[Air-l] Answering questions on mailing lists & general mailing list notes

[David Brake]

A few suggestions about answering questions on mailing lists like  
this one since we seem to have 'done' asking them:

When providing references, an author name is good, a specific  
citation is better, a citation with a URL is better still and a  
citation with a brief synopsis of why the citation is of particular  
relevance is best of all* If you suggest a book might have something  
to say on a subject and can provide a specific page reference or two  
that would help a lot - particularly when the book is long and the  
mention is just a passing one. Though of course any helpful response  
is better than none at all!

And four more general notes about this list in particular

1) please let's not discourage questioners. We were all first time  
posters once. If you want to help by providing advice on how best to  
post perhaps it could be done privately directly to the poster in  
question so they don't feel publicly singled out? Or perhaps we could  
send a generic message monthly with a summary of the AoIR's rules of  
conduct together with some 'best practice' tips?

2) Please make sure (for your own sake as much as anyone's!) that  
your private responses are sent directly to the person and not to the  
list? If you hit 'reply' any response will go to the list

3) Similarly, if you are posting a response to something you read via  
email digest please copy the subject line and put it into your own  
subject line rather than making the subject re: AoIR mailing list  
digest X and

4) Please please please remember to chop off the previous email  
discussion from your response except insofar as the rest of the  
conversation is needed to explain your own contribution. I and many  
others read this list in digest form and it is much harder to read  
when you have to end up reading the same messages quoted half a dozen  
times in a single digest.

* Actually best of all in my case at least is if you can email the  
relevant citations in Endnote format or some other popular  
bibliographic software format but this mailing list doesn't support  
attachments.

---
David Brake, Doctoral Student in Media and Communications, London  
School of Economics & Political Science
<http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/study/ 
mPhilPhDMediaAndCommunications.htm>
Also see http://davidbrake.org/ (home page), http://blog.org/  
(personal weblog) and http://get.to/lseblog (academic groupblog)
Author of Dealing With E-Mail - <http://davidbrake.org/ 
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callto://DavidBrake (Skype.com's Instant Messenger and net phone)