Dick -- The only attachment I consider improper (better read inconvenient) net "etiquette" is one that's 10+ MB large and unexpected. Simple PDF and Word attachments are convenient and quite appropriate for conducting our business especially since this listserve is our primary means of communication outside of board meetings. I wonder if this listserve has a feature to postpone messages if someone were to go on extended travel...that might be an alternative to unecessarily restricting pertinent attachments. My opinion... 73, Brian, N5ZGT On Sun, 12 Nov 2006, Richard J. Norton wrote:

This is a request to those posting to this ODV E-mail reflector to minimize use of .DOC and .PDF files when conveying information that is in English language text.

This is common net etiquette, and in fact many E-mail reflectors would not even permit such postings. Look up any of the results returned from searching for "net etiquette attachments" on Google for instance to confirm this. I suspect that the computers of those posting these messages are virus-free, but even if they are, it is still an imposition on 40 or so readers of these postings to require them to open up word processors to read the content.

It is possible to compose the messages in Microsoft Word to use whatever features are desired. The text can then be gathered, and pasted into the body of the E-mail message. If you feel that the word processing format adds something to the presentation, please put the text content into the E-mail, and also attach the .DOC document.

This request also applies to the "IN-News." Note that the "ARRL Letter" that is sent to the membership is already always posted as a basic text E-mail, and is a fine example of similar content posted in text form. The boxes around the IN-News fill-in-the-box-scores are not needed to convey the content. The usefulness or appropriateness of such box scores can be the subject of another topic.

Some of you may sit at powerful computers with the latest versions of word processors. On the other hand, I just spent a few weeks in Australia where at times I was paying $2 for 15 or 20 minutes of computer time on, possibly on a computer that would not let me open an attachment if I wanted to. The net result was that sometimes attachments were not read.

Thank for your consideration of this request.

73,

Dick Norton, N6AA

ARRL Vice-Director, Rocky Mountain Division