BITNET: 1. Namecalling and profanity are not welcome. Your eloquence and logic should be enough to convince people of your point of view; if not, perhaps it's your viewpoint that needs to be reconsidered.
ALLMUSIC: 1. Namecalling and profanity are art forms in-and-of themselves. While logic can be attempted, most of the people on the net are not nearly as intelligent as you, and will probably miss your point unless you call them dirty names.
BITNET: 2. Be brief. Longer posts are not as likely to get read as shorter posts.
ALLMUSIC: 2. Be brief -- do not combine several topics in one post, instead post several short messages in a row about the same topic. Remember that list-members of ALLMUSIC have a *very* short attention span.
BITNET: 3. A spelling checker improves your argument. The most reasonable post isn't nearly as convincing if there are misspellings. (If you feel the need to comment on someone else's spelling, do so directly to them, rather than sending a message to the entire mailing list.)
ALLMUSIC: 3. Intentional misspellings can be an effective way to divert attention away from the obvious flaws in your argument, so be creative. Spelling flames are highly recommended, but only if done in an extremely condescending manner that contributes nothing else to the discussion at hand.
BITNET: 4. Check your facts. There may be thousands of people reading what you post; it's much less embarrassing to post correctly the first time, rather than having to make a correction later.
ALLMUSIC: 4. Facts? ... You want facts??!! ... We don't need no steenking facts!!! This is *ALLMUSIC*, not alt.science!!
BITNET: 5. Descriptive titles and subject lines improve your chances of getting a reply. Some mailing lists generate more than 100 responses per day; being able to find a post by its title makes it more likely to be read and get replies.
ALLMUSIC: 5. Subject lines such as "Planet of the nubile oversexed nymphs" will get people's attention, but should be avoided if your message is actually about Guns'n'Roses (exception -- if you are Libby Doe this is OK).
BITNET: 6. Post to the proper list.
ALLMUSIC: 6. Crosspost, crosspost, crosspost, crosspost.
BITNET: 7. When replying to a post, check to see if someone else has already said what you want to say. Supporting opinions are good, but only if they introduce a new idea or make another point.
ALLMUSIC: 7. Think of ALLMUSIC as a poll. If a subject comes up that you have an opinion about -- post on it. Even if you don't have an opinion -- post. Corollary: When introducing a new thread, make it broad enough so that any semi-prescient being will have an opinion to post. (I.e., topics like "Songs about rain" and "Your favorite album of all-time".)
BITNET: 8. When replying to a post, refresh people's memories by including part of the post to which you are replying. Don't include their entire post; a summary of their key points, or the point to which you are replying, is enough.
ALLMUSIC: 8. Remember, anything worth responding to is better when taken out of context. Extract only those phrases that prove your point or make the original poster look stupid. Alternatively, include the whole text of extremely long messages (be sure to include any long mailer info and all other message headers), and reply to one sentence that occurs in the middle of a completely different post.
BITNET: 9. Some posts are better off being replied to directly, rather than being sent to the entire network.
ALLMUSIC: 9. Personal correspondence (especially flame-wars) should be avoided. People on this list basically lack a life, and want to know all the details about your personal flame-wars (especially who wins and loses, and who looks foolish).
BITNET: 10. Always check the reply address before replying. Your e-mail may be sent somewhere you never intended; make sure you know where it is going before you send it, to save yourself much embarrassment.
ALLMUSIC: 10. Don't bother to ascertain where your reply is going. This makes for lively exchanges and a great deal of amusement for the rest of the list. If a personal slam against someone accidentally gets sent to the list, you can just try to deny that you ever sent it. Also, be sure to send your subscribe and unsubscribe requests to the list. This invariably brings a chuckle and a gentle rebuke.
BITNET: 11. Don't SHOUT; use CAPS only for emphasis. A message typed in all caps is hard to read; if your terminal or computer can only type in caps, run your message through a conversion program before sending it.
ALLMUSIC: 11. Don't SHOUT; use CAPS only for emphasis. Curse words and personal attacks are much more effective.
BITNET: 12. Include your name and network address at the end of your post.
ALLMUSIC: 12. Obscure nicknames are sufficient -- you don't really want to be identified with your posts, and remember, personal correspondence is not in keeping with the true spirit of ALLMUSIC.
BITNET: 13. Long message signatures annoy many people. A message signature is used primarily to identify you; cute signatures taking up more than two or three lines, created by making drawings out of letters or by surrounding your name in asterisks, become tired looking after they're seen for the third time. A signature longer than a message is very excessive!
ALLMUSIC: 13. Long message signatures annoy many people -- but not on ALLMUSIC. Even if they did, what do you care -- you're just showing everybody how outrageously creative you are. Besides, people on this list are easily amused.
BITNET: 14. Humor, wit, irony and sarcasm are often hard to detect in messages. Pointing them out to people, since they can't see your face or body language, might prevent people from getting angry at what you've posted. Smiley faces (turn your head sideways to view these) such as :-) and ;^) are often used in posts to indicate humor, or to make sure people don't take you too seriously.
ALLMUSIC: 14. Humor, wit, irony and sarcasm are normally not present in messages. However, if you do attempt to include one of these, it might be useful to include a smiley face. Also, smiley faces are a good way to get away with vicious personal attacks under the guise of "I was just kidding -- didn't you see the smiley?" Following is an example of a smiley face (stand on your head to view this) and the context in which it might be used: "You f*ck-f*ce ... you c*ck-s*ck*ng m*th*er-f*ck*ng b*st*rd" %-}
BITNET: 15. It is customary to give warnings when something in one of your posts might alarm people. *FLAME ON* and *FLAME OFF* are used to delimit angry tirades and *SPOILER* is common when a movie ending is about to be discussed. On other newtorks, a simple form of encryption, rot13 [each letter in a message is rotated 13 characters, so that "a" becomes "m", "b" becomes "n", etc.), is used by some mailing lists to hide messages that people might consider offensive. This requires a very descriptive title line that also includes rot13 to let people know the type of encryption.
ALLMUSIC: 15. It is immediately assumed that anything you post is a flame, and there is nothing you can do about it. ALLMUSIC uses a simple form of encryption which is used to hide messages that might be considered offensive. This is called backwards-masking. It involves reversing the letters of a phrase, and thus converting them into an undetectable, sinister, subliminal message. For example, the following sentence contains Satanic "backwards-masking": "Well, how <doG> about <si> the new Holdsworth <einniV> CD, anybody heard it?"
--cmv