Mid-Atlantic Turtle & Tortoise Society
Mid-Atlantic Turtle & Tortoise Society   P.O. Box 22321   Baltimore, MD   21203-4321   matts@matts-turtles.org
Dedicated to the conservation and care of turtles and tortoises

MATTS Online Message Board

By Colin Barnett, MATTS Group Moderator

(This article originally appeared in Terrapin Tales, June 2002)

Note: If you are familiar with Yahoo Groups, you can go to Yahoo Groups now (http://groups.yahoo.com) and join the MATTS Group.

Would you like to talk to your fellow MATTS members anytime? Ask them questions about turtles and tortoises? Share your expertise? Receive announcements from the MATTS Board of Directors about important events? You can do all this over the Internet by joining the MATTS Online Message Board at Yahoo Groups. (Yahoo calls these "Groups", and the official Group name is matts_members.)

There is no charge for joining the MATTS Group; Yahoo provides the service for free. Why would they do that? Advertising. Every time you get an email from a member of the Group, it will be preceded by a very small ad. I'll show you how to set your mail delivery preferences so at least you will not have to look at graphics in the ad.

The MATTS Group is open to all MATTS members. But you don't have to join the MATTS Group to be a member of MATTS. You'll still get the newsletter mailed to you and you'll enjoy the other benefits of MATTS. Also, the Board will never assume that all MATTS members have joined the online MATTS Group. The Board knows that the only way to reach all MATTS members is to mail them at their member address.

But I recommend that you join. It costs nothing. And you might find out something that can be of real help to you. (If you have been receiving emails from the Board, and would like to continue to get them, you'll need to join the MATTS Group.)

Don't worry about being inundated with emails. I'll show you how to limit the emails you receive, if you want to, so that you only get important announcements (called "Special Notices") as determined by the Board. In fact, if you wish, you can set up your Group preferences so that you don't get any emails from the Group. Instead, you can visit the Group site on Yahoo. There, all the messages will be posted for you to review.

Any Group member can visit the Group site to browse through and respond to messages. Note that the MATTS Group site is completely separate from the MATTS web site. The MATTS Group site is on Yahoo; the MATTS web site is not.

How to Sign Up

The basic process for signing up is as follows (I'll provide detailed steps later).

First, you have to join Yahoo. (If you already have a Yahoo User ID, skip to the next paragraph). To join Yahoo you tell them your email address and some basic identifying information. Then Yahoo sends you an email confirming that you want to join. Once you reply to that email, you now have a Yahoo User ID and are ready to join the MATTS Group.

To join the MATTS Group, you fill out an online form stating your email preferences and request to join. Then I get an email notifying me that you have requested to join. I verify that you are a current MATTS member, then approve your membership. You get an email saying that you are now a member of the MATTS Group. That's it. Now you can:

For those of you familiar with Yahoo Groups, or who don't need the detailed steps below, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/matts_members to join the Group. Once you've joined, please read the Message Guidelines near the end of this article.

Detailed Steps

Ready to join? Follow the detailed steps below.

Point your Internet browser to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/matts_members. You will be asked to sign in to Yahoo Groups.

If you are already a Yahoo member, use your sign in information. (You are a member if you have ever signed up for any Yahoo service.) Go to step 7.

If you are not a Yahoo member, then click "Join this Group". Then click "Sign Up Now". You are now at the Yahoo registration form. Fill out this form to get a Yahoo User ID and password, a pre-requisite for joining the online MATTS Group. Before filling out this form, note the following points:

  1. When you pick your User ID and password, write it down on a piece of paper. You will need that information if you ever want to visit the MATTS Group site or if you want to change your email delivery preferences.
  2. You will be asked for your "Alternate email". That is Yahoo's term for your regular everyday email. It is not really an "alternate". (I suspect that Yahoo calls it "Alternate email" because they want your primary email to be on their service.)
  3. MATTS does not receive or use any of the information that Yahoo asks you to fill out. It is Yahoo's attempt at understanding their customer base. If you don't want to check any interest boxes, don't.
  4. Unless you want to get advertising offers in your email, uncheck the box for "special offers".

When you have completed the form, click "Submit this form".

You now see a screen with your User ID. (If the User ID you picked is already in use, you will be asked to pick another one.) There is also a box checked for "Personalize my browser with Yahoo companion tool bar". You should uncheck this unless you want to have the tool bar. If you don't know what this is, you probably want to uncheck the box. It is not important for joining the MATTS Group. Click "Continue" to move to the next screen.

You will see your email address in bold with the word "verify" next to it. If that is indeed your email address, click on "verify". (If it is not your email address, there is a space for you to put it in.) Ignore the next screen. Wait for an email from Yahoo confirming your request to get a Yahoo User ID and password. This could take minutes or hours. You do not need to wait at your computer for this. You can shut down your Internet browser, or turn off your computer. When you next check your email, look for the confirmatory email from Yahoo.

