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BEE-L FAQ and Guidelines Essential and timely information
posted to BEE-L more or less monthly BEE-L is a moderated discussion list with published standards & guidelines. Discussion covers a wide range of bee-related subjects. Anyone with an interest in bees is welcome to join and submit articles for consideration. While anyone may read BEE-L, those submitting articles, by doing so, agree that acceptance or rejection of posts to be sent to the list is at the sole discretion of the moderators. All posts sent to BEE-L are first delivered to all current moderators for approval. Any one moderator can approve a post independently and it will go to the whole BEE-L subscriber list. Any post that does not receive a vote from at least one moderator will expire without being sent to subscribers. Generally any post meeting our guidelines (and a few that don't) will make the cut and be sent to the list. The moderators do not guarantee that any post will be approved. Writers submit articles to BEE-L on the understanding that BEE-L is a private, open membership list and that post may be refused without any reason or explanation, although that is not normally the case. Appeals or enquiries may be addressed to the moderators by sending a post to BEE-L with the first line of body text reading "FOR THE MODERATORS ONLY". All polite appeals will be considered on their merits, but the list owner's considered decision shall be final. GUIDELINES: BEE-L has rules that everyone who wishes to post messages to the list must observe. Please see http://www.honeybeeworld.com//bee-l/ for details. Failure to meet guidelines will result in rejection of your article. IN PARTICULAR, DO NOT INCLUDE QUOTES OF PREVIOUS ARTICLES OR ANY PREVIOUS HEADERS WHEN REPLYING. CONTRIBUTIONS INCLUDING QUOTES THAT ARE NOT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO UNDERSTANDING WILL USUALLY BE REJECTED WITHOUT NOTICE FAQ: Our FAQ is our archive of posts running back more than a decade. Every post that makes the list (and well over 90% do) goes into these archives and can be easily found by a search at any time now or in the future. We are very pleased at the high quality and wide variety of input from members all over the world. Please see http://www.honeybeeworld.com//bee-l to access the archives. In a sense, we are writing a book together. The BEE-L archive search engine is much more powerful and flexible than many on the web. Please take time to read the help page and experiment a bit. You will be well rewarded for your time. BEE-L WEB PAGE: Links to our rules, the sign-on messages and access to our FAQ can be found in one easy-to-use page at http://www.honeybeeworld.com//bee-l BEFORE YOU POST OR REPLY TO BEE-L: Please visit http://www.honeybeeworld.com//bee-l periodically to review our guidelines and especially before posting to the list. Please also, before posting basic questions, do a quick search of the archives (at the same page) to see if there are answers there. If not, or you are not satisfied with the answers, then by all means post your question to the list. REJECTED AND LOST POSTS: If you post an article to BEE-L and your article did not appear on the list within 24 hours, you will also find information there on what might have happened. There are more possibilities than simple rejection by moderators. CANCELING AND CHANGING YOUR BEE-L SUBSCRIPTION: Easy-to-use forms to easily and quickly change, suspend, or cancel your BEE-L membership are available at http://www.honeybeeworld.com//bee-l Our policy on BEE-L is to present fair and balanced comment and we do not wish to become a forum for airing grievances against suppliers. These matters are best taken up in private directly with party involved. Please avoid bringing personal or commercial disputes to this list, beyond issuing general warnings where appropriate, and without identifying the parties involved. We would also ask members to independently check the veracity of any statements read on this list, and to decide for themselves the suitability of any information they receive here.
VIRUSES AND WORMS: BEE-L is moderated and is also text-only. Binaries and attachments are rejected. The moderators also reject any SPAM that is sent to BEE-L. Members therefore should never receive viruses or worms from BEE-L. Nonetheless anyone who sends and receives email on the Internet is vulnerable to receiving malicious programs in email from known and unknown persons. Therefore members are STRONGLY ADVISED to get and use two programs: a firewall and a virus checker. CURRENTLY RECOMMENDED SECURITY SOFTWARE: Zone Alarm is available as a free download at http://www.zonelabs.com/ for personal use. It is simply the best available, and simple to use. Don't trust the firewall built into Windows XP. It, and many others out there simply won't do the trick. A personal version of AVG Anti Virus is available as a free download from http://www.grisoft.com/ and it can be set to update automatically or updated manually (for free) over the net whenever you like. Please be sure to update your anti-virus daily so that your computer does not get infected with new worms that come along daily, and thus become a nuisance to the rest of us. If you receive a message form BEE-L that is bigger than about 25 KB, consider that it is very likely not really from BEE-L, but that the headers have been forged by one of the clever viruses out there. Many virus emails that use bogus 'from' lines are in the size range from 100 KB to 175 KB and that characteristic alone should be a warning to look before opening. We strongly suggest that members consider obtaining and using MailWasher, available at http://www.mailwasher.net/ or a similar freeware email previewer that permits previewing, deleting and bouncing SPAM or viruses while still on your ISP's server, before downloading into your normal email reader. This can allow you to avoid long downloading times when your mailbox fills with virus email and/or mailbombs. This is recommended in addition to a good firewall and a good, up-to-date virus checker as recommended in more detail in our periodic post. Even with these programs working to defend you, there is no absolute guarantee that a virus or Trojan cannot get into your system, but the odds are greatly improved. Although not essential or necessary for security, another handy bit of software that can clean your system of spyware and advertising software is Ad-Aware, available free at http://www.lavasoft.nu/ Note: This message is out-of-date. Security information and risks change daily. Readers are cautioned to obtain current information regarding computer security and not to simply rely on these minimal recommendations.
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