SELFISH PEOPLE

Why is it that you get a selfish few people who simply "will not" or "cannot be bothered" to follow a few basic rules. I have spent all of Good Friday repairing our Weblog so that it can be read again. The guilty persons who consistently are IGNORING THE INSTRUCTIONS and submitting emails that are breaking the Weblog are....

Linnette
Elelwani
Dianah (every time!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Lufuno

For these guys....

Guys please realize if you persist in being selfish by ignoring instructions, we cannot carry on with instruction or NISL-EI2. Most people are managing fine but you guys almost every time are putting code into your emails that breaks the site and makes it un-useable. While we all make the odd mistake, this is only human and understandable but each time you submit?. Only you have actually broken the code, everyone else has a completely clean record with not a single break!

How can we all prevent breaking the site?

1. Keep the messages simple - no fancy fonts
   
2. I use the default settings for font and font size (Tahoma 8 size) in GroupWise - other fonts you can use are Verdana and Arial.
   
3. Why only these fonts? They are the easiest to read on screen and keep fairly small.
   
4. If you cut and past from Word make sure that you use the Edit and Paste Special function to past only unformatted text into the email and do the final edits for Italics in GroupWise.
   
5. Avoid Times Roman at all times - its fine printed, but on the screen it is difficult to read (postings using small Times Roman font be will be removed!). When you use the small Times Roman fonts it extends to making my menus unreadable!
   
6. Do not use extra spaces and indents or tabs these get interpreted in a different way to your Word document.
   
7. Do not use the formatting by numbers or lists
   
8. Make sure each paragraph is followed by two hard-returns
   
9. Do not change the colour of text (e.g. one person composed their message in light green and without closing this formatting made the rest of the site with light green text!)
   
10. Check there is nothing strange in your Signature Files - one person has a signature file font that appears to be 24 pt.
    
11. No Pictures CAN be sent via email.
    

From the rest of the class any suggestions?

1. Restricting these guilty people to only putting up comments and no new posts? They can still add Bold and Italic formatting
2. Have no formatting of the text (italics for species names will not appear this is done by using the text option in GroupWise)
3. Marks deduction 20% off for first time, 30% second time etc…

EVERYONE PLEASE CONFIRM THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS EMAIL BY ATTACHING A COMMENT AND YOUR THOUGHTS ARE MOST WELCOME. I WANT TO BE FAIR TO EVERYONE, BUT THIS LAST WEEK SOME 14 HOURS OF MY TIME HAVE BEEN LOST IN FIXING UP PEOPLE'S POSTS WHERE THEY HAVE BROKEN THE SITE!

Rich



Dr Richard Knight
Co-ordinator: National Information Society Learnerships - Ecological Informatics
Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za