Date:    Sat, 29 Apr 2000 10:39:46 EDT
From:    Macromed5@aol.com
Subject: Re: HTML formatting (was: D8 timer)

There are several different types of formatting problems that may prevent your messages from being read as intended... if you're posting, please be sure to check how your messages appear in the DIRECT-L Digest and Archive:
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/director/digest/today.txt

btw, if your emailer renders HTML (ie, if you *don't* see problems with some of these messages), then you run the very real risk of losing your anonymity while visiting pages in your web browser:
http://www.tiac.net/users/smiths/privacy/cookleak.htm

jd

Date:    Wed, 30 Apr 1997 17:22:23 EDT
From:    John Dowdell <71333.42@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Look at yourself!!

Things which regularly go into the digest which can make your message difficult to understand (and all of which appeared in yesterday's digest!) include:

• HTML doubles of your messages... really bad (some new browsers duplicate email in HTML, so look in the digest to see what you're really mailing out)
• MIME type notifications, content-type notifications, other machine stuff that humans don't need
• Excess headers in quotes... no need to see the message path of a quote!
• MIME Quoted Printable settings... this is all the "=3D" garbage
• Excessive quotes (many newsreaders enforce a "more new than quoted" rule)
• Quoting sigs (even on a newsgroup that's rather dorky)
• The long strings of (base64?) characters that follow some posts, depending on how you've set your email software
• Doublespacing of scripts, to make long script dumps twice as long, and more than a screenful is tougher to read

Clean messages also lessen the download costs for other listmembers, lessen the server loads for those storing messages, and reduce the number of false positives on archive searches. Big payoffs for everyone from clean communication.

Anyway, if you post, go to http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/director/digest/ and search on your name... may be of benefit to all concerned!

(And, of course, search the archives before the post itself... FAQs do not always get any response, and sometimes get inaccurate responses... there's a ton of info already generated by the DIRECT-L community, so searching the archives first gives you the best payback on your time.)

Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Tech Support

Date:    Wed, 30 Apr 1997 16:00:11 -0700
From:    Brett Walker <brett@jamisongold.com>
Subject: Re: Look at yourself!!

At 05:22 PM 4/30/97 EDT, John "spacesaver" Dowdell wrote:
>Clean messages also lessen the download costs for other listmembers, lessen the
>server loads for those storing messages, and reduce the number of false
>positives on archive searches. Big payoffs for everyone from clean
>communication.

John coyly drops a hint to his guide here in the "Big payoffs" sentence. Notice how the words "There are" are left out of the sentence. You see, these words are quite unnecessary.

Here's a small selection of tips from Dowdell's Guide:

1. Leave out as many passive verbs as you can get away with.
2. Leave out all pronouns. Audience is smart enough to assume ownership.
3. Leave out all conjunctions. Think of English like you would write a C program.
4. If a long explanation is necessary, say "Refer to KB, Direct-L archives."
5. Use slightly paradoxical or Orwellian terms like "false positive" wherever you can. Describing a state by modifying one property is good programming.. err..linguistic practice - keep it simple, but keep em on their toes!

Clean messages lessen download costs for other listmembers, lessen server loads for those storing messages, reduce number of false positives on archive searches. Big payoffs from clean communication.

;) "john, no..seriously..put the hatchet down.."
-Brett