Here are some guidelines for good email etiquette, especially when writing to more than one person.

• Try to make “AFWA” the first word in your subject line so your important chapter email stands out.
• Be sure to change the subject line if you are using “reply” on an old email to start a new topic.
• Be sure to “reply to all” when the whole group needs to see your response.
• When sending attachments, use a file name that is as descriptive as possible, including month and year if applicable, and always make AFWA the first letters of the file name.  Your board members receive many files and it is much easier to sort and store them when the file names are fully descriptive.
• Consider adding a pre-defined tag line to all of your emails which has your telephone contact number(s).
• Always use AFWA aliases.  You may request a new alias for a project or function, or you can be added to an existing alias.  For protection of personal email addresses, we will not publish member email addresses to the web site.

And while we’re on the subject of email address protection and privacy…

Do not automatically forward any email that tells you to forward it to everyone you know, no matter how benign it appears to be.  Forwarding is bad form – see below.

Do not send anything to large groups of people who don’t know each other (unless all email addresses are invisible – see next item)

If you send a large group email, then try to limit each email to groups of people who already know each other.  Delete all old visible addresses.  Using a new blank email, cut and paste only the item you want to send, removing all forwarded data.  For total email privacy protection, put all addresses in “Blind CC” and put only your address in the “To” line (your email program may allow this to be blank if using Blind CC).

And finally…

Do not promote the propagation of chain letters, warnings, or stories unless you personally know them to to true.  Check out all stories and warnings before forwarding them.  99% of such items have been shown to be either outright hoaxes, mostly false, or highly exagerrated.

Here are some sites that can help you check out any story or warning you receive.  Some of them are also quite entertaining.

Hoaxbusters  http://www.hoaxbusters.org/
TruthOrFiction.com  http://www.truthorfiction.com/
The Urban Legends Reference Pages http://www.snopes.com/

Contact [email protected] if you have questions about AFWA email or need an alias for chapter business.