LL-L "Administrativia" 2005.03.15 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 15.MAR.2005 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Administrativia

Dear Lowlanders,

Welcome to all of you who joined us since my last administrative message! At
the end of this message is a list of your places of residence.

Before I get to normal List business, let me remind you of our upcoming 10th
anniversary (April/May 2005) and the anniversary project we are putting
together: a collection of translations of a Lowlands Saxon (Low German)
folktale in various Lowlands language varieties (*any* varieties) and other
languages, both reading and for listening. You will find the raw material
here: http://www.sassisch.net/rhahn/low-saxon/ls-story.html . But we will
present this elsewhere, jazzed up, and with sound. It’s going to be really
terrific.

It’s just days to go to the list-internal unveiling of our anniversary
presentation!  Thanks to all of you who have already contributed
translations, sound files, introductions and suggestions. Time for the rest
of you to get cracking! Below is what I wrote about it earlier.  It applies
to you whether you joined us today, ten years ago or in between.

However, before I go on I need to finally answer Sandy’s and other people’s
question as to by what date the presentation needs to be finished. The
answer is that we would like to unveil it, at least to the List (despite our
cover having been blown already) on April 1 (though no April Fool’s
connection is intended) and to unveil it to the world at large by April 15,
the official beginning of our anniversary, lasting till the end of May.
However, as we say on the index page, it will be an ongoing party. Late and
even very late contributions will still be happily accepted.  Nevertheless,
let’s definitely shoot for March 31 for things to be in place, providing at
least a couple of days for Mathieu to do his part.  By the way, both Mathieu
and Henry have been extremely busy and are behind schedule. So please don’t
panic or imagine catastrophic situations if your contributions don’t appear
right away.

More contributions are needed, folks! Besides translations and sound
recordings, we need subscribers' brief (1-3 paragraph) introductions,
preferably with pictures, but contributions without pictures will be gladly
received too. Just introduce yourselves, say where (in general) you live and
originally come from, what sorts of interests you have, and what your
experiences and/or first impressions you have as relates to Lowlands-L. We
want to show folks out there the diversity of membership. We do not want to
impress them with great names and achievements, just show them that
virtually anyone at any level of knowledge and experience and from any part
of the world is welcome to join us and is likely to gain something from it.
If you are new to the List, by all means, introduce yourselves and tell us
what you hope to get out of it and what your experiences have been so far.
You may do so in any language you like, do not need to write in English or
in another Lowlands language. If you do it bilingually, that would be great.

If you want to contribute introductions or translations, please send them to
me (sassisch at yahoo.com), and I will pass them on to Mathieu van Woerkom, our
webmaster who is designing a very nice new site for the occasion. We are not
concerned about duplication. If there is already a translation in your
language, please send us yours anyway. No two people tell a story exactly
alike, nor do they have exactly the same pronunciation. The main thing is
that your write and speak in a *natural* way. If you want to contribute
sound recordings, please get in touch with Henry Pijffers
(henry.pijffers at saxnot.com) who will also be happy to give you technical
advice and instructions.

Normal List business:

For some strange reason, some of you send commands for the list server to my
personal email address.  Please don’t!  Please follow the instruction
provided at the beginning and end of each issue: send them to
listserv at listserv.net, or perform them on the Web
(<http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html>) if you know
how. If things really don’t work, please write to the administrative address
(<lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net>).

Besides tat, it is important to remember the following.

(1) We send the postings in Unicode (UTF-8) format. You need to switch your
view mode to it if you want to see all "special" characters.

(2) You *must* always give us your name, given name and family name.

(3) If you forward Lowlands-L mail to another (alias) account, please give
us the address of that account. We need to identify it so we can do
something in case we get error messages from that server.

(4) You must credit the writers of anything you quote. "Lowlands-L wrote:"
simply won't do.

And a "new" one: DO NOT SEND POSTING SUBMISSIONS IN CAPITAL LETTERS ONLY. I
cannot accept them and will ask you to resubmit them in normal type case.
Note that, besides being difficult to read, all-caps text breaks Internet
etiquette rules. It is only used to orthographically represent
headings/headlines, besides that SHOUTING, YELLING, SCREAMING, etc., and
beyond that it's perceived as a sign of crying for attention. It's
considered simply OBNOXIOUS.

Please, folks, read and understand the rules and guidelines! It's really
important.

Rules and Guidelines: Dutch: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=regels
English: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
German: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=regeln-de
Limburgish: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=regele
Lowlands Saxon (Low German): http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=regeln
Russian: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules-ru

Many beginners, but also a few older hands, forget to provide their names
with their posting submission. Please remember that anonymous posting is not
an option, that you are obligated to give your given and family name, even
if you do not put them right next to each other.

