Mailing List Manners 101

Mailing List Manners 101

Paul Prusakowski

5/11/1999

Hello again,

This was sent to me today by a few people. I think it is very applicable to
all mailing lists. Please take a few minutes to read through it. Thanks.

Also, as a refresher, to unsubscribe from oandp-l:

Send a message to: <Email Address Redacted>

In the body of the message, type: unsubscribe oandp-l

That should do it!

Paul Prusakowski, CPO



   Mailing List Manners 101
   ------------------------
   by Adam C. Engst < <Email Address Redacted> >

   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:

< <URL Redacted>>


**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:

* Unsubscribe messages mistakenly sent by subscribers who didn't
   read (or locate) the instructions for leaving the list. Every list
   goes to lengths to simplify the process of signing off, and yet a
   large number of people still send unsubscribe messages to the list
   itself. Read and save the welcome message you receive when you
   subscribe to a list, then refer to it when you want to
   unsubscribe.

* 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 workarounds 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. There's a
   trick you can use in Eudora Pro (but not Eudora Light) to switch
   signatures automatically when you're replying to messages that
   come from mailing lists. Follow these steps:

   1) In the Signatures window create a shortened signature for use
   with mailing lists called Short signature. Your name,
   affiliation, email address, and URL are all that is essential.

   2) In the Personalities settings panel, create a personality
   called Mailing list signature. Fill in the Real Name and Return
   Address fields, and select the Send mail whenever sends are done
   checkbox. All the other fields can be blank, and the checkboxes
   related to checking mail should be deselected.

   3) Switch to the Personality Extras settings panel, leave the
   Stationery pop-up menu set to None, and choose Short signature
   from the Signature when not using stationery pop-up menu. Click
   OK to save your personality settings.

   4) Open the Filters window. In filters that move messages from
   mailing lists into specific mailboxes, add a Make Personality
   action, and from the Personality pop-up menu, choose Mailing list
   signature.

   You've created a signature for use with mailing lists, connected
   it with a specific personality that differs from your dominant
   personality only in the default signature setting, then created a
   filter that automatically assigns that personality to incoming
   messages from mailing lists. Now, whenever you reply to a message
   from a mailing list, Eudora Pro knows to use your mailing list
   personality and thus your mailing list signature. You'll still
   have to choose your mailing list signature manually when sending a
   new message to a list, but all replies will use it automatically.


**Ridin' that High Horse** -- I freely admit that there's nothing
   new in this article (well, except maybe the Eudora tip above).
   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:

< <URL Redacted>>

* 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.