From: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org (jewel-digest) To: jewel-digest@smoe.org Subject: jewel-digest V4 #267 Reply-To: jewel@smoe.org Sender: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jewel-digest Sunday, May 16 1999 Volume 04 : Number 267 * If you ever wish to unsubscribe from this digest, send an email to * jewel-digest-request@smoe.org with ONLY the word * unsubscribe in the BODY of the email * . * For the latest information on Jewel tour dates, go to * the OFFICIAL Jewel web site at http://www.jeweljk.com * and click on "Presence" * OR * go to the Atlantic Records site at http://www.atlantic-records.com * and go to the "On Tour" section * . * PLEASE :) when you reply to this digest to send a post TO the list, * change the subject to reflect what your post is about. A subject * of Re: jewel-digest V4 #xxx or the like gives fellow list readers * no clue as to what your message is about. Today's Subjects: ----------------- * Adam Engst on Mailing List netiquette [Paul Schreiber ] * Silent Night Song... ["Darwin Cuenca" ] * Jewel interview in Sunday Express Magazine ["Debbie " ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 22:15:00 -0700 From: Paul Schreiber Subject: * Adam Engst on Mailing List netiquette Mailing List Manners 101 - ------------------------ by Adam C. Engst It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of mailing lists. I both subscribe to and operate a number of lists on many topics, and I spend much of my day communicating professionally and personally in these discussion groups. And yet, I'm troubled by behaviors I see in most lists. Many people pay little attention to spelling, grammar, and the basic composition of their messages, post pointless notes, and bulk up replies by quoting complete originals and appending huge signatures. How you write in email - especially in public places like mailing lists - affects how other people regard you, your opinions, and your knowledge. Think of it this way: if mailing list messages were a reflection of personal hygiene, you don't want to come across to others like you need a shower, clean clothes, and a haircut. Here then are the main behaviors that I would encourage for all mailing list participants. If you're as bothered by the problems in mailing lists as I am, feel free to refer others to this article for advice. You can link to it permanently at this URL: **Write Carefully** -- I realize that I risk sounding like a pedant here, but in cases like this, I don't care. Writing skills in the general Internet populace stink, which means you can make yourself look even more intelligent and thoughtful than you are by writing well. Good writing isn't difficult, and requires only grammatical sentences and proper spelling. You don't need to be a professional writer or be able to make words flow trippingly off the tongue. You should also follow a few basic rules when writing email: * Don't use all capital letters for more than a word. * Insert a blank line between paragraphs. * Surround URLs with angle brackets to avoid problems at line breaks. * Don't use text styles (like bold or italic) or text colors in mailing list messages, since many people won't see them and may even see HTML tags instead. **Quote Sparingly** -- One of my peeves with mailing lists is that people seldom delete unnecessary quoted text in their replies, with the worst being people who reply to a message in a digest and quote the entire digest. Quoting sparingly does require manual work, since most email programs automatically quote the original message in replies. But failing to edit the original wastes everyone's time and bandwidth. In some email programs, you can select some text in the original message, press a keyboard shortcut, and have only that text appear quoted in the reply. (Eudora for the Macintosh does this with its Command-Shift-R shortcut.) Other email programs assume that replying with some original text selected means you want to quote only that text. Especially problematic are email programs that quote an original message by appending it to the bottom of the reply with no quote marks in front of each line. That prevents inline replies, since there's no easy way to differentiate original and new text, so users of those programs tend to leave the entire original hanging off the end of the reply. That's fine in private messages, but in mail destined for a list, it's just sloppy. Unfortunately, the only solution to this problem is to switch to a different email program **Avoid Junk Messages** -- Another complaint about people's behavior on mailing lists revolves around "junk" messages. I'm not talking about spam, since spammers aren't constructive members of a mailing list. Instead, junk messages fall into the following categories: * Unsubscribe messages mistakenly sent by subscribers who didn't read (or locate) the instructions for leaving the list. Every list goes to lengths to simplify the process of signing off, and yet a large number of people still send unsubscribe messages to the list itself. Read and save the welcome message you receive when you subscribe to a list, then refer to it when you want to unsubscribe. * Me-too posts sent by well-meaning list members replying only to convey that they agree with a message or had a similar experience. A Web-based poll is a better way to take votes on a topic. * Welcome messages that appear when someone new joins the list. No one on a mailing list needs to read "Glad to have you on the list!" from everyone; send such messages to the new member in private mail. * Congratulation messages that appear after a member of the list has mentioned some milestone or personal triumph. Again, send