Even some people who have been with us for a while persistently ignore the
following rules:

(1) Keep subjects separate: Only one topic per posting! Don't mix things up,
please.

(2) Stick to the subject title: Do not change the topic name in your
responses. Just stick with the one we have, even if you think it doesn't
apply or is silly. I will change it if I think it needs to be.

(3) Edit quotes: If you hit the "reply" button and simply write your
response before or after an unedited, complete quoted LL-L issue, please do
not complain to me that I have removed the quoted text in the published
version. It is proper email behavior to quote only the portions that are
relevant to your response.

(4) Give credit: Let us know who the authors of quoted text portions are. If
you just hit the "reply" button, it will automatically give "Lowlands-L" as
the author. That will not do. You must be more specific, and you owe authors
the courtesy of crediting them by name.

(5) If you feel like leaving the List, please do not send the sign-off
command to the posting address or to my personal address. Please follow the
instructions at the top and bottom of each LL-L issue (send the command
"signoff lowlands-l" to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org).

TEMPORARY ABSENCE
Before you take a trip or for some other reason need to stop LL-L mail
arriving for a given length of time, please write to us
(lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net) to let us know the date you want mail to be
stopped and the date you want mail to be resumed. As some of our members can
attest, this has been working really well, certainly beats the old, crude
method of signing off and on again. Once in a while people find themselves
unsubscribed without notice. Some of them immediately suspect the worst:
that I have "booted them out" for some infraction or other. (I know this for
sure only about those that contact me.) Please do not jump to this
conclusion unless you have received prior reprimands and warnings (which has
occurred very rarely, not at all for well over one year). If you find
yourself disconnected from Lowlands-L, the reason is most likely that the
automated server has unsubscribed your address because of repeated
"bouncing," i.e., because your mail servers keep informing the list server
that you cannot be reached or is filled above quota. Most of the time this
is due to temporary disconnection. Sometimes the reason is that a
subscriber's junk mail filter (or "spam" filter) has not been "told" to
exempt Lowlands-L mail, which is why our mailings do not arrive in your
inboxes. So, if Lowlands-L mail stops coming, please first check your "spam"
filters and adjust them if necessary, and only contact me about the problem
if all of the above fails. Should you indeed be disconnected, please write
to me or resubmit an application
(http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=subscription). I'll be more than
happy to bring you swiftly back to the fold.

Let me remind you that, while there may be differences of opinions and
approaches regarding some issues, it is best to assume that your fellow
subscribers are basically on your side, if not your friends and allies. This
assumption is a good preventive measure when tempers want to flare up. No
one here is out to "get" anyone else, and what once in a while may feel like
a rebuke from anyone, including myself (and I have been on both sides of
this), please bear in mind that this is not meant to haul you over the
coals, to humiliate you and to declare your input as worthless and you as a
person as inadequate. Think of them as challenges, for there can be no
fruitful discussion without challenges. Of course, if you are the one
dishing out such challenges please do so with as much gentleness, politeness
and respect as you can possibly muster (and be prepared for some people
feeling "shot down" even then). Having said this, let me hasten to add that
there is a difference between occasional challenges on the one hand and
constant challenges simply for the sake of challenging and of arousing
people's anger on the other hand, namely behavior patterns that are
unwelcome here and on any other list.

Again, dear Lowlanders, thanks for your support and cooperation and for all
those interesting contributions past and future!

Less than a month to go till our 10th anniversary ... and our membership
keeps on growing, fast approaching the half-millennium mark.

Regards,

Reinhard "Ron" F. Hahn
Founder & Administrator, Lowlands-L
lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
http://www.lowlands-l.net

***
Places of Residence of New Lowlanders since March 1, 2005:

     Australia:
          New South Wales:
               Thornleigh [1]
     Belgium:
          Antwerp (Antwerpen):
               Borsbeek [1]
          Western Flanders (West-Vlaanderen):
               Kortrijk [1]
     Brazil:
          Rio de Janeiro:
               Rio de Janeiro [1]
          São Paulo:
               São Paulo [1]
     Canada:
          Ontario:
               Waterloo [1]
     Germany:
          Bavaria (Bayern):
               Munich (München) [1]
     Malta:
          Malta:
               Marsaxlokk [1]
     Netherlands:
          Utrecht:
               Utrecht [1]
     United Kingdom:
          England:
               Nottingham Shire:
                    Nottingham [1]
     United States of America:
          Alaska:
               Kenai [1]
          New York:
               Clinton [1]
          Ohio:
               Findlay [1]
          Tennessee:
               Nashville [1]
          Texas:
               San Marcos [1]

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