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About ILLAM google group - an online forum (Language of communication: TAMIL)
ILLAM - Its your own home - to share your thoughts/feelings on Spirituality, Science, Social awareness, Tamil poetry, Tamil literature, Tamil softwares, Tamil fonts etc.
Important Note (on what to post and what not):
- All messages should be posted in Unicode Tamil and not in Tscii or any other encoding. To enable Unicode and to learn all about its immense advantages, please visit http://azhagi.com/uniset.html.
- Topics on cinema, politics and contentious issues shall be avoided at all costs.
- Though a hard line "can never be drawn" as to what is useful to the society/spirit , what is contentious etc., I think members (matured as they are), intuitively may know what mails will not serve much purpose and hence not post them in the group. Numbers do not have any importance at all in ILLAM. Hence, our focus shall be only on 'Quality' of messages and not on mere numbers.
- By becoming part of 'illam', you are presented with an opportunity to promote love and compassion, peace and harmony, knowledge and understanding - through sharing and participation. By heart, let us strive to realise that all are our places and all are of one family (yaadhum oore yaavarum kaeLir).
- When you wish to forward Tamil mails (relevant to this group) received from other sources, please make sure you edit, format and send it neatly, as your own mail. If you want to acknowledge the source, please do it in a single line at the top or end of the message. For e.g. Thanks to 'Ananda Vikatan'. Otherwise, simply forwarding a mail might result in unpleasantness for the readers in scrolling down big lists of email addresses and advertisements to read your message.
- When you wish to send/forward English mails, all of what has been said above holds good. Additionally, please don't send the English content as an inline message (i.e. as part of the message body) but only as an attached MS-Word document. i.e. Paste the final contents in an MS-Word document and send that document as an attachment with your mail.
- English content in your mails should be best avoided but when it jells well with the main matter (in Tamil ofcourse) you write, by way of original English quotes from various sources, then you shall have English content. In any case, it is better to keep English contents as less as possible. (Please note: We are not against English or any other language and in fact we encourage one to learn ANY language or as many languages, as one wishes. But, the purpose of this particular group 'illam' is to promote communication in Tamil and hence this restriction on use of English content ).
- New members' messages will be moderated for a while before granting 'direct posting' status. Please bear with us.
- There is a technical matter which you should know regarding whether the subject of your topics should be in Tamil or English and to know the same, click here.
How do I join the ILLAM google group?
Assuming you have a gmail account (To create a new gmail account, read answer to the immediately following question):
1) Visit http://google.com/accounts.
2) Enter your email and password in the spaces provided and click the 'Sign in' button.
3) Visit http://groups.google.com/group/illam.
4) Click the 'Join this group' button somewhere at the top of the page.
5) Choose your options ( ow you want to receive mails, nickname etc.) and click the 'Join this group' button.
How do I open a gmail account with my existing non-gmail id, say xyz@xyz.com?
1) Visit http://www.google.com/accounts
2) Click on 'Create an account now' button which you can find somewhere at the bottom right of the page.
3) Enter your existing email address (i.e. xyz@xyz.com) in the space provided, fill in all other details and click 'Create my account' button at the bottom of the page.
In case you do not have a gmail id yet, we suggest you create a new gmail id (say xyzxyz@gmail.com) using the above 'account creation' page of google and join ILLAM with that gmail id itself (i.e. xyzxyz@gmail.com) so that your unicode Tamil mails always reach our ILLAM group correctly, without distortion. Google provides almost 100% support to Unicode, when compared to other email clients like yahoo!, rediffmail etc. and hence this suggestion from us.
How do i post a topic/reply in ILLAM group (over the net) using Azhagi?
- To post your message as a new topic
a) Visit http://groups.google.com/group/illam.
b) Click on the link 'Start a new topic' which you can find at the top of your page on the lefter side.
c) A new page will open with a 'subject' line and a message area.
d) Paste the Unicode text in it (remember to paste the Unicode text and not the original Tamil text in Tscii or other encoding).
e) Verify that your message has been copied properly.
f) Go to the bottom of the message area (or the web page) to find two buttons 'Preview' and 'Send'. If you click 'preview', you can preview the message before posting. If you click 'Send', you will send it directly to ILLAM.
- To post your message as a reply
a) Visit http://groups.google.com/group/illam.
b) Click on any of the existing topics you see.
c) A new page will open with names of the repliers to that topic on the left hand side and all the messages on the right hand side. If you dont see the left pane with topics, then click on the link 'View as tree' somewhere at the top of the first message.
d) You can scroll down the messages on the right to locate a particular message for which to reply.
e) At the bottom of the 'messages' page, you can find links like 'Newer' or 'Older' to move from one set of messages to another set.
f) Once you have identified the message for which to reply, Click on the link 'Reply' which you can see at the bottom of that message.