these in private email. The moral of the story is simple: Avoid sending junk messages to a list. They're easy to identify as you type - just ask yourself if the message would be of interest to the majority of the mailing list. If not, that doesn't mean your message is worthless: the original sender might appreciate being welcomed or congratulated via private email. **Write Descriptive Subjects** -- When you receive messages from a mailing list, the first thing you see is the subject line. Which of these subject lines would you rather see on a mailing list devoted to, say, tropical fish? > wondering > Recommendations for fish that can live with cichlids Unless your telepathic powers are better than mine, the first subject line tells you nothing. So, the first rule of subject lines is to make them descriptive. Another problem affects primarily digest readers. They see an interesting message and want to reply, but when they do so, their email program uses the subject line of the digest (re: Jewel Digest #251) rather than the subject of the message. That leads to messages being sent to the list with useless subject lines, since the title of the digest is rarely descriptive. There's no good solution to this problem, although a mediocre workaround exist. * Copy the subject line from the message to which you're replying and paste it into your reply's subject line, prefixing it with "Re:". This is effort well spent. Sometimes you want to reply to a message but change the topic of discussion. When you do that, you should change the subject line; if you don't, people following the thread will be confused when your message doesn't match its subject. Some people (and some programs) indicate when they've changed a subject line by appending "(was )" to the new subject. That's acceptable but results in long and unwieldy subject lines that work badly in list archives. On the other side are people who change the subject lines on every message they send. That's equally problematic, since it prevents list members from reading (or sorting) messages that are related by a shared subject line. If you create descriptive subjects, maintain the correct subjects if you're a digest reader, and change subjects only when appropriate, you'll be well on your way to being admired as a paragon of list etiquette. **Use Short Signatures** -- My final gripe about mailing list postings is that many people have long signatures at the end of their messages. Email signatures are useful, but mailing list signatures should be kept to a minimum. This is especially true for lists that have digests because the signatures can take up a significant portion of the digest. For instance, messages with long signatures sent to the moderated Info-Mac Digest are rejected with a note asking the person to resend with a shorter signature. **Ridin' that High Horse** -- I freely admit that there's nothing new in this article. These recommendations have been floating around the Internet as long as there has been an Internet. The sad fact is, though, that mailing list manners haven't improved with time. So why can I complain? Two reasons. First, I think it's important that this topic, old as it is, remains in the public eye. Second, I do the work every day to create a mailing list that tries to conform to all the recommendations above. In TidBITS Talk, I do the following to every message: * Basic editing and spell checking, which is significantly eased by Eudora Pro 4.2's inline spell checker. I also add blank lines between paragraphs, add angle brackets to URLs, and remove styled text. * Eliminate unnecessary original text in replies. This task is quite easy, since wholesale deletions take little time. * Reject junk messages. Most mailing lists aren't moderated, but eliminating junk messages, or even multiple identical answers to the same question, is a major advantage of moderation. * Normalize subject lines. I try to keep similar messages in threads and break new thoughts out into new threads. This work also improves the quality and coherence of our archive database. * Signature pruning. Since I'm already editing messages, it's little extra work to trim signatures to their essentials. I do all this work because I think it makes for a far better list experience, and highly positive feedback from the members of the TidBITS Talk list confirms this. Another advantage is that this work tends to keep the list volume down, since I'm less likely to post messages that require a lot of work to clean up. I'm not trying to be smug - I love it when I can post submissions to TidBITS Talk without a lick of work. I also don't expect most other people who run mailing lists to expend this level of effort (though I wouldn't complain if some did). Instead, my goal here is to educate people who participate in mailing lists, since only by improving our list manners will mailing lists continue to become increasingly pleasant and useful. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 00:53:49 -0700 From: "Arthur, Lori" Subject: * NJC: So Cal EDA BBQ - correction Ooops! OK, so I thought I sent the right copy and apparently I didn't. The beach bbq is tomorrow, er, today. Sunday, May 16th. Sorry about that one. Lori Jupiter's Angel email: larthur@fullerton.