What should I know about chatmails?

The chatmail system of the Community is a system which send messages only within the Community. It has nothing to do with e-mail. You can neither write to a specific e-mail address nor send a message to the Community-mail postbox of a Community member using the chatmail system.

The main aim of the chatmail system is to give people who have "missed" each other in the Community, or who cannot speak to each other "live" and directly for some other reason the opportunity to send each other messages.

In addition to the mailing function for the people amongst themselves, the chatmail system is used for so-called "internal information" which is sent to the people automatically by the system, e.g. for the release of pictures, friends' list etc.
Please read these mails as their content is important and they have been sent to you for a good reason; you will not be able to excuse yourself for anything due to internal information that you have not received as these mails are principally always sent successfully.
You can recognize the internal information in the mail overview next to the reference (mostly "INTERNAL INFORMATION"; but also e.g. "FRIENDS' LIST") and by the fact that no sender is shown. No other chatmail has this, which makes the internal information "forgery-proof", so to speak. Although you may receive "INTERNAL INFORMATION" from a mean person in which he may claim to be a SPiN employee or someone similar and request certain things from you (even your password), but you will recognize that the mail is a fake due to the non-existent sender. Moreover, you cannot reply to internal information (which is why such mails do not contain a "Reply" button). These mails serve only informational purposes, and are not meant for communication. This, too, makes these mails "forgery-proof". If you receive a fake mail and do not pay attend to the non-existent sender, you can recognize the fake due the missing "Reply" button at the latest.

With respect to certain rules of behavior, the chatmails are subject to the same rules as for chats.

Sending mails
You have various possibilities to mail a person:

• Via the home-page overview under "Mails" -> "-> Write a new mail"
• Via the "Send mail" button of the corresponding person profile
• Via the "Send mail" button in a board entry of the corresponding person.
  In this case, the title of the entry will be automatically marked as reply and inserted into the reference line and the text of the board entry will be copied into the input field for the mail text so that the board-entry text, to which the mail refers, is also quoted and so the recipient of the mail will know what the mail is about.

Once you have opened a mail form in any manner, enter the corresponding nickname or nicknames with the correct spelling for "Person name(s)" (If you are mailing "Via board entry", the recipient is naturally already entered). If you want to mail to several people at the same time, separate the different nicknames from each other using a comma. You can mail up to 10 people at the same time.

If writing out the nicknames is too much trouble for you, you may also use the search function for recipients. In order to do this, simply click on the "Search" button next to the recipient field. A window will be displayed. Enter the first few letters of the desired nickname into the corresponding field and click on the "Search" button again. A hit list will be displayed. If the list is very long and your desired nickname does not appear on the first "page", you can scroll forwards using the "Next" button. Then click on the "Add" button after the corresponding nickname. The nickname will then be added to the recipient field.

You can mail people who are on your friends' list by selecting the corresponding nickname via the drop-down menu located at the bottom of the window, and inserting the name into the recipient field by clicking on the "Add" button.

Enter an expressive title for your mail in the reference line. Write your message in the mail-text field.

The editing and designing possibilities for a chatmail are similar to those for profile pages and boards. You can insert pictures and smileys using the corresponding buttons here as well.

Before you finally send off your mail, you can check it once again using the preview function. To do this, click on the "Preview" button. A page will then be displayed showing your current text version over the mail-text field. Make any changes in the mail-text field which contains your text.
In order to finally send your mail off, click on the "Send" button.

Administering mails
In order to do this, go the home-page overview in "Mails". If you already have mails in your mail postbox, you will be shown a dated list in which the latest mail is at the top.

Deleting mails
In order to delete a specific mail, highlight the corresponding line by clicking on the small box in front with a small tick.
You may highlight several mails in this manner in order to delete them at the same time.
You can delete them by clicking on the "Delete highlighted mails" button.

If you want to delete all the mails except for a specific few, highlight the mails which you want to keep, and then click on the "Invert selection" button. Now the mails which you want to delete will be highlighted, and you can click on the "Delete highlighted mails" button.

If you really want to delete all your mails, click on "-> Delete all mails" in the box on the left next to the mail overview.

Downloading mails
The Community postbox should be emptied regularly so that our system will not be burdened too much in the long term by the mass of people.
Before you empty your Community postbox, you can download all the mails which are currently still in your postbox. To do this, click on "-> Download mails" in the box on the left next to the mail overview. A window will be displayed which will inform you as to how to proceed, namely how to download all your chatmails bundled in a HTML file. By clicking on "OK - download all mails", you can then initiate the download. Save the HTML file created on your hard disc.
Please note that the internal information, which was sent by the system to you (e.g. about the release of pictures, friends' list etc.) will not be included in the automatic download process.

If you are a VIP, you have additional comfortable features for mail administration at your disposal in the box on the left side of the mail overview:

You can configure the mail view of the pertinent folder according to specific options:

• all mails - Show all mails
• from friends - Show only mails from friends
• internal mails - Show only internal mails
• normal mails - Show all mails except the internal ones

And last, but not least, you can search through your mails with the search function for whatever you want.
Enter the desired keyword in the corresponding field and click on the "Search" button. Depending on your settings under "Folder" and "View", the corresponding mails will be searched according to reference and mail text, and finally a hit list will be shown or a message that no matches were found.
You can leave the "View" "Search results" by changing to another "View", e.g. to "All mails".

"Sent items"
As a VIP, you have a "Sent items" folder at your disposal, in which the chatmails which you have sent are stored. It always contains a maximum of the last 20 mails which you have sent during the last 30 days.
You can download the mails in your "Sent items" folder in the same manner as your mails in your postbox.
You cannot delete the mails in the "Sent items" folder individually. If you want to delete all the mails currently found there, click on "-> Delete all mails" in the box on the left next to the mail overview.