Listserve suggestions

[Kenton Bird <kbird@uidaho.edu>]

Visionaries,
I am thrilled by the quantity and quality of this week's on-line
discussions, particularly those dealing with the Alturas Business Park
and the hospital/health care questions.  Once again, we are seeing the
value of this form of communication.

However, I fear that the volume (and length) of messages may be
intimidating to newcomers to the list.  There can be too much of a good
thing!

Several people have told me they no longer subscribe to Vision 2020
because they're being bombarded with messages 20 or more times a day.
To them, and to others in the same predicament, I encourage you to
subscribe to the digested form of the list.  (You'll get a collection of
8 or 10 messages grouped together, once or twice, or in some cases
(today) four times daily.)  Instructions are on the Moscow.com homepage
under "vision2020" -- it's easy to unsubscribe from the regular list and
resubscribe to the digest.

Meanwhile, we can do several things to keep the discussion moving
without clogging everyone's in boxes.

I am reposting a list of suggestions for an effective listserver,
originally posted by Tom Lamar more than a year ago.   In particular, I
call your attention to Number 4, which deals with the including only
relevant parts of previous messages in your reply and discarding the
rest.   (Those long italicized passages are tedious, especially in the
digested version.)

Finally, I ask subscribers to consider limiting themselves to no more
than two posts per day to the list, and replying "off list" if they feel
the need to comment on someone else's message.   (That goes for me,
too!)

Thanks for your participation,
--Kenton

***
From:   "Tom Lamar" <lamar@pcei.org>
Date:   Wed Apr 29 11:01:36 1998
Attached:       Headers.822

I just received this following piece on the Idaho Smart Growth
listserve.
Its suggestions relate to a number of MV2020 concerns such as "ditto
posts", re-posts, irrelevant posts, attachments, proofing, etc.  Hope it

helps.
--Tom

Guidelines for Participating in an Email List
Summary
This document provides tips for participating effectively on email
lists.
To receive a copy of this document by email, send a blank email message
to
list-tips@onenw.org.

As more and more people use the Internet in their activism, the
importance
of being an effective online communicator increases dramatically. One of

the best tools available to us are "email lists," sometimes known as
"listservs."

However, our use of these lists comes with some responsibilities,
perhaps
most importantly to not overload our fellow activists with unnecessary
or
redundant emails. Following, you will find a list of things you should
consider before posting or responding to a list. For email, quality is
definitely of greater value than quantity. Before you post to an email
list, ask yourself:
1)      Is this message *really* necessary?
Only respond to a previous post if you have something of substance to
say,
e.g., don't respond to a list to say only, "I agree" or "Thanks."

2)      Does your message mesh with the list's purpose?
It is important to stay on topic on discussion lists. Many times, people

become frustrated when others make posts that are irrelevant. Maintain
the
quality of the online discussion by staying focused on the subject.

3)      Does the subject line adequately describe your message's
content?
By including a descriptive subject line, recipients can easily tell if
your
email is of interest to them or is of an urgent nature, and allows folks
to
prioritize and organization their emails more easily.

4)      If quoting portions of a previous email, have you included only
the
relevant portions in your response?
It's important to "pare down" quoted material, so that emails don't grow

massive, and so that recipients know exactly to what you're referring in

your response.

5)      If you're forwarding a message to a list, have you asked the
original
sender for their permission?
Conversely, if you want to forward a message from a list, have you asked

*that* sender's permission?

6)      If you're attaching a file to your email, have you made sure
you've
saved the file as a "text file" so that people with different computers
and
software can all read it?
Sending attachments to lists is difficult, and we generally advise
against
it, unless you know everyone on the list can read it. If at all
possible,
rather than attaching a document, include it as text in your email
message
(using "cut and paste" from your word processing program, if necessary).

7)      Have you proof-read and/or spell-checked your message?

8)      Have you included your contact information (other than your
email
address) in a signature file? It's helpful to give folks other ways of
contacting you in your email, e.g.  phone, fax, website, postal address.

9)      Last, but perhaps most importantly, have you made certain that
you are
sending your email to the address you really *mean* to?  Some people
have
experienced very embarrassing moments when responding quickly to an
email
list post, meaning for their response to go to only one person, but it
was
inadvertently sent to the entire list. Check and make sure the right
email
address is in the "to" box!!