-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Stuart, University of Vermont [mailto:rstuart@esf.uvm.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 1999 9:52 AM
To: SAFETY@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Internet Culture: Mailing List Manners 101


Now that e-mail is old hat, netiquette postings are less common, but
I thought I would pass along this summary of the current issues.
SAFETY people seem pretty good at following the rules of the road,
but reminders can't hurt... Slightly edited.

- Ralph


Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 21:00:00 -0700
From: TidBITS Editors <editors@tidbits.com>
Subject: TidBITS#480/10-May-99

Mailing List Manners 101
------------------------
    by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>

    It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of mailing lists. I both
    subscribe to and operate a number of lists on many topics, and I
    spend much of my day communicating professionally and personally
    in these discussion groups.

    And yet, I'm troubled by behaviors I see in most lists. Many
    people pay little attention to spelling, grammar, and the basic
    composition of their messages, post pointless notes, and bulk up
    replies by quoting complete originals and appending huge
    signatures. How you write in email - especially in public places
    like mailing lists - affects how other people regard you, your
    opinions, and your knowledge. Think of it this way: if mailing
    list messages were a reflection of personal hygiene, you don't
    want to come across to others like you need a shower, clean
    clothes, and a haircut.

    Here then are the main behaviors that I would encourage for all
    mailing list participants. If you're as bothered by the problems
    in mailing lists as I am, feel free to refer others to this
    article for advice. You can link to it permanently at this URL:

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05386>


**Write Carefully** -- I realize that I risk sounding like a
    pedant here, but in cases like this, I don't care. Writing skills
    in the general Internet populace stink, which means you can make
    yourself look even more intelligent and thoughtful than you are by
    writing well. Good writing isn't difficult, and requires only
    grammatical sentences and proper spelling. You don't need to be a
    professional writer or be able to make words flow trippingly off
    the tongue.

    You should also follow a few basic rules when writing email:

* Don't use all capital letters for more than a word.
* Insert a blank line between paragraphs.
* Surround URLs with angle brackets to avoid problems at line
    breaks.
* Don't use text styles (like bold or italic) or text colors in
    mailing list messages, since many people won't see them and may
    even see HTML tags instead.


**Quote Sparingly** -- One of my peeves with mailing lists is that
    people seldom delete unnecessary quoted text in their replies,
    with the worst being people who reply to a message in a digest and
    quote the entire digest. Quoting sparingly does require manual
    work, since most email programs automatically quote the original
    message in replies. But failing to edit the original wastes
    everyone's time and bandwidth.

    In some email programs, you can select some text in the original
    message, press a keyboard shortcut, and have only that text appear
    quoted in the reply. (Eudora for the Macintosh does this with its
    Command-Shift-R shortcut.) Other email programs assume that
    replying with some original text selected means you want to quote
    only that text.

    Especially problematic are email programs that quote an original
    message by appending it to the bottom of the reply with no quote
    marks in front of each line. That prevents inline replies, since
    there's no easy way to differentiate original and new text, so
    users of those programs tend to leave the entire original hanging
    off the end of the reply. That's fine in private messages, but in
    mail destined for a list, it's just sloppy. Unfortunately, the
    only solution to this problem is to switch to a different email
    program


**Avoid Junk Messages** -- Another complaint about people's
    behavior on mailing lists revolves around "junk" messages. I'm not
    talking about spam, since spammers aren't constructive members of
    a mailing list. Instead, junk messages fall into the following
    categories:

* Me-too posts sent by well-meaning list members replying only to
    convey that they agree with a message or had a similar experience.
    A Web-based poll is a better way to take votes on a topic.

* Welcome messages that appear when someone new joins the list. No
    one on a mailing list needs to read "Glad to have you on the
    list!" from everyone; send such messages to the new member in
    private mail.

* Congratulation messages that appear after a member of the list
    has mentioned some milestone or personal triumph. Again, send
    these in private email.

    The moral of the story is simple: Avoid sending junk messages to a
    list. They're easy to identify as you type - just ask yourself if
    the message would be of interest to the majority of the mailing
    list. If not, that doesn't mean your message is worthless: the
    original sender might appreciate being welcomed or congratulated
    via private email.


