[Leica] Mail Lists-for beginners only!

[Nick Hunter <nhunter1@mindspring.com>]

I'm posting this because there may be some of you who are as in the dark as
I was when I started on the Leica List. I began lurking (reading only)
almost a year ago. It was my first try at a mail list, and what an
introduction!  50-100 messages a day! From time to time I got snowed under
and almost gave up, but I hung in there and recommend you do too.

Now excuse me if you already know this, but this post *is* for beginners.
We're not all born knowing this stuff!

I now always sort the Leica list by subject. In Eudora for Mac, it's in the
special menu>sort>by subject. I see from recent posts others do this, too.
I wish someone had told me a lot sooner. This makes it much easier to skim
over those subjects in which I'm less interested. The digests don't make
any sense to me. They're no shorter, and can't be sorted. In Eudora, it's
no more difficult to read consecutive posts than it is to page down. The
space bar does both. I also leave a few posts open (click on the next line
rather than space bar) which I want to save or reply to, that way I don't
have to look for them later. I downloaded a demo of Claris E-mailer, but I
couln't find a way to sort with it. To me, this is a fatal flaw. Be sure
your e-mail program can sort.

Another helpful feature is filters. Joe Berenbaum posted in support of the
new tags because he is using Eudora Light. I might have agreed a few weeks
ago, but since then I have upgraded to version 3.1 (free download). Joe-I
recommend it! It is able to filter messages automatically to separate
mailboxes-one for each mail list. Very convenient. Filters are based on one
of the header fields. I have found that the "To: leica-users...etc" field
is inconsistent. I recommend you use the "reply to..." field which is
always the same on each post to any given list.

Nick Hunter