Dew's Agatha Christie Mystery Site

agatha_agape Guide
Guidelines, Tips, Spoiler Info, and Help

Upon Joining (By Dave & Sha)
When you join, please tell the other members a little bit about yourself, so we can welcome you more readily. Any special favorites, characters, fond reminisces? Or were you fortunate enough to discover Christie early in life? Where you live, or in my case, where I sometimes wish I DIDN'T live? You know, the usual STUFF! It sometimes feels silly to say, but it never sounds boring or silly to us. Trust us for that!

Please put "Greetings" or "New member" in the subject line of your message so that we can all see it.


Participation Is Important!
More so than anything else, the opinions and feedback of members is a critical part of our direction, so PLEASE participate if you possibly can! Just as it is true in most of life pursuits, you get the most satisfaction out of things that you devote the most attention to. So let's have fun! And don't sweat the small stuff! Just show up and enjoy (and hopefully, participate as much as you can!)!


Problem--You Can't Vote In The Polls?
According to Yahoo, in order to vote in our polls or access other portions of our list at yahoogroups, you technically need to have a Yahoo ID officially associated with your agatha_agape subscription. This is to prevent people who are not members from accessing our member only areas. When the ID has been linked, your ID name should appear next to your address in the member list at yahoogroups. If don't have an ID at all, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/convwiz. This process is really easy and take only a few minutes.

Tip: If you have an Yahoo ID and find that you can access agatha_agape member area but you see that your Yahoo ID name does NOT appear in the Yahoo ID name column next to your address, you are getting through via a loophole/glitch in the system. To correct this, just log in, then click on the link "edit membership" (which is on our main page) and then save the next page that appears without making any changes. This will prevent any future problems for you if Yahoo ever gets around to closing up the loophole.


Helpful Posting Tip (By Dagny)
One thing I've noticed, is when the discussion starts out at the first of the month with the end of the book, it pretty much dries up by the end of the month. Perhaps we should try easing into it a bit. Maybe only characterizations, etc. and action in the first half of the book for the first week. Not a rule, just a guideline, saving who-dun-it and how for the following three weeks. It might keep the discussion going a bit longer.


Spoilers
Spoiler marks are courteous but once the book is being read that month we do not enforce the idea religiously. What we do ask for is that the subject line is clearly marked with the title of the book under discussion so that anyone who has opted out of the monthly read can simply delete the emails without opening them.



Successful Spoiler Tip (By Dew)
I have found that the best way to alert others to spoilers is two-fold. First, putting the word "Spoiler" and the name of the book and/or other info in the post heading is helpful because then others can decide to skip your entire post without having to open it first. In addition, putting a spoiler warning at the top of the actual post (with some spoiler space too) is good idea as well. This way if someone doesn't read the headings or has their subscription set to digest, it makes it easier to avoid the spoiler information before it is too late.



For Those Who Get Angry That We Are Discussing The Book By Dave
Now, as for those that haven't read the selected book of the month and don't plan to, I don't know what to say except that kind of defeats the one primary objective of the list. Namely, a focal point for generating discussion. Therefore, with this in mind, try not to get upset with members that do go into plot detail (no matter how detailed it may be) if you haven't read the book since discussing the book is our overall plan.


Discussions Guidelines (By Sha)
Discussion on anything related to Agatha Christie is encouraged - her mysteries, plays and romances and their TV, film and audio adaptations of them as well as the recent Charles Osborne adaptations of some of her plays into novels. Basically whatever interests you.

If you think the subject is moving "off-topic", don't feel you have to stop contributing - just mark the subject as "OT". Civilised arguments are quite acceptable; "flaming" and "spamming" are not - messages are not vetted before being made available to the group, but the moderators will take action against anyone who persists in offending against the norms of acceptable behaviour.

Each month we discuss two books (see later for more on how the books are chosen). We would like you to read this book with us. Discussions start on the 10th and 25th of the month. It's assumed that, if you want to, you will have read it by then.


Characters and OT Messages (By Sha)
Some members adopt the names of characters, and enjoy talking "in character." You are encouraged to follow suit, but there is no compulsion to do so. When talking "in character", discussions can range way off-topic and may be of very limited interest to others - please try to ensure that you mark such messages as "OT". It is not unusual for "characters" to indulge in bantering abuse; this is acceptable provided that it does not become personal and does not cause offense to other members.

If you are interested in picking a nom or character name, just select one name of a favorite character from an Agatha Christie work. (At this point, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are exempted from being taken.)

Once you have selected a "nom" you can do whatever you want with it: post "in character," engage in conversation with other noms in character, sign your posts with that character's name, have your signature include a quote from that character, etc.

As for this list, we have decided that it's okay to change your nom however often you like, but it seems that most people want to stick to just one nom. Keep in mind though that when a nom is officially *in use* by someone it is not available to anyone else. So if there is a character out there that you really want, stake your claim now before it's too late :)

As Sha has pointed out, "choosing character names from the book of the month was the idea of our late owner, Dave. Most of us like the idea so we still use it although possibly not as well as Dave who used to actually write in character!"

In our group's database we maintain a list which cross references our names to the noms selected. When you select a nom, just let the list know and please mention what novel(s) the character appear(s). This way we can be sure that the database is updated. Thanks!


Replying To Messages And Making Your Posts Easier to Read (By Sha)
"Brevity is the soul of wit" and also of e-mail messages. If you do have to write a long message, please try to break it into short paragraphs - they are easier on the eye and so more likely to be read!

Similarly, if replying to a long message, try to "snip" as much of the original as is unnecessary to your reply (including "footers" and other extraneous material). As a courtesy, you should mark where you have made deletions.

If you want to discuss more than one topic, send more than one message! It's all too easy for a change of topic within a single message to go unnoticed - and then your effort has been wasted!


Book Of The Month--Voting and Nominations (By Sha)
We choose our books two months in advance after a call for nominations on list. The first three nominations make it to the poll which will be up at our Poll Area.You can post your nominations any time after the 1st of the month. Please put "Nomination" in the subject line so that it wonąt be missed. The current schedule appears as a footer to all group messages.

Any member can nominate books but please observe the following rule: do not nominate a book that has been read within the previous 24 months (there are over 80 to choose from, so this shouldn't be too restrictive!). A list of books we have already read can be found here and also list of books we have already read can be found in Our Files section.


Our Book Quizzes (By Sha)
A list of questions on the book of the month is posted in the first week. Replies are to be mailed to Sha privately at shaspi@maltanet.net. The closing date is 10 days after the questions are posted. After the 10 days are up, the results will be posted along with the scores of all the participants.


Moderators
The group is run by Rob, Julie, Tracey, Dagny, Siggi, Dew and Sha. Any one of us will be happy to assist you. You may sometimes see group messages which are headed "ADMIN". These are for the attention of the moderators and you can, if you wish, ignore them. If you have any concerns about the operations of the group, feel free to contact any of the moderators at agatha_agape-owner@yahoogroups.com





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