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----- Original Message ----- From: Charles T. Meyer, M.D. To: Parkinson's Information Exchange Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 1999 8:39 AM Subject: HELP WITH MAIL HELP WITH MAIL VOLUME Below is the response to a FAQ about List Mail volume . I will repost this at intervals to asssist new members who are struggling with this issue. If anyone has any additions or corrections please write to me off list and I will make the necessary changes. It would be of help if some of you can make up other sets of instructions for other mail programs. Q. The PARKINSN List overwhelms my e-mail box so that other mail gets lost in the large number of list posts. What can I do short of leaving the list to manage the volume of mail that I get and be able to read it at my leisure? A. The PARKINSN list has over 1800 subscribers (at the time of this revision). Even though many of our members choose not to actively contribute this large membership results in hundreds of contributions per week. Since we want to make the list serve the varying needs of as large a percentage of the PD community as possible and to have fun there will inevitably be large numbers of posts that you will find that you don't have time for or are not interested in. You will find specific subjects or people whose posts you want to read and those that you would just as soon skip. What follows is a list of suggestions of ways to approach the list volume and following this are further FAQ's describing each method in more detail. All rely on a heavy but hopefully selective finger on the delete key. 1. Allow list messages to mix with other mail. This requires a fair amount of time and almost daily review of email. It can also work if you don't use e-mail for anything else. But, if you let messages build up in your mailbox a few days you may find yourself losing your non-list mail in the large volume that the list generates. 2. If you have more than one e-mail address you can put all PARKINSN related material in one address and download it as a separate logged-in individual. This requires one to think ahead and download from the address only when you are logged on for PD. 3. Use the DIGEST function incorporated into the list. This takes care of the problem but when it bunches all the correspondence from the day into one or two long messages it makes it harder to read and harder to delete from since you have to delete all or none**. It also becomes less spontaneous since there may be as long as 24 hours between Digests. 4. (RECOMMENDED) Create a separate mailbox within you own computer just for list mail. Each mail program is different but most have this ability. This separates list and non-list mail using filters from list mail. Then one can go through all the list mail at your leisure, allowing it to build up for a few days or responding immediately. I use netscape so I will describe how to accomplish #4 with that e-mail program. If you wish info as to other programs you can ask on the list and hopefully they will be incorporated in this FAQ. Instructions for NETSCAPE 1. Open Communicator 2. Pull-down Menu click Communicator then Messenger (Or cntl+2) 3. Pull down EDIT then choose MESSAGE FILTERS. 4. A Message box Entitled Message filters will open Click NEW 5. A Message box will open entitled FILTER RULES 6. Fill in filter name PARKINSN 7. (Click) MATCH ALL OF THE FOLLOWING the (select) TO of the message (select) CONTAINS PARKINSN (type in with exact spelling) then (select) MOVE TO FOLDER (click) New folder. 8. A box comes up "new folder". (Type) name: PARKINSN Create as Subfolder of (Click) INBOX (Click) OK. (click) OK. (Click) OK. 9. That should do it. For Outlook express You must first create the folders to accept your incoming e-mail messages. In my case I created one called New PD Messages and another one called Non-PD messages. Then do the following: Open the "Tools" menu. Choose "Rules Wizard..." Choose "New". Click on "Check messages when they arrive." Click on "Next." Click on the little box corresponding to "from people or distribution list." In the lower window insert "Parkinsn". Click on "Next". Click on the little box corresponding to "move it to the specified folder." In the lower window insert "New PD Messages". Click on "Next". Click on the little box correstponding to "except if the subject contains specific words." In the lower window type in "Non-PD". Click on "Next". Label this rule name New Parkinsn Messages or whatever you desire. Make sure to checkmark the little box to turn on the rule. Click on "Finish." To place your Non-PD messages in a different folder repeat the above steps but make sure you specify that your subject must contain Non-PD. Contributed by Teresa V. Bohuszewicz ** Gordon Fercho contributes the following regarding this: Select the message you want to delete; then depress the delete key on the keyboard and it will disappear. When you close the digest processor message it asks you if you want to save the changes. Click on SAVE and that's it. You'll have retained only those messages you did not select and delete. Good luck Thanks also to Ron Vetter Charlie -- ****************************************************************************************** Charles T. Meyer, M.D. Middleton (Madison), Wisconsin [log in to unmask] ******************************************************************************************