Posting Guidelines -- Newly Revised

[Eric Ray <ejray -at- IONET -dot- NET>]

revised: 1/96, 4/14/96, 5/8/96, 5/10/96

  GUIDELINES FOR POSTING MESSAGES:

     THE SCENARIO
  You are in a large lecture hall full of people in your profession.
  Included in the audience are students, educators, professionals. You
  cannot make out their faces, but they could reasonably include your
  employers or potential employers, your coworkers, and the ever-present
  violently obsessive technical writing groupies.

  Most of the audience members sit quietly as one member at a time gets
  up, walks to the podium, and shares information or advice or asks
  questions. Some of it is rich and detailed, some cursory but helpful,
  some trivial but relevant in a roundabout way.  Somewhere in this stream
  of information, someone expresses an opinion or gives a piece of advice
  that you feel obligated to respond to.

  You get out of your seat and walk to the front of the room, everyone's
  eyes upon you. ...

        (Listowner's note: At this point, the paths may diverge. Some of
         the following unfortunate cases have been played out over the past
         few years.)

   A) You approach the podium, clear your throat, and say "Me,
      too."   You are greeted with a combination of quizzical, patronizing
      smirks and incredulous silence.

   B) You relate that really good joke about Microsoft and operating systems
      that you overheard at the restaurant last night. Some laugh. Some
      wonder why you just now heard it. Many wonder why you'd use their chance
      to discuss technical communication to tell a old joke.

   C) You take your turn at the microphone to clarify a point. One of the
      previous speakers had mentioned, in the context of developing and
      using context-sensitive, interactive help files, that they used
      MS Word v3.0. Obviously, that's incorrect, therefore you clarify
      that they MUST have used a different version because that one didn't
      even exist. Not only that, but the incompetence of anyone who could
      make such a mistake is certainly astounding. It only takes you about
      10 minutes to impress upon everyone that you know far better than
      the speaker what versions of Word exist. (You don't make any points
      about the issue at hand, but your audience has already made their
      assumptions about your knowledge in that area.)

   D) "Does anyone know how much the cheapest Internet service provider in
      Kansas costs?"

  As you walk back to your seat, you try to make out the faces around you.

  (Thanks to Lisa Higgins for this scenario)


     WHAT TO POST
     * If it is about technical communication and of general
       interest, post it.
     * If it is about technical communication and original and
       humorous, post it.

     WHAT NOT TO POST
     * If it doesn't relate to technical communication,
       don't post it.
     * If it is a personal message to a single subscriber,
       don't post it. Even if mail to that person bounces.
     * If you aren't sure, don't post it.
     * If it relates to language use but not technical
       communication, it probably isn't appropriate.
       Don't post it.
     * If it continues an irrelevant thread in any way
       (rebuttal, rebuke, rerun, revision, remark), don't
       post it.
     * If it is something cute, interesting, or funny that
       you found on the Internet (e.g. Dr. Seuss on Tech
       Writing, origin of spam), don't post it. I assure
       you that most readers have seen it already.

     OTHER
     * Please make sure your E-mail address is included in
       the body of the message you post to the list.
     * Please don't inflict LONG ads disguised as signatures
       on the rest of us. Trust me, they're not effective at
       anything except making you look silly.
     * Please don't quote extensively/excessively from other
       messages. Just include enough to provide context.
     * Direct all commentary about this message to my
       address, not the list.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Eric J. Ray                                   ejray -at- ionet -dot- net
TECHWR-L Listowner

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