company or commercial organization are allowed.

URLs that point to your website or blog are not considered commercial postings and are allowed.

3) If you are going to post something to the ALHFAM list that you have seen elsewhere, please give credit to that website or e-mail list. Likewise, if you read something on the ALHFAM list that you'd like to post to another list, please give credit to the ALHFAM list or ask the original poster for permission to post it to another list.

4) Job postings including those for paid and unpaid internships and RFPs, sent directly to the list are not allowed.  If you are an institutional member, you may post openings to the ALHFAM website and then send a posting to the ALFHAM-L letting users know that there is a new job posting on the website. Job postings by individual members or by institutions that are not members are not allowed because such postings are member benefits for Institutional members only and allowing all members to post them directly negates this important benefit.  Contact Blake Hayes, ALHFAM Webmaster, at blake@cherryvalley.com, for details on how to get job openings added to the ALHFAM web site job page.

5)  Please keep personal social networking requests private.  Although it is fine to let list members know of your institution's Facebook page or Twitter account, please do not send "be my friend" or "please follow me" messages to ALHFAM-L.  If there is an ALHFAM member that you'd like to "friend" or "follow," please contact that individual off-list.  Again, this is a simple courtesy for the list.

6) The ALHFAM list does not accept attachments of any kind. If you have pictures or drawings that you want to make available, post your initial e-mail without them and have any interested people contact you “off list” (i.e. at your direct e-mail) for more information.

Institutional logos (often included with signatures that are added to every message), non-standard fonts and other similar items are seen by the Binhost software as attachments and can prevent your message from going directly to the list. Please delete these before sending your message so that it is posted without a problem. 

7) The list is moderated on weekends and holidays to make sure that any technical problems with the list or with members’ e-mail programs  do not affect members’ inboxes.  If you post a message during the time that the list is moderated, you will receive an automatic message (generated by Binhost’s software) that your message is being held for moderation.  This is so you know that the message has reached the list and is waiting for one of the administrators to release it.  It has nothing to do with the content of the message, unless there is an attachment, and in that case, one of the administrators will contact you on how to remedy the problem, since attachments are not allowed (see above).  The messages are held so that if there is a malfunctioning computer or auto-response message, such automatic messages will not get sent automatically to the list and overwhelm members’ inboxes (see below).

 

And some hints for making the list run more smoothly....

1) Posting in Plain text: We ask that everyone post messages in Plain text rather than in formatted or HTML text (bold, italic, underlined, "smiley faces", backgrounds, etc.). Although the software used by Binhost usually strips out the formatting before posting, sometimes it slips through (we haven't figured out why), resulting in lines of arcane-looking computer code in the digest version that can be difficult to wade through. Formatted text also takes longer to download, and since a number of ALHFAM-L subscribers use dial-up to connect to the Internet, posting in plain text makes their download time much shorter.

2) Digest Version: Sometimes the number of ALHFAM messages can be overwhelming.  Instead of leaving the list, switch your subscription to the "digest version" (you can do this yourself at https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/alhfam or contact one of the moderators for help).  This means that, instead of receiving each message as it is posted throughout the day, you will receive one or two e-mails daily with the consolidated postings.  The digest message includes a list of message subjects at the top that provides a brief guide to that day's postings.

3) Clipping Your Replies:  When you reply to a message, we ask that you delete the original posting (or most of it) before sending your reply to the list. This keeps all list members from having to wade through the original posting multiple times in search of the new information and reduces the size of the digest version as well.

4) Auto-responders: Automatic "Out of Office" messages play havoc with the list. We do have some filters in place to try to catch these, but it is impossible to create a filter to catch all possible versions of automatic messages. If you routinely use these even for short-term vacations, please disable your subscription to the list before you leave. When you disable your subscription, you will stop messages from being sent to your Inbox, but you won't be unsubscribed from the list. When you return, you simply turn off "disable" and messages will start coming to your mailbox again. This is something you can do yourself via this link to the ALHFAM-L membership management page on the Binhost website: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/alhfam. Be sure to click “nomail” and not “unsub” to stop mail from coming to you. “Nomail” stops the mail but doesn’t unsubscribe you; “unsub” unsubscribes you entirely from the list, and you will have to resubscribe to get back on or to access the archives, to which a link can be found on the membership management page. If you have difficulties, contact one of the moderators for help).

5) Unsubscribing from the ALHFAM list and Managing Your Account: Binhost makes it pretty easy to manage your own subscription. At the bottom of each message posted to ALHFAM-L is the link to the management page of our list:

https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/alhfam

Here you can edit your email address, unsubscribe, disable or enable message delivery, or change to the digest version (see above) on your own. You need to know your subscribed e-mail address and password to gain access to your account. (If you have forgotten your password, there is a place to click that will send it to you automatically). For most things, you need to scroll down on the initial page to the “unsubscribe/edit” button, enter your e-mail address and go from there.

6) Email bouncing from the list: It is frustrating to have composed a wonderful, thoughtful post (are there any other kinds?) to the list only to have it returned to you with the “bounced” message. There are several reasons why messages, even from loyal long-time subscribers, get bounced:

a. Length: The list is set to only accept messages up to 25Kb in size. For most general postings this is enough. Sometimes, though, particularly if there has been a long reply to a long post, messages can exceed this length. Best to shorten up and try again.

b. Trying to post from a different address: Quite a few of us in this day and age have multiple e-mail addresses - one for work/school and one for home. Remember that although it may be the same "you" posting at both addresses, the list only recognizes the e-mail address from which you originally subscribed. Any other e-mail will be bounced from the list. Either resend from your subscribed e-mail address or change your subscription e-mail address (again, this is something you can do yourself via the ALHFAM-L membership management page mentioned above).

c. ??? - From time to time, messages are bounced for reasons other than above. If you have problems getting your messages to post, contact one of the list administrators directly for help.

7) If you suddenly stop receiving messages from the list or cannot post to the list: Most institutional e-mail servers limit the number of messages that can be in a subscriber’s inbox, so if you are away for an extended period (long vacation, leave of absence, etc.) and don’t clear out your inbox periodically, messages are bounced back to the sender with the message “mailbox full.” When the Binhost software receives a set number of these messages, your e-mail address is disabled, and your administrators get a message to that effect from Binhost. We try to contact you if possible to let you know what the problem is, but you can prevent this from happening if you set your account to “nomail” for the period of time you’ll be away. When you return, you can set your account to get mail again and check the archives of the list for what you missed.

You can also stop receiving messages from the list if you change your list e-mail address for any reason (change of employment, change of e-mail provider, change of e-mail address format). The Binhost software only recognizes the exact address with which you subscribed, so if your address changes in any way, please let the administrators know so that we can make the changes in the membership list.

The same goes for posting messages: if your e-mail address changes in any way, the Binhost software will not recognize it, and your message will be bounced back to you. Please let the administrators know, and we’ll make the changes.