The conventions for this list were agreed a good time ago, after a celebrated spell of mayhem best forgotten. Item 3b arrived not long after the inception of the Cafe Guerbois, which is now firmly established as part of the Paint-L landscape. 

1-     Contributors will try to keep their posts mostly on topic at least  some of the time 

2-      Subject lines should usually reflect the thread content. 

3a-   Off topic posts should have 'OT' in the subject line for the convenience of  those   who want to use the delete key or the filtering facilities of their browsers. Good for readers in a hurry. 

3b-   Fun posts should have 'Cafe' in the subject line for the convenience of those  who don't want to miss the fun. Also good for readers in a hurry. 

4-     Trolls get ignored completely whilst teams of experts work behind  the scenes to get them bumped off the Internet. 

Let's face it, subject matter can drift a little over time, some fun is just too good to miss and folk just plain forget sometimes. On some lists you can guarantee that by the time posts have hit double figures on a thread a flame war will have broken out. That doesn't happen here, basically because this list *is* special, as are those who stay on it. 

We'll all have a good experience if we try to stick to our few conventions  -especially if we cut each other a little slack and just go with the flow.