Subject-line tag suggestions

[Arthur Comings <atc -at- CORTE-MADERA -dot- GEOQUEST -dot- SLB -dot- COM>]

>         From owner-COPYEDITING-L -at- cornell -dot- edu Wed Mar  8 07:42:50 1995
>         (rest of header deleted)

>         USAGE:  usage or grammar issue
>         STYLE:  style issue
>         ESSAY:  general thoughts on an editing topic
>         JOURN:  newspaper-editing issue
>         BOOKS:  reference book
>         TOOLS:  editing tool that isn't a book
>         WORK:   work-related issue (e.g., payment, horror story)
>         JOB OP: employment opportunity
>         HUMOR:  humorous editing chat
>         TRIVIA: bit of knowledge only an editor would want
>         QUERY:  question that doesn't fit a subject tag


These may be a fine set (other than the ALL CAPS, which is something a
lot of us try to avoid, not build into standards) -- but  there's not much
overlap with our Techwhirl needs.

The feeling I get is that most of us want to weed out ads and jokes,
know where job postings and classes are, and leave the tech writing
discussion undifferentiated.  It sounds like the copy editors want
*every* message labeled, which may be overkill for us.

The only overlap I see with the list I suggested earlier (Advt,  Course
(NJ),  Meeting (NY),  Job (CA),  Want job (MA),  Question,  Joke,  Trivia,
and Flame) is  HUMOR.  Flame, which I didn't include in the above list,
is actually on their forbidden list.

I'd like to support a cross-list standard, but this doesn't seem like
much of a start.

What do you think, folks? Keep those cards and letters coming!



Arthur Comings

GeoQuest
Corte Madera, California
atc -at- corte-madera -dot- geoquest -dot- slb -dot- com