Contents: Endless September I Miss a Lot of Good Stuff How to Advertise on Mailing Lists and Usenet "ENDLESS SEPTEMBER": In the days when access to a computer was rare, September was always a hectic time for Usenet: thousands of incoming college freshmen had to be educated and civilized. When computers and connections became cheap and readily available, netizens dubbed the resulting chaos "the endless September." September will end, of course, when all newbies are the offspring of current members of the community -- or, more likely, when the last newsgroup has collapsed from the strain. ------------------------------------------------------------ I MISS A LOT OF GOOD STUFF: a filler I found while checking back issues of the Writers' Exchange Bulletin for changes that hadn't been carried into the membership list (Lines marked by *** were in headline format in WEB #57) ------------------------------------------------------------ Here we are a couple of months past deadline and I still have nothing to say, so I'll fill up the blank space with a post that I began for e- tatters, then I had to drop off the list, so I never finished writing it. ***I miss a lot of good stuff*** A digression to be read by those with time on their hands. end (I didn't want to write "uns*bscribing".) (I just realized why unsubscribe commands that make it through to the list are invariably miss- spelled.) MESSAGE BEGINS When times get hectic, instead of unsubscribing, I delete blocks of messages unread. This allows me to save threads that I've been following, and the most interesting of the new subjects. It doesn't allow me to find any of the good stuff hidden under blank subject lines, "no subject", "Digest #nnnn", "I Have A Question", and other uninformative titles. I also miss out on threads that have played out and then mutated without anybody changing the subject to "Lorentz Transformations [was Magic Thread]" (And no, I don't know what Lorentz Transformations are or what they have to do with tatting; that's why I would make time to read such a message.) I delete a surprising number of messages unread because I can't find them. When pressed for time, I assume that I've already read any quoted material unless the message suggests otherwise. So I open a message -- screenful of quotes. Page down, more quotes. More quotes. More quotes. More quotes. End of File. Delete. HEADERS When the first paragraph turns out to be a description of an up-coming event that I couldn't attend even if I owned an airline, I skim down to the next topic -- and often hit the signature before finding a change of topic, even when I know there is more than one topic in the post. When the message does contain headers, it often happens that the writer has heard all the nasty things said about PEOPLE WHO PUSH THE CAPS LOCK KEY DOWN AND LEAVE IT THERE FOR THE REST OF THEIR VERY-SHORT LIVES and is afraid to use all-caps at all. (I kid you not, I've seen messages typed e.e. cummings style by people who were afraid to use *any* caps, blissfully unaware that they are committing the exact sin they think they are avoiding.) Mixed-case headers do work, but only if the writer has a certain amount of skill in using white space and punctuation to keep them from blending into the crowd. Then there is the post which not only isn't divided into topics, it isn't divided into paragraphs -- sometimes one gets the impression that it left its home computer in the form of one enormous *line*. Even when I have all the time in the world, I seldom find a topic so fascinating that I can plow more than half a screen into one of these solid-block messages -- the first time I lose my way, I'm outta there. I often see signs that the writer *thought* that he was dividing the message into paragraphs, but didn't realize that in e-mail, you have to hit "enter" twice to make it stick. HTML Sometimes I *can* read a message, but it's so ugly that if the subject isn't something as dramatic as "I’ve found a  source of fine=20tattable linen  thread", I *won't*. Ugly messages are the product of ill-mannered programs that disregard the protocols of the system they are communicating in. When HTML shows up in e-mail, it's usually from a Web browser that does a little e-mail on the side. Since HTML codes are essential on the Web, a browser becomes severely anxious when sending out messages without them, and can't believe that you mean it when you say you want them out, so every time you take them out, it sneaks around your back and puts them back in. ***Credit where Credit is Due *** Since there is still a bit of space left, I'll inveigh against the filthy and dishonest habit of clipping the by-line off before promiscuously forwarding funny or inspirational matter. If someone sends you an "anonymous" work that he "found on the Internet", you may be sure that it was stolen -- usually from Dave Barry. Forwarding it again will make you an accessory after the fact. ============================================================ ------------------------------------------------------------ HOW TO ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS ON MAILING LISTS AND USENET A member of Sewinglist posted a good imitation of the willfully-clueless yahoo who can't be got rid of even if his ISP denies him service -- he just signs on with one free service after another, or repeatedly changes his name. (When you run into a yahoo, remember that being rude to him is pointless: he is so rude himself that he can't recognize rudeness, and will take any response as an invitation to play -- if he even perceives it; list disruption is usually a hit-and-run affair.) She was bewildered and hurt by the inevitable result, and I just naturally waded into the inevitable discussion -- which was even more naturally over with before I got my act together, so I'm going to polish up the essay and post it here: You *can* advertise on a mailing list -- but the advertisement that inspired this essay was the equivalent of crashing a wedding, climbing up on the cake table, and haranguing the guests. It was, moreover, at least a second offense -- I found it in my trash folder, which means that I'd been sufficiently offended on some previous occasion to create a filter. The moral: if at first you don't succeed -- think twice before you yell it again louder. What you need to do is more like putting a few business cards into your pocket whenever you dress up in your party clothes -- and waiting until somebody *asks* you before you hand them out on social occasions. The approved method of advertising is to design a signature of not more than four lines of not more than eighty characters. The ad in the sig may be as blatant as you please as long as you don't hog bandwidth -- and as long as you recall that you are at a *social* occasion. The spirit of the ad should be that it identifies you more fully, not that it grabs the unwitting reader by the throat and shouts "BUY MY PRODUCT" in his ear. Having designed such a sig, do not hesitate to add carriage returns to make it easier to read; the idea is to make the signature a reasonable size for a signature, not to meet a legal standard. But don't try to use up anywhere near your allowed four times eighty characters, and don't use ascii art unless it's *extremely* small -- and also resistant to disruption when displayed in a variable-width font. Then you take part in the discussion, and people who find your posts interesting will read the signature. It is considered extremely bad form to post a "me too" or other empty post for the sole purpose of posting your signature. You will make a very bad impression if you bounce into every thread and twist it into a commercial for your service or product -- but you *can* mention it when it's relevant. The impression left should be that helping the person who asked where he could buy your product was first in your mind, and promoting your business was second. (It's much easier when it's true.) If the answer to a question is on your Web site, cite it -- but in a conversational manner; *never* post a naked URL. (Quoting a question that begins "what is the URL of . . . " is sufficient clothing.) Tangent: it is also rude to mention a Web page without citing the URL, since the reader may want to see for himself. If you don't know the URL, make that clear the first time. When you cite a Web site, give the URL of the exact page, rather than citing the splash page and hoping that the reader can blunder around until he finds it. If you can't give an exact URL for some reason -- frames, for example, derail citations and bookmarks -- give instructions for finding the correct link. To refer you here, for example, I'd cite http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/LINKS/TEXT/MISSALOT.TXT -- or if I wanted you to read the introduction first, I'd say "go to http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/LINKS/WRITING.HTM go down to "Mailing-List Etiquette", and click on "I Miss a Lot of Good Stuff". ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- This sort of petered out without a good ending, and I'm sure I left something out, but I think I'll post it anyway. Comments are welcome, nay, fervently desired. Here's a scrap that fit into the post version, but had no place in the essay: Luckily, yahoos are much rarer in mailing lists than in newsgroups, because the listmom can killfile them for everybody -- on newsgroups, each of us has to killfile a disrupter separately, then we have to wait for him to get tired of shouting into an echoless void -- which will, on a newsgroup with lots of newbies innocent enough to respond to malicious posts, never happen. End of File