GSI's email policy From: darren@unity.ncsu.edu (Darren L Frechette) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 19:34:15 +0000 From GmSystmInc@aol.com Mon Nov 21 18:04:19 1994 Return-Path: <GmSystmInc@aol.com> There is a preferred format for submitting E-mail turns. Here is our E-mail policy. 10/1/94 Hello ME-PBM players! As stated in our "House Rules and Procedures", GSI has begun accepting turns via Email, effective 4/1/94. Such turns, and turn corrections, will be accepted up to 24 hours (1 business day) prior to the posted due date on the turn. Email turns (and corrections) received later than this deadline will not be accepted for that turn date. For turns due on a Monday, please have your turns into GSI by 9 AM EST of the Friday before. The reason for the '1 prior business day' deadline is to help GSI avoid having a large number of turns arrive on the evening before the turns are due. In order to focus our attention each day on the turn-processing due that day, GSI does some (if not all) of a given day's data entry at least one day before. Thus, we can better service all our customers if we have turns in early, and to that end, we will have the staff retrieve Email turns each day, although not always before turns are processed for that day. It is imperative that you understand that the above deadline refers to the time when GSI RECEIVES the turn, NOT when the Email turn was submitted! You should also be aware that there is a considerable difference between the delivery times of the various ways that turns can be submitted, and that the delivery time can vary from day to day, hour to hour. We have received reports of Email taking up to 8 hours (averaging about 2 hours) to be posted, and up to 48 hours (averaging about 8 hours) for Internet messages! Plan ahead - and if you are concerned that your turn may not have arrived on time, you are welcome to call GSI during our regular phone hours (2-5 PM EST) as late as the day before the turn is due, to see if we received everything ok. In the event that you forget to sent your turn, or your turn does not arrive properly, you still may avail yourself of the (inexpensive) fax or phone service we still provide for last-minute turns. In what form can you send Email turns to GSI? First of all, your turn must be sent to GSI, using the appropriate User-id. Our various user-ids are listed in our "House Rules and Procedures" and below: America Online (AOL): GmSystmInc Internet: gmsystminc@aol.com CompuServe (CIS): 72357,1041 We can also be reached on Internet via CIS: 72357.1041@compuserve.com, but there is a $1 surcharge for such submissions. Secondly, your turn should be a simple ASCII file. Please follow the format used on our regular turnsheets as closely as possible. In particular, The characters should be presented in alphabetical order, using two columns for the character order, while leaving adequate space between each character's orders to allow them to be easily read. Because our data entry staff is accustomed to our normal format, by following that format you help reduce the chance of mistakes, something we both want to avoid! Be sure to include your name, game and player number, and most recent SECURITY CODE. The due date is also very important. Including your Email user-id would also not hurt. If you find that your turn information does not fit into one message, then you can send as two messages - simply label them page 1 and page 2. PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE DIPLOMATIC MESSAGES WITH YOUR TURN ORDERS! How should you send your Electronic turn to GSI? You may send the turn to GSI via Internet, AOL or CIS Mail, or CIS PBM Games Forum (Forum) private messages. All methods have advantages and disadvantages. We will mention some of the pros/cons here and let you decide which is best for you. Internet, AOL and CIS mail are 'automatically' secure. In other words, unless you happen to mis-send to the wrong user-id, your turn will not be seen by anyone except GSI. PRIVATE Forum message are just as secure, but YOU must remember (or set your software) to code your turns PRIVATE. Of course, you must still send the message to the right user-id! You can always read your Forum messages immediately after you post them and assure that the mark indicating it is PRIVATE is included. If you find that you have accidentally (as opposed to a player doing it intentionally....) sent a PUBLIC Forum turn/message (or posted it to the wrong user-id), then simply get into the Forum and delete the message right away. In contrast, Internet, AOL and CIS mail can not be deleted once sent - period. And you cannot verify that a AOL or CIS Mail has been received unless you request a receipt or call GSI, while you can verify that your Forum message was received by GSI by the receipt mark in the To: field. Internet, AOL and CIS Mail is generally slower in reaching the recipient. PRIVATE Forum messages are instantly available to the recipient (except in rare cases of system malfunction). We hope this sheds some light on some of the concerns about submitting Email turns for ME-PBM to GSI. Should you have further concerns or problems, feel free to contact the various networks and/or GSI and we will both see if we can settle any issues of concern. In any case, we are sure that the addition of these services will improve the ME-PBM experience for many more of our customers, and that is a highest concern here at GSI. Good luck in your gaming! Game Systems Inc Forwarded by: -Darren Frechette darren@unity.ncsu.edu Up