**Write Descriptive Subjects** -- When you receive messages from a
    mailing list, the first thing you see is the subject line. Which
    of these subject lines would you rather see on a mailing list
    devoted to, say, tropical fish?

> wondering
> Recommendations for fish that can live with cichlids

    Unless your telepathic powers are better than mine, the first
    subject line tells you nothing. So, the first rule of subject
    lines is to make them descriptive.

    Another problem affects primarily digest readers. They see an
    interesting message and want to reply, but when they do so, their
    email program uses the subject line of the digest (Tropical Fish
    Digest #251) rather than the subject of the message. That leads to
    messages being sent to the list with useless subject lines, since
    the title of the digest is rarely descriptive. There's no good
    solution to this problem, although two mediocre work arounds exist.

* Copy the subject line from the message to which you're replying
    and paste it into your reply's subject line, prefixing it with
    "Re:". This is effort well spent.

* Have the digest sent as a MIME digest and use an email program
    like Eudora Pro that can separate the digest into individual
    messages in a mailbox. The problem goes away then, but, for some
    people, so does the point of receiving the digest version of a
    list.

    Sometimes you want to reply to a message but change the topic of
    discussion. When you do that, you should change the subject line;
    if you don't, people following the thread will be confused when
    your message doesn't match its subject. Some people (and some
    programs) indicate when they've changed a subject line by
    appending "(was <the original subject>)" to the new subject.
    That's acceptable but results in long and unwieldy subject lines
    that work badly in list archives.

    On the other side are people who change the subject lines on every
    message they send. That's equally problematic, since it prevents
    list members from reading (or sorting) messages that are related
    by a shared subject line.

    If you create descriptive subjects, maintain the correct subjects
    if you're a digest reader, and change subjects only when
    appropriate, you'll be well on your way to being admired as a
    paragon of list etiquette.


**Use Short Signatures** -- My final gripe about mailing list
    postings is that many people have long signatures at the end of
    their messages. Email signatures are useful, but mailing list
    signatures should be kept to a minimum. This is especially true
    for lists that have digests because the signatures can take up a
    significant portion of the digest. For instance, messages with
    long signatures sent to the moderated Info-Mac Digest are rejected
    with a note asking the person to resend with a shorter signature.

    Many email programs let you switch between multiple signatures,
    but you have to remember to do so for each message.

**Ridin' that High Horse** -- I freely admit that there's nothing
    new in this article.
    These recommendations have been floating around the Internet as
    long as there has been an Internet. The sad fact is, though, that
    mailing list manners haven't improved with time.

    So why can I complain? Two reasons. First, I think it's important
    that this topic, old as it is, remains in the public eye. Second,
    I do the work every day to create a mailing list that tries to
    conform to all the recommendations above. In TidBITS Talk, I do
    the following to every message:

<http://www.tidbits.com/search/talk.html>

* Basic editing and spell checking, which is significantly eased
    by Eudora Pro 4.2's inline spell checker. I also add blank lines
    between paragraphs, add angle brackets to URLs, and remove styled
    text.

* Eliminate unnecessary original text in replies. This task is
    quite easy, since wholesale deletions take little time.

* Reject junk messages. Most mailing lists aren't moderated, but
    eliminating junk messages, or even multiple identical answers to
    the same question, is a major advantage of moderation.

* Normalize subject lines. I try to keep similar messages in
    threads and break new thoughts out into new threads. This work
    also improves the quality and coherence of our archive database.

* Signature pruning. Since I'm already editing messages, it's
    little extra work to trim signatures to their essentials.

    I do all this work because I think it makes for a far better list
    experience, and highly positive feedback from the members of the
    TidBITS Talk list confirms this. Another advantage is that this
    work tends to keep the list volume down, since I'm less likely to
    post messages that require a lot of work to clean up.

    I'm not trying to be smug - I love it when I can post submissions
    to TidBITS Talk without a lick of work. I also don't expect most
    other people who run mailing lists to expend this level of effort
    (though I wouldn't complain if some did). Instead, my goal here is
    to educate people who participate in mailing lists, since only by
    improving our list manners will mailing lists continue to become
    increasingly pleasant and useful.