Forum Archive Index - February 2004

["tennyson@caverock.net.nz" <tennyson@caverock.net.nz>]

Hi Rockbottom,
 
> 
>Over the last month or two there seems to have been a large 
increase
>in one might say less informative and irrelevent postings. I used to
>read all contributions but now I have decided to skip most. 
>

Unfortunately 'irrelevent' is a largely subjective term.   This forum was 
established to provide a discussion venue for New Zealand 
sharemarket investors.  As such anything that is even loosely 
connected with that theme is 'relevent'.

Of course some posts are always going to be more relevant (to you)  
than others.    But to impose some standard of 'relevancy' smacks of 
the thin edge of the wedge of 'sensorship' to me.     I certainly wouldn't 
want to see posts sensored here.

That being so, I have to agree with Woody.   If you don't like the 
subject matter of a post just use your delete button and don't read it!

And if you don't like the topics that other people are discussing, then 
*start your own discussion topic*!    Don't bag others for discussing 
what is relevant to them.

HOWEVER

It strikes me that some participants in this forum may not have been 
part of an e-mail forum before and perhaps some remarks on 
netiquette are timely.

>
>May I suggest that if you havn't anything 
> useful to say then don't say it,
>

i.e.  

Rule 1/ Engage your brain before you write.  Good advice.  No one 
wants to read mindless yadda on what purports to be a serious e-mail 
list.   Furthermore you should only requote information from other 
messages if it is *directly relevant* to what you are saying in the 
current post.   If you regurgitate mindlessly all the previous 
correspondence on a topic, that just shows you have poor 
communication skills.   You should try to make your point clearly and 
succinctly.  Including totally irrelevant technical information (that may 
be good information in its own right) will not help get your message 
across.

>
>and if you want to thank someone why not email them direct.
>

Exactly, or use the alternative sign off line when asking a question to 
this list.  

Rule 2/ Sign off your original question message 

TIA

Snoopy (or whoever you are).

TIA means 'Thanks In Advance'.   It means your thanks is implicit and 
understood.  It means you do *not* have to write a separate thankyou 
note when you get an answer to your question!
 
Rule 3/

Make sure your heading is relevant!  People cannot use their 
discretion on the delete button if the heading on your post does not 
reflect the content!   As an example consider  'Rockbottoms'  post titled 
'Niggle'.   All that says is that Rockbottom has found something 
annoying, but what?      

A dividend payment did not go into his bank account on time?
He found an annual report misleading in some way?
Something about his sharebrokers service has annoyed him?

'Niggle' 'could mean any of these things but actually means none of 
them.    Rockbottoms subject title doesn't even give a hint of what 
subject matter is contained within his message.    As you can see I 
have fixed the problem by renaming the subject  'List Netiquette' (which 
actually reflects what Rockbottom was on about)  and linked it to the 
previous discussion thread by stating what the old title was in brackets 
so that continuity is preserved.      

You should be prepared to change the subject of a discussion thread 
like this if it is inadequate or strays off topic.   But always provide a hint 
from where it comes from, by for example, putting the old discussion 
thread title in brackets .

I think that three rules on netiquette are enough to digest for now.   

Back to my doghouse.

SNOOPY




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