List Ideas
Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:41 pm
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:
- "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.
- "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.
- "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.
- "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!
- "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.
- "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]
Copyright © 2007 by JJ Dewey, All Rights Reserved
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