Message Writing Guidelines & Suggestions

The following suggestions are provided for general guidance. While failure to
comply with these suggestions might not result in expulsion from the forum, it
may result in confusion, embarrassment, or ineffective communications. There are
many hundreds of people who receive the email messages from this forum.
Thousands more may read the forum message archives. These guidelines are
intended to improve the usefulness of the forum for both you and the many others
who read the messages.

1. LURK.
Before you jump in, read some of the messages to get a feel for the material
being discussed. Try searching the message archives to see what has already been
discussed on the topics you are researching. Review the Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQs) to avoid asking questions others have seen often. 

2. IMPRESSIONS.
In a forum such as this, you are judged by the quality of your written
communications. So take care about how you present yourself. For example, your
e-mail messages should be typed properly with capitals and spacing in the right
places. Grammar and spelling should be checked before sending. Messages you
publish are archived and made available for future researchers. Your messages
may be read years from now by one of your relatives or descendants. Think about
that before you hit the send command.

We don't expect "perfect" messages. Some people have special challenges that
make it harder for them to write email messages. People with arthritis,
paralyzed limbs, difficulty reading, or other health conditions often find it
difficult to work at the computer. Don't hurt your health trying to write
"perfect" messages. Just do the best you can. If your messages have an unusual
look because of physical challenges, you might want to include a short signature
with a statement like "Please excuse any spelling errors. I try the best I can."
That should give others the hint not to bug you with complaints about how you
write.

"When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an
impertinence." - Higginson (1823-1911)

3. DO'S AND DON'TS.
Do choose your words carefully. This forum is a public medium. You have no
control over where your words go after you send your message and you can't edit
them after they are sent. 

Don't write anything that you wouldn't say to a stranger face-to-face. 

Do re-read your message carefully before you send it. 

Don't write e-mail messages in a hurry (or a temper).

Do quote from the original message when replying. BUT DON'T QUOTE EXCESSIVELY.

Don't write anything that isn't suitable for all ages, sexes, religions, races,
etc.  Remember, this is a public forum.

Don't overuse the 'cc' function.  It is usually a bad idea to send copies of a
message to many Forums.  Consider the Forum topic and send your message where it
will be on-topic and most appropriate.  Copying a message to more than 5 Forums
is considered annoying behavior.

Don't send "thank you" messages to an entire forum when you are only thanking a
few people. 

Don't let brevity triumph over clarity. There's no point in being brief if your
message is not understood by the people you want to communicate with.

Don't try to impose your personal philosophy on others about how the world, or
the forum, should work. There is room for a diversity of attitudes and
philosophies. Try to be tolerant. If you must complain, do it nicely. 

4. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATING.
Good e-mail is like most other good writing. To compose effective e-mail
messages try using the following suggestions. 

* Try to limit email to one subject per message. 

* USE A DESCRIPTIVE SUBJECT LINE. Many people only scan the subject line. A
subject line like "Help" or "Brick Wall" probably won't get their attention. 

  - Put surnames, locations, years in subject lines. 

  - Put SURNAMES in all caps to get the attention of people scanning for names.

* Be concise - keep messages short and to the point.

* Write short sentences.

* Use bulleted lists to break up complicated text.

* Quote selectively from the original e-mail when replying.

* Run a spelling check before you send the message.

Messages can be made more concise using three letter acronyms (TLAs) to
abbreviate common expressions. Some common ones are 'FYI' (for your
information), 'BTW' (by-the-way), 'IMO' (in my opinion), 'WRT' (with respect
to), 'NRN' (no reply necessary), 'TIA' (thanks in advance), and 'B4N' (bye for
now).

Person-to-person communication provides visual and aural clues to your meaning
through facial expressions, body language, or voice inflections. We have limited
ways to imitate these techniques in e-mail messages using 'emoticons' or
'intensifiers'. 

