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I’ve covered setting up a group at Yahoogroups and being a moderator or owner, and being a member of yahoogroups.  So I thought I’d touch on some of the things you should or shouldn’t do when participating in yahoogroups.  Mostly common sense things but it’s amazing how many people do not realise until it’s mentioned.

Don’t use SMS type for messages
You shouldn’t use phonetic spelling or lots of abbreviated words and half sentences, especially if the forum is intended for business.  I know it is common practice on chat programs to shortcut the process, but email is quite different, and generally accepted almost the same as a written letter.  The reason not to type email in the shortcut form is that it can become habit-forming and not something you would want to promote to prospective clients, bosses or other business associates.  It is important to remember that your ‘professionalism’ is on show 24 hours a day via email – a small point, but important.

Mixture of cultures
With the whole world being open to membership for these groups cultural differences need to be considered and it is possible to easily upset a member and suddenly you have a heated argument with many others getting involved and the original meaning and context completely shoved aside! I’ve seen this happen in groups and it’s a shame, as it often just takes a little thought and consideration to realise that perhaps the writer didn’t fully understand the language, or hadn’t actually meant what may have sounded rather rude. There have been times when someone has written something I thought was offensive or wrong and rather than emailing back to the list via the group email address, I have chosen to email the writer direct instead. A much better way to handle a misunderstanding.

Read first before sending
A good rule when handling/writing email for group discussions – read through it first and then check which address it is going to, before clicking ‘Send’.  I’ve known many a member to get embarrassed because they thought they were emailing someone privately only to find they just told the whole group what they were privately thinking.  oops!

Trim Messages
Trim the message before sending it back to the group. What I mean by this is do not leave all of the original discussion and replies at the tail end as this is unnecessary and makes it inconvenient for those who have chosen to receive a daily digest of messages (they keep reading the same things over and over otherwise) and difficult for those who are on limited bandwidth for email. But don’t delete the whole previous message – if you are responding to something, or adding to the discussion. There are often multiple discussions going on and it could prove difficult for the reader to understand what you’re saying, and in what context, if the whole previous message is deleted from your response. I have at times read something posted to a group and thought ‘huh?’ There is a happy medium here.  Leave the subject matter intact.

Topic changes
This applies particularly to discussion groups, but could also take place in normal everyday exchange of emails between two or more people.

It is common that subject matter in emails change quickly – one person might send an email with one topic, another replies and it prompts them to add another topic in that reply and then others start replying to the changed topic – but forget to change the subject heading – which can be very confusing for those later joining in the discussion and difficult to relocate one of the originating messages if filed away electronically – with the unchanged subject heading. This applies to searching through archives online also.

When responding to an email take a moment to think about it – are you changing the topic, should the subject heading be changed and whether the replied message requires any trimming of the original message before hitting the ‘send’ key. This can be particularly important when responding to business leads or enquiries relating to your business. A general rule of thumb for email seems to be to keep the number of topics discussed to a minimum – and start new email messages for new topics.

Backgrounds
There is a great supply of backgrounds available for use in various email programs – which help make your emails look more attractive and less boring. However, some backgrounds would be better used as wallpaper on your computer desktop and make it difficult to read the email message you are sending. If you want to use them, keep them for family and friends, but stick with plain backgrounds for business email.  And if you are replying to an email that uses a background give some consideration as to whether it should continue to be there or whether the background should be removed before sending the email response.

Bad Language
On occasion I’ve noticed some messages with bad language posted to online discussion groups that are usually maintained for business purposes, i.e. those groups that are designed to assist people with their line of business. Whilst I appreciate that we all get annoyed with some things I really do not feel that bad language has a place in a public forum that is used for business. Perhaps this might be an old fashioned value but I doubt that people would write a business letter using bad language so I cannot understand them doing the same when posting a message to a business oriented group. Think carefully when writing your email – is the language you are using something that might offend another person? Could the message get in front of someone you’d like to do business with? Emails are very easily forwarded on to others. How would you like them to think of you? It only takes a moment to think about what you’re written and to read it again before sending it on.  I have changed the setting on my email program to send out emails a few minutes after I’ve pressed send so I have time to change my mind and correct an email by retrieving it from the outbox before it goes.

Signatures
It is good to experiment with your signature style – have a look at what others do so you can decide what you do and don’t like.  You can use colour, different font formats, and even add a graphic.  However, prepare a plain text version too – not all yahoogroups forums are set to html format, some are plain text only (so you can’t forward attachments) and therefore your signature won’t look as intended.  Be aware too that many forums have rules and might only allow you 3 or 4 lines, others have no ruling at all.

I hope by observing these simple courtesies you will be able to enjoy participation in groups at yahoogroups for many years to come.

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