(If in case the message you wish to reply for is not visible fully, click on 'show quoted text' link at the bottom of the message).
g) After you click 'Reply' a message area will appear under the 'Reply' link itself.
h) Paste the Unicode text in it (remember to paste the Unicode text and not the original Tamil text in Tscii or other encoding).
i) Ver fy that your message has been copied properly.
j) At the bottom of the message area, you will find two buttons 'Preview' and 'Send'. If you click 'preview', you can preview the message before posting. If you click 'Send', you will send it directly to ILLAM.
- To post your message as a new topic
a) Visit http://groups.google.com/group/illam.
b) Click on the link 'Start a new topic' which you can find at the top of your page on the lefter side.
c) A new page will open with a 'subject' line and a message area.
d) See http://azhagi.com/uniset.html#unidirect to know how to type directly (in ANY application) in Unicode using Azhagi.
e) Type your Unicode text directly in the message area.
f) Verify that your message has been typed properly.
g) Go to the bottom of the message area (or the web page) to find two buttons 'Preview' and 'Send'. If you click 'preview', you can preview the message before posting. If you click 'Send', you will send it directly to ILLAM.
- To post your message as a reply
a) Visit http://groups.google.com/group/illam.
b) Click on any of the existing topics you see.
c) A new page will open with names of the repliers to that topic on the left hand side and all the messages on the right hand side. If you dont see the left pane with topics, then click on the link 'View as tree' somewhere at the top of the first message.
d) You can scroll down the messages on the right to locate a particular message for which to reply.
e) At the bottom of the 'messages' page, you can find links like 'Newer' or 'Older' to move from one set of messages to another set.
f) Once you have identified the message for which to reply, Click on the link 'Reply' which you can see at the bottom of that message. (If in case the message you wish to reply for is not visible fully, click on 'show quoted text' link at the bottom of the message).
g) After you click 'Reply', a message area will appear under the 'Reply' link itself.
h) See http://azhagi.com/uniset.html#unidirect to know how to type directly (in ANY application) in Unicode using Azhagi.
i) Type your Unicode text directly in the message area.
j) Verify that your message has been typed properly.
k) Go to the bottom of the message area (or the web page) to find two buttons 'Preview' and 'Send'. If you click 'preview', you can preview the message before posting. If you click 'Send', you will send it directly to ILLAM.
How do i post a message (topic/reply) in ILLAM group using my email client (like outlook express, gmail etc.)?
If you wish to post messages in 'illam' from outlook express, gmail, yahoo! etc., compose your message in Unicode Tamil (please do not compose your mail in any other encoding like Tscii etc. ) and email it to illam@googlegroups.com. To know how to compose messages in Unicode Tamil using Azhagi, visit http://azhagi.com/uniset.html and read the relevant questions.
'Subject' line of new topics posted in ILLAM group - Should it be in English or Tamil? [ Go to Top ]
Strictly speaking, it will be nice to see the 'Subject' also in Tamil. But, if the subject is in Tamil, there are certain hitches.
a) Not all email clients show the Subject line in Tamil properly. b) There are greater chances for a 'broken thread'. See answer to question below and get to know what we mean by a 'broken thread' and what care you should take in general with regard to subject line, and in particular when the subject line is in Tamil.
The tree of a topic/message thread gets broken at places. Why?
A thread is a series of inter-related messages which gets developed when a topic is posted and others reply for it. When you view this thread in tree form over the net (i.e. using a web browser like Internet Explorer), you will see the tree on the left pane and its expanded form on the right pane. See sample screen'snapshot below for better understanding.
As you see, the tree (in the left pane) has a line in black&bold after message 12. We call this a 'broken thread'. A broken thread occurs when the original subject line is changed. A subject line may get changed for two reasons:
a) The person who replies changes the subject "knowingly". It does not matter whether the original subject was in English or Tamil.
b) The person who replies changes the subject "unknowingly".
The latter case happens only when the subject is in Tamil. How it happens is as follows. When a person replies online for a particular message, he has two options to choose from:
See sample screen'snapshot below for better understanding. You can see the words 'Reply' and 'Reply with quote' in the right pane below the first mail in the tree.
If you click on 'Reply with quote' and type in your reply and post, the subject (in unicode tamil) may get broken automatically somewhere (not your fault) and the tree will get broken. But, if you click on 'Reply', type in your reply and post the same, the subject will not change at all and hence the tree will never get broken. So, as a general rule, we advise you to always click on 'Reply' link and then post your reply (and NOT click the 'Reply with quote' link ever), regardless of whether the subject line is in Tamil or English. Also, do not attempt to change the subject line, in any case.
Is there any harm if a tree gets broken?
We are not aware of any major harm as of yet, except that the tree looks inelegant and a sore for the eyes sometimes.
* End of FAQ. URL: http://azhagi.com/illam.html *