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I sometimes wonder what goes on in the minds of other people when participating in chat forums.

I belong to a lot of email based business network forums, mainly through yahoogroups.  It seems to me there are 3 types of people who participate in these forums.

1.  The person who replies and leaves all of the previous email(s) and so we get a trail of messages repeated over and over again, especially if others add to it.  The poor people on daily digest, or on dialup - having to pay for the download of repeated messages.  These people either don’t really understand what it’s all about, or perhaps they are just plain lazy - maybe they don’t even think.

2.  The opposite (extreme) - deleting everything, even what they are responding to, and thereby leaving others guessing what it was they were responding to. The subject heading doesn’t always give a clue, particularly if it’s gone off topic.  These people are too pedantic - not everyone is on your wave length.

3.  The person who does trim the email, leaving enough so that others can see what is being responded or added to - this is the preferred option and keeps things running smoothly.

Actually, there are others.

4. The lurker - those who read everything, devour what info they can and possibly apply it, but give nothing of themselves and don’t contribute back to the group.  These are the takers.

5,  The responder - to everything. They have to have a word about everything that is taking place, even responding with just ‘thank you’.  Some of these replies just aren’t needed, at least via the forum - you can always email the person direct.  We all get enough email as it is, don’t you think?

Tags: Email Etiquette, Forums //