Message Writing Guidelines & Suggestions - Steve Coker
Subject: Message Writing Guidelines & Suggestions
From: Steve Coker
Date: March 20, 2001


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. Thousands of people may read your email messages sent to
this forum. 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 may be 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 key.

We don't expect "perfect" messages. Some people have special challenges
that make it harder for them to write email messages. People with
arthritis, nerve problems, 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 (1823­1911)

3. SUGGESTED 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 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 with public archives.

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.  Complaints should go to the Forum Manager.  Stay on-topic in the
Forum.

4. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATING.
Good e-mail is like most other good writing. To compose effective e-mail
messages try 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. Especially in the archives.

   - Put surnames, locations, years in subject lines.

   - In the message body you may want to put SURNAMES in all caps to get
the attention of people scanning for names.  Personally, I don't like all
caps in the subject line.

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

* Short sentences are best.

* 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:

(1) 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.

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

(3) 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 if 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 regularly. 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 may 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 "From Address" and a "Reply-To" address. By default,
replies are automatically addressed to the "Reply-To" address. 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 3 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!




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