How to make r.a.c.* work for you

rec.arts.comics.misc

by Todd VerBeek

I've seen a gradual influx of new people posting messages to various
subgroups in the rec.arts.comics.* hierarchy.  This is a good thing.  Glad
to have you here.  But this also means a lot of people who may not be
familiar with the mechanics of discussion in this forum.  And sometimes
even old-timers need to be reminded.  So please give this a read, and try
to keep it in mind as you contribute your thoughts here:


A) PLEASE QUOTE.  Messages propagate around the world at different rates,
so your reply might arrive some places before the original message.  Some
folks use killfiles to avoid seeing messages from certain people they
don't like.  The original message may have already expired on some
systems.  All of which are reasons why if you don't quote the message to
which you're responding, people often won't understand your point.
(Especially if you begin by saying, "No, that's wrong..." or "Yes, I
agree...")  And by attributing your quotes (e.g. "My pal R.F.Outcault
said:"), that helps others keep track of who's written what.

B) TRIM YOUR QUOTES.  When you reply to a message, your newsreader
probably copies all the text from the previous message into yours.  This
doesn't mean you should =leave= it all.  By deleting =all= of it =except=
the comments to which you're responding, you make it quicker and easier
for readers to get to the meat of what you're saying.  Besides, if you're
debating with someone, why should you repost his entire argument for him?
{smile}  Also, it's rarely necessary to quote an entire discussion; going
back one or two levels is usually enough.  If someone really wants to see
the whole thing, they can dig it up themselves.

C) OFFSET YOUR QUOTES CLEARLY.  Most newsreaders do this for you.  But if
you have a funky newsreader (e.g. AOL's), it may not quote with the handy
column of ">"s along the left edge, and an automatic attribution line.  If
so, please do what you can to clearly distinguish what text is quoted and
what's yours.  "<<" and ">> at the beginning and end isn't a bad start,
but those are easy to miss, especially with long quotes.  (See point B.)
Inserting an attribution line for yourself ("And I say:") can help as
well, if it isn't otherwise obvious.

D) KEEP THE QUOTES READABLE.
 
>If you can possibly help it, try not to set your line-wrap 
so tight that 
>the lines you quote get reformatted and split up into a 
difficult
>to read mess like this.  It's not that difficult to go back
and clean 
>up messed up formatting a little, and it can help a lot.  If 
the quoted 
>part of your message isn't readable, it might as well be 
deleted. (See 
>point B.)

E) ADD YOUR COMMENTS =AFTER= THE QUOTED MATERIAL.  The convention varies
from one forum to another, and to some extent it's a matter of personal
preference, but the established standard in r.a.c.* is to add your
comments =after= the quoted text, or interspersed paragraph by paragraph.
This has the advantage of making it easier to follow (within a single
message) the kinds of back-and-forth discussions that take place here: 
as someone reads through the article, they can skim the quoted text to
catch the context, then continue down to read your reply.  Inserting your
new comments at the top, on the other hand, requires scrolling down to
check for context, then back up to continue reading.

One reason this isn't just a matter of personal preference is that
consistency is needed for quoting to work.  If person A replies and
inserts his comments at the top, then person B replies to that and inserts
his comments at the bottom, it quickly becomes impossible to make sense of
who's replying to what.  (Especially if everybody quotes everything.  See
point B.)  Even with minimal quoting, it still gets frustrating not
knowing whether to look at the top or the bottom for new remarks.  So put
them at the bottom.  Why?  "Because that's how we've always done things
here." {ironic grin}

F) DON'T REPLY TO TROLLS.  NOT AT ALL.  Trolls are people who deliberately
post combative, inflammatory, and usually stupid comments just to get a
reaction.  When you give them a reaction (even one that makes them look
stupid), it just encourages them to do it more; they think that's fun.
Ignore them (killfiles are good for this), and they'll give up.  Engage
them in debate or toy with them, and you're just contributing to the
problem (and asking to be killfiled as well).

G) THINK ABOUT WHICH SUBGROUP YOUR MESSAGE FITS BEST.  It's easy to get in
the habit of "hanging out" in a single group and posting whatever messages
you think of in that group.  But we set up these subgroups the way they
are for several very good reasons, and ignoring that makes them less
useful.

If it's about a particular Marvel U or DCU series, it belongs in one of
the r.a.c.marvel/dc.* groups.  If it's about superheroes in general,
other-universe stuff like WildStorm, or the industry, it belongs in
r.a.c.misc.  If it's about comics that are out of the mainstream,
r.a.c.alternative is the place for it.  If it's a "for sale" or auction
notice, and you post it anywhere outside of r.a.c.marketplace, you're
going to get plonked into quite a few killfiles.  

What it boils down to is getting your messages to the people who are
interested in the topic.  For example, if you post an article about the
industry to r.a.c.dc.u, you're going to miss the feedback of folks who
don't read DC books, including a lot of insight from r.a.c.misc regulars,
and you're going to annoy people who just want to talk about Batman.  And
if someone doesn't read r.a.c.misc... well, that's their problem; they've
passed on the chance to participate in such discussions.  If they're
really interested, they should at least watch the subject lines in
r.a.c.misc.


I hope this little "lecture" helps folks to understand a little better how
discussion in r.a.c.* works best and why.  If not... ask.  (I've set
followups to r.a.c.misc, since that's the single most appropriate group
for this kind of discussion.)

Cheers, Todd

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Last updated: 2004-01-19