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Did you receive a "warning" from someone about a "very dangerous Virus" being spread around the internet?

Although there are viruses out there, many of the "warnings" being sent by people are hoaxes. Most of these hoaxes warn people not to read a message that contains a certain subject, or something similar. It is for this reason that I ask that you do not post these "warnings" to the list. Please don't forward these "warnings" to all your friends, because you'll just end up being part of the problem. Before acting on any warning you receive from someone, please check one of the sites I've listed below to see if it is even real.

As always, the best advise is to never execute an attachment that was sent to you, unless you know who it came from, you were expecting the attachment from the person, and you know what the executable is!

If you use Microsoft Outlook as your e-mail reader, you are more likely to get a virus, because of the many weaknesses and loopholes in Outlook that make it very easy for people to write viruses that attack you. Personally, I don't use Outlook because its so weak.

"But I don't even know the person who sent this to me. How did I get in their address book"? It seems that many of these people who spread around these hoaxes, use Outlook Express as their e-mail client. One of the buried "innovative" features Microsoft added was an option to "add anyone I reply to in my addressbook". If I'm not mistaken, its enabled as a default. So, at some point in the past, your name was probably added to someone's addressbook. Of course, the next time they decide to follow one of those hoax instructions that say "Please send this to everyone in your addressbook", your name ended up there.

To learn more about viruses and hoaxes, please look at these websites:

Did you receive SPAM from someone?

These links can help you identify the origin or SPAM, and how to complain about it:

About FLY-UL:

Subscribe now if you're not already a member

This list is for those people who want to talk about the sport of ultralight aviation. We welcome all aviators and those who just want to learn more. My job as the owner of this list is to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible.

There are two kinds of people I want on this list. Teachers, and students (regardless of your experience, and credentials). If you learn something from this list, then you are a student. If you share something on the list that others can learn from, then you are a teacher. Hopefully, we all are members of both groups.

This is a very active list. Although most of the members of this list are from the United States, we also have people from other countries as well. Some of the other countries and areas of the world represented on this list include: Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Guam, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe.

I would like to ask everyone's help, and observe the following guidelines for using this list:

Appropriate Topics: Please try to keep your posts to the list related to ultralight flying, Sport Pilot, Sport Plane, microlight aviation, or other aviation related topics. Please refrain from off topic discussions. Posts that contain vulgar language, personal attacks on another person, or otherwise completely abuse the intent of this list will not be tolerated.

SPAM and junk mail: Will NOT be tolerated. Period. If a subscriber SPAMS the list with off-topic garbage, the user will be removed from the list. By SPAM, I mean posting of obviously non-ultralight related advertisements, including those popular "Get Rich" schemes.

Virus Warnings: Do NOT post any "warnings" about a virus you have heard about. Most of these virus warnings are just hoaxes and have absolutely no validity whatsoever. Common "hoax" viruses include those that warn you not to read a message with a particular subject line. These are hoaxes. Ignore them.

Business Advertising: Occasional ultralight related advertising will be allowed, however please remember that this list is intended to be a technical forum, and not a place for businesses to get "free advertising". Please use your good judgement, and if you absolutely must post an advertisement for your business, please be courteous, keep it short, and don't abuse the privilege. I don't want to see people subscribing to this list for the sole purpose of advertising. If you are a business, and if you do post advertisements on the list, I also expect you to contribute to the list by joining some of the ongoing technical discussions found here from time to time.

This is a "closed" list, which means that ONLY those people who have subscribed can post to the list. Please note the the e-mail address used when you first subscribed to the list is what is checked to determine your identity. If you change e-mail addresses, or if any part of your address changes for what ever reason, your posts to the list will bounce. You MUST send your posts to the list from the SAME address you used when you subscribed to the list.

Please do NOT turn on "return receipt", and please do NOT enable any kind of "auto responder" when you go on vacation, otherwise, these automatically generated messages will end up on the list, and you'll certainly get a lot of complaints from people.

Also, do not set up any "forwarding" mechanism on your mailer to automatically send posts from the list to friends. This causes a LOT of problems for me. If you have people that want to read posts from the list, please get them to subscribe directly.

This list does generate a lot of mail from time to time. Many Internet providers only allow you to receive a certain amount of mail. If you do not read your mail regularly, you may find your mailbox "full". I get numerous messages each day (almost 400) from mail servers indicating that "user so-and-so's mailbox is full". When this happens, I have no choice but to unsubscribe the person from the list.

If you subscribe to this list, please make sure you read/delete your mail often. (NOTE: AOL and JUNO users, these problems seem to affect you most often!)

If you terminate your internet account, or if your e-mail address changes, please unsubscribe from the list first. Again, every day, I receive a lot of e-mail that is bounced from a site because the e-mail address is no longer valid.

When replying to posts from the list, please quote only those portions of the original post your responding to, that are relevant to the new response your creating. Messages can get very large in a hurry, if everyone keeps quoting the entire content of a message, when it really wasn't necessary.

This list is designed so that the "reply-to" header in each post points back to the list itself. Please consider sending private e-mail to the author of a post, if you wish to respond to something that really doesn't need to be posted to everyone. This will help cut down on some of the unneeded traffic.

