INTJ-Open Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get off this freakin' list?

• Go to http://epistolary.org/mailman/listinfo/intj-open.
• Scroll to the bottom where it says "To unsubscribe from INTJ-Open, get a password reminder, or change your subscription options enter your subscription email address."
• Enter your subscribed email address in the very bottom box and click on the button that reads "Unsubscribe or edit options."
• On the next page there is a section near but not at the top that reads, "Unsubscribing from INTJ-Open. Turn on the confirmation checkbox and hit this button to unsubscribe from this mailing list. Warning: This action will be taken immediately!" Follow those instructions.
• You will be sent a confirmation email message. Reply to the confirmation message and you will be unsubscribed.

Why can't someone just take me off the list?

• It is your responsibility to manage your list membership.
• You subscribed yourself, so it can't be impossible for you to unsubscribe yourself.
• Instructions are above; a link to the list webpage is on every post.
• If you follow the instructions it will take you only a few minutes at most. If you email me or the list with a request, it could take days for me to see it, even assuming you tell me everything I need to know in your first email. Believe it or not, I don't spend every waking minute monitoring list traffic. I'm not paid to be a host, I'm offering a free service. Show some respect.
• Lots of people like wasting my time with incomplete requests. I prefer that you waste the list server computer's time instead. It lives to serve. The web page walks you through everything you need to do to unsubscribe. I hate repeating myself. If you can't read why are you on an email list? Just read the instructions.
• A suprising number of people just email me out of the blue with "take me off the list". I manage more than one list, so I have to ask, which one. Sometimes they don't know and can't figure out how to send me a copy of an email from the list so I can tell.
• Sometimes people email me from an account they're not subscribed with and get angry when I can't tell them what address they used or what anonymizer they're getting their mail through. If you can't remember what your email address is, I can't help you no matter how bad you want to get off the list.
• Sometimes people want me to remove me from other lists I'm not running and don't even belong to. For a while, sending people who wanted to unsub from another INTJ list was a "funny" thing that people on that list would do.
• Sometimes people want to explain to me in great detail why they're leaving, describing the list or the people on the list as petty, silly, mean, not serious enough, too serious, whatever. As if I care. Generally speaking, I don't. You didn't like it, you're leaving. Bye. Have fun.
• The more you know the better off you are. I don't like participating in keeping people dumb and dependent on others.

What are the rules on this list?

There are only a few things that can get you removed from the list. These are:

• Spamming the list. Yes, even if the spam is for something you're not personally benefiting from and isn't a commercial enterprise. It's okay to say, hey, try this website, or I'm starting a new list on a particular topic, come join us, if the invitation is limited and unobtrusive. It's okay to have something commercial in your .sig so long as the .sig isn't ridiculously long.
• Intentional misquoting. This includes plagiarism (presenting others' words as your own), and altering something someone wrote and presenting it as if it were what the person wrote.
• Breaking the Civility Rule.

What is the Civility Rule?

You can say what you want about ideas, but you are not allowed to insult a person on the list. The best definition I can give is using the following examples:

• "Your idea is stupid" is acceptable.
• "You are stupid" is not acceptable.
• "Only a stupid person would say/believe that" is not acceptable.

What's all this about top-posting?

Top-posting is when you append your comments about another post to the top of the message. What's wrong with that?

• It makes the conversation hard to follow. Someone just joining the conversation has to read from the bottom up. Remember, this isn't just personal emails between you and the other person, everyone is reading it, and with dozens of posts every day on the list, we're probably not all as involved with the previous posts as you are.
• Most people who top-post don't trim out any of the following material, so the posts get longer and longer with every reply. This fills up the mailboxes of people who get the regular version of the list.
• People who get the digest form still have to plow through all that extra material to get to the next post, so while it may be more convenient to you, the writer, to see the reply right at the top of the post, the digest reader will probably just give up on trying to follow the conversation.

I could just put the same text at the bottom of the post, right?

That's not so good either, unless the post you're replying to is really short. You should consider inline posting, where you reply to a paragraph or so at a time by interspersing your comments with the original text. If you're not addressing that paragraph, clip it out of your reply.