Promotion World ARCHIVE Tutorial December 27, 1999 Etiquette Okay, these discussion list people are a weird group. For some reason, they don't like to wade through piles of sales pitches for unrelated (or even related) products or websites. They call this spam. And they can get very upset with people that send spam. It gives you the reputation of being an "evil spammer", and that would be bad. After all, one of the reasons that I said you should participate in discussion lists was so that you could build your reputation. So, don't post blatant ads. Also, don't post off topic comments. Another thing that you shouldn't do: Never send out a message to the entire list saying simply, "I agree with Bob", or something to that effect. Make useful comments. Of course, most good discussion lists are moderated, meaning that a moderator views each message before approving it for distribution to the list. Still, you should be careful in what you send. Moderators are usually very busy people. You wouldn't want to waste their time with junk... Okay, enough with the "do nots". What SHOULD you do? You should first of all "lurk" in a particular discussion list and just read what others are posting. For your information, lurk is online slang for "watching what others do, without making your presence known". When you have seen what others post, and have received a general idea of what is acceptable, you are ready to make a post. Wait for someone to raise a question. If you can, answer it. As I have said before, you will become known as an expert in your field if you give good answers to people's problems. That's a good thing.