List Archives: Archives of past posts can be viewed at:

Here's some miscellaneous suggestions and comments I have about the FLY-UL Mailing list:

(1) Flames and "Heated Discussions":

You will find very nice people on this list, and for the most part,there are not a lot of "arguments", but yes, they do happen from time to time. People tend to take this sport very seriously, and there's just some topics that'll spark a lot of debate.

Keep in mind that with hundreds of people on the list, its going to be difficult to get each and every one to completely agree on everything.

I do not want to see mean-spirited attacks against other list members. So please, let's not resort to name calling, harassment, or vulgar language on the list. Please help me keep this list a friendly place for everyone.

(2) Non-UL related posts:

This is a toughy. If I say "Yes, I encourage non-UL related posts", then this list's purpose would change dramatically. By the same token, an occasional "joke", "cute remark", etc. is tolerable I think... as long as it doesn't get out of hand. We are kind of like "friends" and to some extent "family" here. We're not that cold that we can't share a humorous moment at times.

That being said, this is a UL list. Let's not let the non-UL related posts get carried away... please!

(3) Topics that repeat themselves:

Yes, we all know that the "same topic" will come up from time to time. This very topic itself, is a good example! This is true on every mailing list, and newsgroup I've ever subscribed to. Sure, people can and should read FAQ's, use search engines, etc. to learn all they can. By the same token, I'm sure most of US have asked the same topic when joining a new list. I'm sure we didn't read newsgroups for 6 months, or lurk on another mailing list for months before posting our first question, hoping it hasn't been discussed before. Heck, every weekend as an instructor, and numerous times on the telephone, I give the same speech to new potential student. It's part of the job.

You, the members of the list don't always notice when new subscribers join us. I do. Usually, I'm seeing 2 to 3 subscribe requests per day. Some of these may be former members, but there are plenty of new e-mail addresses I havent seen before. Many of us have been on this list for years (2 - 3 at least). I think it is to be expected that some of the same topics come up again and again. You should see the amount of private e-mail I get alone, asking "how can I get into Ultralighting", and things like that. What I have done, is saved a "canned" response that I send back to these people with questions. For instance, is someone about to ask (again) how much money we instructors really are making? I've got that answer all ready to go. ;)

I've often thought about putting this kind of "basic" info on a webpage sometime (here's my first attempt). Kind of a living FAQ. I think for the most part, people are making an attempt to find info. Has this list ever discussed "what kind of oil should I use". You betcha. But you know what? That topic hasn't been talked about for quite some time, so it would not surprize me if someone asks again.

Bottom line: I don't see this as a big problem on this list. Yes, it happens, but I think it's just nature, and the people asking these questions are doing so sincerely.

(4) Are newbies welcomed?

Absolutely! Encouraged, and welcomed to join and participate. They are what keeps this sport alive and well!

(5) "Me too!" posts (and long replies):

This is the problem of people re-quoting a 100 line e-mail message, only to add "me too!", or some other short response at the end. This is an age old problem NOT unique to this list. I do cover this in the 'welcome message' sent to new subscribers, but the responsibility rests with the poster. People do need think about their responses.

Please be considerate when posting.

(6) Sending Attachments And Pictures To The List:

Attachments are not allowed on the list, and will be rejected.

There are many reasons why sending pictures, and other binary attachments are not a good idea on any mailing list. The main reason attachments should not be sent is because of the increased risk of someone sending a virus through the list. By not allowing attachments to be sent through the list, the risk of getting a virus from the list is reduced.

Besides the virus risk, attachments place a lot of demands on a mailing list and its members. Most people have limits on how much e-mail they can receive, and the maximum size of any one message. Many people do not appreciate having to download a lot of pictures they really did not ask for. Remember too, that not everyone will want to see this picture to begin with, which means it was a big waste of time to send it to everyone in the first place.

The bottom line is that attachments just don't belong on a mailing list. Want to send people a picture? Post it on a website, send it via private e-mail to those that want to receive it, or tell them how they can get their own copy.

Pictures can be uploaded to the Files Area and the Photos Area on the FLY-UL website at Yahoo. There is a limited amount of space available on these sites. If they get filled up, the moderators of the list will try to remove older material, to make room for new additions.

(7) This list generates a LOT of traffic!

Yup, it sure does. This can be good, and this can be bad. Its obvious that ultralighting is very important to us listmembers, else we wouldn't have much to say. I'm glad that so many people do have things to contribute to the list. Now, by the same token, we have over 700 people subscribed to the list. This means that like it or not, there will always be a lot of traffic from the list. Its hard to get this many people in one forum, and not expect to see some lively discussions.

(8) List reply-to address:

This topic refers to where e-mail goes when you hit "reply" when replying to a post from the list.

Those of you subscribed to more than one list will probably agree that the majority of internet mailing lists have this set so that your "reply" goes right back to the list.

A while back, I polled FLY-UL members, and the majority responded that this was the way it should be. I agree.

Here's why:

Even though the "reply-to" address for list traffic, is the list itself, the originator of a particular post is still shown in the FROM: line in the headers.

These are just my opinions and suggestions. I welcome yours. If you have any ideas about FLY-UL, please let me know.

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This page updated on: February 24, 2019
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