New member info and reminder for old members

[Guest guest]

We have a LOT of new folks here lately, plus some old members who seem

to have forgotten, so here's a friendly " how to play nicely in the

Achalasia Group " message to everyone.

If your email program automatically quotes the email you received,

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE delete any non-critical portions of your quoted

material. If you don't do this type of pruning and the people who reply

after you don't do this pruning, it's not unusual to have ten or more

" old " emails tacked on to the end of each and every email in a subject.

For people who receive the Daily Digest form of the emails, all these

un-pruned parts and pieces of leftover irrelevant verbiage make it very

difficult to try to follow what is and isn't being said in each email.

Even changing the font style or color doesn't help to differentiate,

because the Daily Digest mode ignores all " fancy " fonts and sends

everything in one color (black) and the same font.

Not deleting the old quoted parts from your response can also increase

the likelihood of your message getting stuck in the Spam

Filter (see second message that I pasted to the end of this message for

more info on how the Spam Filter works).

Another request is to PLEASE do some looking around. Use the " search "

function at the top of the message pages, and have a look in the Links

and Files sections (along the lefthand side of any page of the

website). I've been a member here for the better part of a decade, and

to be quite honest, there's not much that anyone can ask that hasn't

already been covered hundreds if not thousands of times already. Of

particular interest is the subject of " spasms " or " chest pains " - in

addition to searching, you can check out the Files section and scroll

down to " Debbi's NCCP Post.doc " and I think you'll find a lot of

helpful information.

Anyone else have suggestions/requests for ways to make this group as

user-friendly as possible???

Debbi in Michigan

Spam Filter Info:

Just to let everyone know, has a " spam filter " that will

block your messages if they contain huge blocks of text that are just

quotes of quotes of quotes of quotes of previous emails in a

conversation on a certain subject.

If you respond to group messages via email rather than by posting on

the website itself, your messages will go through faster if you delete

all prior messages at the bottom of your email. (Most people have their

email program set to automatically include a quote of the email you're

replying to.) It's fine to leave the one message that you're replying

in reference to, just for clarification -- one quoted email won't cause

the spam filter to lock down your reply. But if there's an ongoing

conversation about a particular subject (or if you receive the Daily

Digest email, where there are up to 25 email messages in one single

email), please delete all extra messages

besides the one message you're replying to.

Here's an example:

Member A posts this:

AAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA

AAAAAA AA AAAA AAA

===============================

===============================

===============================

Then Member B replies with this, and also quotes the previous message

from

Member A:

BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB BBB BB BBB BB B B

BBBBBB BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB

>Member A wrote:

>

>AAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA

>AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA

>AA AAAA AAA

===============================

===============================

===============================

Then Member C replies with this, and also quotes the previous message

from

Members B and A:

CCC C CCCCC CCC C CCC CC CCC C CCCCC CCC C CCC CC CCC C CCCCC CCC C CCC

CC CCC C CCCCC CCC C CCC CC

>Member B wrote:

>

>BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB BBB BB BBB BB B

>B BBBBBB BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB

>BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB

>>Member A wrote:

>>

>>AAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA

>>AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA

>>AA AAAA AAA

===============================

===============================

===============================

By the time the fourth person -- Member D -- joins in the conversation,

you

end up with the quoted messages from C, B, and A:

DD DDDD D DDD DDDDD DD DDDD D DDD DDDDD DD DDDD D DDD DDDDD DD DDDD D

DDD

DDDDD DD DDDD D DDD DDDDD

>Member C wrote:

>

>CCC C CCCCC CCC C CCC CC CCC C CCCCC

>CCC C CCC CC CCC C CCCCC CCC C CCC

>CC CCC C CCCCC CCC C CCC CC

>>Member B wrote:

>>

>>BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB BBB BB BBB BB B

>>B BBBBBB BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB

>>BBB BB BBB BB B B BBBBBB

>>>Member A wrote:

>>>

>>>AAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA

>>>AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA AA AAAA AAAAAA

>>>AA AAAA AAA

===============================

===============================

===============================

You can see how drawn out this example became using just four messages

with each having a one-sentence response. When you realize that we can

have conversations that end up with 20 different back-and-forth posts

and responses, with several paragraphs per response, you can see why it

becomes a problem if every time you have quotes of a quote of a quote

from every single previous message in the entire conversation (or if

you've included every single message in a Daily Digest email).

It's often helpful to include what message you're replying to, just to

help people understand what your comments are in reference to. But if

you don't want your messages to get stuck in the Spam Filter, please

delete the unnecessary old emails that are quoted when you hit " reply " .