Emoticons (or 'smileys') are faces (viewed sideways) that can be used within
your messages to help convey feelings. The main ones are ':-)' to represent a
smile, ':-(' to represent unhappiness and ';-)' to represent a wink.  Don't
overdo them.  Too many smileys can be irritating. 

Intensifiers provide emphasis. These include **enclosing your words within
asterisks** or USING UPPERCASE. Use uppercase with care - it's considered
shouting in email. 

The 3 basics for writing a good query are: 

* Tell what you know.  For example: the person's name, what you have searched,
your information sources, known dates and locations, etc. This way folks won't
waste their time and yours researching things you already know.

* Tell what you don't know.  For example: parents names, when they came
immigrated, where they died, etc.

* Tell what you want to know.  Otherwise its a stab in the dark. Its not a very
effective to write "looking for information on NAME ...."  WHAT information?  Be
specific, do you want to know how to get naturalization papers for them, how to
find them on a ship list, how to find their parents?  WHAT?

5. CITATIONS.
State your sources. Genealogy information is incomplete and of little use
without supporting evidence. Please include citations of the sources for
relationships you publish. If no source is known or available, then state
"source unknown" or state that the information is theory needing proof.

6. ORGANIZE.
Most e-mail programs provide a system for organizing and storing messages. Use
it. Create separate folders for regular correspondence, projects, or groups you
receive mail from regularly. Keep your inbox tidy so that it only contains
messages needing action. 

Create filters in your email program to automatically route messages from
mailing lists into folders setup for those lists.  This technique is useful for
any category of mail you receive regularly.

Delete messages after they are no longer needed.  You may still be able to find
it in the archives if you ever need it again.

Purge sent messages periodically.

Check for new e-mail often. Don't let it backup on your mail server or you may
exceed your server quota. If that happens, the server will start rejecting your
incoming mail and you will be automatically removed from the subscriber list.
Use an email program that allows automated downloading of messages from the
email server onto your computer's hard drive. That will help prevent exceeding
your email server quota.

7. SIGNATURES.
Make sure you include your "Reply-To" email address in your message so that
people can communicate with you. Most email programs have configuration options
for both a "Sender's Address" and a "Reply-To" address. By default, replies are
automatically addressed to the "Reply-To" address. In some forums, if the
"Reply-To" address is blank, the forum's address is inserted automatically as
the "Reply-To" address. 

Many people include a "signature" at the end of their message. A signature is a
small piece of text which provides contact information and sometimes a favorite
saying. Signatures should be short, usually between 2 to 7 lines. For example: 

+------------------------------------------------------+
| John Doe                        [email protected] |
| P.O. Box 123, Anycity, USA         Tel: 555-555-5555 |
| http://my.service.com/Doe          Fax: 555-555-5555 |
+------------------------------------------------------+

Note that a "signature" as used here is different from a "card" as mentioned in
the policy statements. Cards are normally sent as encoded (e.g. MIME)
attachments while signatures like the above example are simply text within the
body of the message.

8. ENJOY!
Email and Genealogy should be enjoyable.  If you aren't enjoying it, then stop
and go do something else for a while.  Don't make yourself or others unhappy
doing something you aren't enjoying.  Time is the stuff of which life is made. 
Spend it wisely.

9. OTHER.
Don't be annoying or easily annoyed.  If you can't be nice, be quiet.  If you
can't be nice or quiet, be gone. 
Interpretation and enforcement of policy matters is at the discretion of the
Forum Management. Don't take it upon yourself to act as policeman for the forum.

Keep your messages on-topic. If you want to "discuss" off-topic issues, either
do so privately or contact the Forum Manager directly. 

If you have suggestions for improvements to the Forum, please send them to the
Forum Manager. Do not post them for public discussion in the forum. 

The Manager provides this service for you at no charge. The service is not
perfect. Did you expect perfection for free? There may be things that could be
done to improve the service. But, things take time and work to accomplish, and
the Manager sometimes has other priorities in life. So, please don't expect
instant responses or instant action.

Hope you find some of these suggestions useful!

==== SCROOTS Mailing List ====