List Ideas

2007-12-11 00:41:00

My Friends,

Here are guidelines from a very successful list owner who managers a number of forums of several thousand members each. It looks like he has encountered problems even we haven't had.

Read this over and post your comments on whether you think we should implement any of his ideas.

JJ

[begin quote]

"I have, for the past ten months, had the privilege of belonging to a private invitation-only list group at Yahoo Groups, open only to select owners of high-volume list groups, dedicated to a study of "best practices" in operating list groups and in eliminating posts from flamers, psychotics, trolls and drama queens. We identified a number of best practices common to all the higher-quality list groups and to all the higher-quality posters. You will see them reflected in the guidelines. Likewise, we identified some practices/signature behaviors of "problem posts" and "problem posters". These too are addressed in the guidelines. And so, with no further ado, here are the guidelines for anyone wishing to send posts to any of my list groups. These guidelines will also be incorporated over the next few weeks into the Welcome message sent to each new member of each list group, and will be sent occasionally to all list members via the list. Any posts submitted which do not meet the guidelines will be rejected by moderators; any posters who become repeat offenders will be banned from the list group(s).

"Here are the guidelines:

  1. "First, observe basic commonsense rules of list group behavior: be civil, be sincere, be coherent in your posts, no flaming, no trolling, and stay reasonably on topic; some reasonable "topic drift" is welcome and allowed, as it is useful and fun. Obviously, posters with a long track record of sending "good" posts to the list will be allowed more leeway in sending occasional (relevant) commercial posts or grossly off-topic posts than will anyone else. BTW, some degree of humor is always welcome; it helps to keep the fundamentalists and fanatics at bay.
  2. "All posts must be written coherently, be readable, and must make sense. In other words, we expect you to make reasonably good use of the English language when posting; your posts must make sense and exhibit at least reasonable clarity. This does not mean that my list moderators and I have become the "grammar police" or the "spelling police", for the goal is not perfection or rigidity, but rather "good enough" sanity and readability. So, yes, all of us occasionally send posts containing some typos, some misspellings, or a skipped word or even a half-sentence, and that is fine and normal, so long as your post is generally coherent, readable and makes sense.
  3. "You must sign your real first and last name in your signature at the end of each post. No, it is not acceptable to whine and claim that there is a "handle" already attached to your email address; anyone over five years old who has been on the Web for more than a year knows that the vast majority of those "handles" are entirely fictitious, and the majority of such handles even imply the wrong gender for the sender. Wow! Yes, signing a nickname as your first name is okay, provided that it is the name that you are known by in your life, i.e., "Lorrie" instead of "Loretta", or "Jimmy" instead of "James". One of the BIG things identified by our best practices list group was the fact that the vast majority of "good" posts sent to list groups, that is, posts sent by sincere writers which made sense and which contributed meaningfully to the list group, were signed by the poster with their real first and last name. Further, we discovered that the very best posts tended to be sent by posters who engaged in even fuller disclosure, and who disclosed as do I in all of my posts -- their phone number and their email address in their sig line (no, we have chosen NOT to make the latter two items a requirement for posters!) Conversely, we discovered that a hallmark signature of folks sending undesirable posts was the fact that their posts were either unsigned or were signed with bizarre acronyms or self-assigned "handles". Here are some examples of types of handles and acronyms/abbreviations which do not constitute acceptable signatures to posts: SweetAngel, Bunker Bob, SurvialistSally, Big Jimmy, JMJ (i.e. bizarre initials), Frater Akarius of the Great White Brotherhood, Guru HHK, Killer, SuperRawDancerGirl, Sarawsati Namaste (i.e., a made-up yogic name used by a Westerner), Jane noneofyourbusiness, Super Eagle, yellowcoyote, Wild Bill Yokel, Archangel Michael.
  4. "Posts will NOT be accepted in PGP-encrypted or otherwise-encrypted format, or from PGP (or other) encrypting mailing services such as Hushmail, Pretty PGP Mail, CryptoMail, CipherMail, MailGuard, SecretMail, etc. Why? We found that an extremely high rate of bizarre and incoherent email comes from posters using such services, and also we have found that list group members and moderators alike find the very idea of using such services to be way too grandiose, self-important and pretentious. We have also found that such posts/posters often seem to invite official inquiries from law enforcement agencies around the world , often with good reason. So, bottom line: if what you want to write to us is so secret and so important that you must send it via an encryption service, then we do not want your post; take your secret posts and go somewhere else!
  5. "Do NOT send a post which simply contains a bare link to a web page; this is uncivil, cryptic and confusing. If you wish to send a relevant link, you must take the time to tell us about the linked article, and why you feel that it might be relevant to us, and tell us what your own response was to the article.
  6. "Do NOT send a post simply saying "thanks" or "I agree" in response to an earlier post. While it is fine to say "thanks" or "I agree", do not stop there; tell us why you are thanking the poster or why you agree, and add your own comments.

"Lastly, a reminder: Any posts submitted which do not meet the guidelines will be rejected by moderators; any posters who become repeat offenders will be banned from the list group(s)."

[end quote]