When you get the confirming email, open it and click on the link in the email. You will automatically be connected to Yahoo. You are now ready to join the MATTS Group.

Don't click on "Join this group" at the right of your screen. Instead, complete the online form you are looking at. Use the following notes to assist you with each section. You will always be able to change any options you select:

  1. Yahoo profile. Ignore.
  2. Email delivery. Check "Hide my email" if you don't want anyone, including the MATTS board, to see your email address. You won't be able to post messages if you do that. If you want to post messages, leave this unchecked.
  3. Message Delivery. The first two options are self-explanatory. "Special Notice" requires some explanation. In a Group like this, we don't know how many emails you will get. It all depends on the Group members; some Groups could have a lot of messages, others just a few. If you are concerned about getting a lot of emails, you might want to check "Special notices". Only the MATTS Board will send Special Notices. These will be kept to a minimum, and used for information whose value depends on speedy communication (e.g., advising you of pending legislative issues, or seeking someone to help with an urgent chelonian issue). If you check "Special notices", you will still be able to go to the MATTS Group site and see all the messages sent to the Group, both regular and Special Notices. Finally, you have the "No email" option. If you don't want to receive emails, check this option. Then you have to remember to go to the site to look at messages; you will not receive them otherwise.
  4. Message format: Select "Do Not Convert to HTML". This will eliminate graphics from the messages, which means the advertisements will be less distracting. This option will have no effect on the MATTS announcements, which will be text only. (If you want to see graphics in the ads, then check the other option.)

When you have finished selecting your preferences, click "Join". You can now Sign Out from Yahoo (look for the link to do this, on the right of your screen) and go about your business.

Now wait until the Group moderator, me, receives an automatic email advising me that you wish to join the MATTS Group. I will confirm that you are a current MATTS member, then add you to the MATTS Group. Depending on when I look at my email, this could take an hour or a day.

Once I add you to the Group, Yahoo automatically sends you an email informing you that you are now in the MATTS Group. The email has the link where you go to look at MATTS Group messages. You don't have to go to that site unless you want to. Provided you have requested the email delivery option, you will start receiving messages from the Group.

If you want to see previous messages, or change your mail delivery preferences, you can do so at the MATTS Group site. You can bookmark that site in your "Favorites" for easy access.

Sending Messages

When you receive your email confirming your acceptance into the MATTS Group, you will see that you can:

Problems Joining?

I am happy to be the moderator of this Group as a service to MATTS. If you are having difficulty joining the Group, send me an email at colin.barnettATcomcast.net (substitute @ for AT). Use this only for problems joining the Group. Do not use my email for responding to any MATTS Group message or for any other matter. Once you have joined the Group, you may contact me through the email given in the previous section.

Message Guidelines

To make sure that we all benefit as much as possible from the message board, please follow these guidelines when you wish to post a message:

  1. Sign your name. At the end of each message, please be sure to include your name so that other members of the group can identify you when they respond to your message.
  2. Keep to the point. Our goal is to create an arena where members can share information on chelonians. We don't want to get bogged down in silly banter or jokes. Also, messages more than two screens in length are cumbersome. Shorter, concise messages move discussions along at a livelier pace.
  3. Before sending a reply, consider whether it should go to everyone in the group or just to the person whose message you are addressing. If you think your comments will be of general interest, then send them to the message board. Otherwise, be careful to reply only to the email address of the person who posted the message.
  4. When you reply to a posted message, the text of the message you are replying to is automatically copied into your reply. It helps readers if you don't delete the message text, so everyone will know the subject under discussion.
  5. Please be polite. Email messages typed in all capitals are considered shouting, so please don't do it. Be cautious in using sarcasm; comments made in jest may not always appear that way to other readers. Profanity and crude language have no place on our message board!

Thank you, and enjoy "talking turtle"!

Reducing Junk Mail

This section describes a way to reduce the amount of junk email and possibly junk regular mail you get as a result of joining Yahoo. You can ignore this section if you like; it has no effect on the MATTS Group information described above.

Yahoo changed its privacy policy on March 28, 2002, expanding its ability to market its own and its partners' products to Yahoo users—unless the users explicitly tell Yahoo not to. Here is how to do that:

  1. Go to Yahoo's front page at www.yahoo.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to "Privacy policy". Click on that link.
  2. Scroll down to "Your Ability to Edit and Delete Your Account Information and Preferences" and click on "Yahoo Account Information". That will allow you to read what information Yahoo has on file for you (You may be asked to sign in if you have not already done so.) Most people have submitted their name and email addresses only.
  3. Scroll down to "Edit your marketing preferences" and click on that link. All the settings for the new services are on "Yes". Change the ones you want to "No". On the page, Yahoo asks, "How may we contact you?" If you don't want to be contacted by mail or telephone, you must check two boxes that request that Yahoo doesn't contact you. After you're done, click on "Save changes" at the bottom of the page.