For Authors of LO msgs LO12421

Richard Karash (rkarash@karash.com)
Sat, 8 Feb 1997 10:06:03 -0500 (EST)

Greetings and thanks for your contributions!

The list address (for msgs to be distributed) is
learning-org@world.std.com --or-- learning-org-digest@world.std.com

1) If you receive a strange notice "Your msg undeliverable to..." please
just ignore. It generally means that your msg did not get to one or a few
subscribers. When you receive *your* copy of the distributed msg, that
confirms it went out to everyone. If in doubt, just *forward* confusing
notices to me.

** IMPORTANT ** -- Please DO NOT resend your message to learning-org; it
could easily be distributed a second time.

2) Please sign your msg with full name and email address at the bottom.
This is required; some people's mail programs do not display the "from"
address in the msg header. It's also good practice anywhere on the net. I
recommend you include your organizational affiliation, but this is not
required.

Quest: Why do many msgs have two "sigs"?

Ans: Here on LO and generally on the internet, the "right" way to sign
your msgs is

hyphen hyphen space return return signature-text

If you have anything else at the bottom of your msg, my software tries to
create a "sig" based on the "From:" line in your msg header. That's where
the duplicate "sigs" come from.

Your signature-text should include name and email-address plus whatever
else you want, but should be reasonably short. Four lines is often
suggested. See my "sig" at the bottom of this msg for an example.

3) When replying to a msg, leave the LO### in the subject line. My
software does the rest (it assigns a new LO### for your msg and inserts
the line "Replying to LO###").

Digest readers: If you are replying to a digest msg, you'll have to *copy*
the subject line from the msg; don't use the subject line
"learning-org-digest V1 #1234"; our msgs are indexed by msg number, not by
the edition numbers of the digests.

Please try to make the subject line of your msg *exactly* the same as the
subject line of the msg to which you are replying. This makes things a
lot easier for me. If your subject line is slightly different or doesn't
include the LO###, I may have to delay distributing it till I have time
to clean it up.

4) When replying to a msg, try to quote **just enough** of that msg to
establish the context for your readers. Don't quote the entire previous
msg (if you do, I'll delete it or cut arbitrarily). Distinguish the text
you are quoting from your own new text.

How to distinguish quoted material:
a) Recommended: Add a line, "John Doe said:" and put a > as the first
character of each quoted line. This is the "official" internet style for
quoting. Many mail programs will do this for you (including AOL, Eudora,
pine and others).
b) 2nd Choice: Use quotation marks, as in ordinary English writing.
c) 3rd Choice: If necessary, say "*** end of quote ***" after the quoted
material.

Leave a blank line, then start your comments. Do not put a > on lines you
write. Here and everywhere on the internet, the > character means that the
line was written by someone else.

4a) FOR AOL users -- Your software will handle quoting very nicely for
you... Here's how:

If you select parts of a message and then hit reply, AOL will automatically
include the quoted material.

However, you must first change your mail preference settings. The AOL
default is to use chevron brackets <<...>> to indicate quoting, and this
causes problems here on LO.

Change your preference settings to select "Internet style" (> in front of
each quoted line) by: click on Members, then Preferences, then Mail, and
then select and turn off "Use AOL style quoting in mail." The default is
"ON" and for the LO list it should be "OFF."

5) The > character is OK, but please DO NOT use the opposite angle bracket
anywhere in your msg except for email addresses and web URLs, like these:

Richard Karash <rkarash@world.std.com>
<http://world.std.com/~lo/>

6) When you reply to a message, please consider whether you want your
reply to go to all the LO subscribers... Or just one-to-one to the other
person. Every brand of mail software can handle this; please figure out
how in your software so your msgs go where you want. If I think you're
sent to the list when you meant to send directly, I may email you before
distributing your msg.

7) Your msgs come to me for review and then are distributed to all
subscribers. This is a 24 hr cycle, so there will be a delay before you
see your own msg.

In reviewing msgs, I may make the following changes without any notation:
- re-format to lines which are 75 characters wide
- shorten or delete your quote from the previous msg, especially if
you've quoted *all* of that msg
- when your subject line is close to that of prev msg, I'll correct it
- on new topics, I may change the subject line to make it more clear (for
example, if your subject line is "Please help!!" I'll extract a subject
from within your msg)
- shorten an overly long "sig"
- fix obvious spelling/typo mistakes, but only if I feel certain
- insert a quote if you have not quoted *any* of the prev msg

However, I will not change your words!

8) LO msgs stay in the archive, accessible by web, ftp, and gopher, for a
*long* time and may show up in internet searches (e.g. AltaVista &
Lycos). If you decide later you'd like to remove anything from the archive,
please let me know (by LO### please).

9) Graphics!!: I can put graphics on the web pages! If you'd like to
attach a graphic to your msg, send the msg as usual, and indicate GRAPHIC
HERE in all caps in the msg where you want the graphic to appear. E-mail
me a gif or jpg, or fax the graphic to me at 617-523-3839 with a cover
sheet. 1/4 to 1/2 page graphics are best. No multi-page graphics please.
I'll put your graphic on the web and a pointer in the msg. Many readers
will be able to see your graphic easily by clicking on the pointer I
insert.

10) My Moderator Role: I review msgs for relevance to the list and for
tone consistent with the learning organization principles we are trying to
live. I do receive a few msgs that I do not want to distribute; in such
cases I contact the author. I do not attempt to judge whether any msg is
"correct," valid, or helpful. Distributing a msg is NOT an endorsement by
me of it's content.

11) Confirmation of your msg: You'll receive a copy of your distributed
msg. If you don't see it in 48hrs, write me (personal address appears at
the bottom of every LO msg). Please DO NOT write me via the list address.
Please DO NOT send any msg twice to the list address; it could easily be
distributed twice to everyone.

12) Commercial msgs, announcements, etc. are OK, provided they are
- relevant to our topic of organizational learning
- short (e.g. 50 lines of text)
- have an email address and contact name for further info; a web pointer
is recommended as well

Thanks again for your contributions! Email me anytime with comments,
questions, or problems.

--
      Richard Karash ("Rick")    |  <http://world.std.com/~rkarash>
  Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer  |    email: rkarash@world.std.com
 Towards Learning Organizations  | Host for Learning-Org Mailing List
(617)227-0106, fax (617)523-3839 |     <http://world.std.com/~lo>
 

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>