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 03:39:35 PDT From: "Nico Pham" Subject: * Jewel in German "Stern"-Mag with great pics! Hi EDAs I haven't been online for the last two weeks so I'm yet really surprised thatn nobody mentioned that Jewel was in the German "Stern"-weekly magazine. Which is astonishing because no other artist has received that much attention since I read the "Stern". It's a five-page report titled "Ein Engel aus Alaska" (An Angel from Alaska), "A Jewel on Tour" respectively in the index. The brief report is surrounded by fantastic pictures by David LaChapelle, Michel Comte and Steven Meisel. SEE THE ARTICLE AT http://members.tripod.de/Jewel/ That's it, have a nice day, Nico *** http://members.tripod.de/NicoPham/index.html *** ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 15:30:45 GMT From: "Everything Breaks" Subject: * He's A Rhythm Man On Rick Dees Top 40, they brought in a guy from some record company who friend used to be Jewel's neighbor before she got a record label.. Then they played a clip of a song Jewel did called "He's A Rhythm Man" is was really good.. Kinda funky.. I was judt wondering if anyone had this song in any format.. Is it even in the official song archive thing? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 06:14:00 PDT From: "Darwin Cuenca" Subject: * Silent Night Song... hi there to all of u, i just finished downloading the song Silent Night. i know that its a christmas song, even its not christmas season. im too curious if she sang this song somewhere in her concert. i just listen to it, but it sounds like its too different from her voice. u ask for a copy if u want to hear it and tell me if its really her voice. can u pls help me. thanks to all. im sooooo happy too, cos jewel is mtvasia's artist of the month for may. she has so many shows there, but its already taped. like unplugged, jewel tv, mtv most wanted (where u can request for her video and win a copy of her cd), ask jewel and many more. she's so beautiful and cute when she said "I like" (a trademark of mtvasia). but im so sad that i go to school everyday and didnt catch any program of her. but its okay, cos jewel is artist of the month. take care. angel rider icq uin: 19657627 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 15:08:15 +0100 From: "Debbie " Subject: * Jewel interview in Sunday Express Magazine Hi There was a short Jewel interview in today's Sunday Express magazine (UK) : THE VICE: JEWEL Her first album sold 10 million copies, but, as Danny Scott finds out, the funky folk chick sure ain't gonna let fame & fortune go to her head. Did you really once live in a car? It was more of a van, but that was the only way I could afford to live in San Diego & do my music. And you were born on a farm in the middle of Alaska with no running water or electricity? It might sound kinda weird, but it seemed standard to me. We did a lot of travelling as a family. It was like this gypsy existence. So how does it feel to be worth several million dollars? It's all a bit strange, really. The hardest thing for me was to accept that I was going to be ok, that i'd earned enough to live well & look after my family. Do you spend like it's going out of fashion then? Absolutely not! I still haven't bought a new car. I don't like spending 'cos I feel guilty. I keep thinking, "How did I end up like this? Why didn't it happen to some guy sleeping on the street?" So there's not really much point in asking you about your vices, then? Vices? What do you mean? You know, illicit pleasures, millionaire parties, your rock'n'roll fantasies.... I suppose I do have one rock'n'roll fantasy: I want to own a ranch. I'm looking at places right now in Colorado. I wanna be out in the middle of nowhere, so I can ride horses all day. Do you ever throw rock star tantrums? I'm more likely to throw a rock star sulk. I just sneak away & get all miserable. Tell us one thing you always take on tour. This is going to sound silly, but....I take my own bedding. I take a pillow & a blanket wherever I go. When you live in hotel's, it can get like living in hospital waiting rooms. This makes it feel more like home. Where is home? My house is in San Diego, but I'm only there for 8 or 9 days at a time. I love it there, but I'm not a housey person. As long as it's got a roof & a door, I'm fine. You live with your mum don't you? Yeah. My mom manages me, too. At home she runs the business & live in one side of the house. I have the other. You've ditched the jeans & T-shirt. Have you turned into a glamour puss? As a woman, it's my prerogative to change my style & be adventurous with my image. It has nothing to do with glamour or fancy labels. Some days I wake up & think " I want to look nice today" Some days I just can't be bothered. What's the most expensive thing you've ever worn? I have no idea. Doing all the TV stuff, I tell people I want a black dress. I choose one & they bring me three black dresses. I choose one & that's it. Spending time in shopping malls is not high on my list of priorities. What is high on your priorities? Solitude & lunch. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 17:53:56 +0200 From: "Alex van der Beek" Subject: * Jewel in hamburg & holland Last night's show was excellent! 2nd row seats! setlist: 1.Near you always 2.Deep water 3.What's simple is true 4.Hands 5.Jupiter 6.YWMFM 7.Kiss the flame 8.Everything breaks 9.** almost an angel ** ?? 10.Morning song 11.Don't 12.Barcelona 13.Life Uncommon 14.Foolish Games 15.Down So Long 16.new song?? 17.Down 18.Love me just leave me alone 19.WWSYS (a 10+minutes version, lots of interaction with Doug..) 20.Absence of fear 21.Angel standing by loved the (for me) new song, #9 Almost an angel, perfect in combination with everything breaks (& Sometimes it be that way, but unfortunately we didn't get to hear that one...)... btw: "soon" a special PinkPop edition of Spirit will be released in the Netherlands, The Free Record Shop magazine "FREE" mentioned there will be a bonus cd with live recordings of a Madrid show!!! btw2: Dutch Late Show host Paul de Leeuw mentioned that Jewel will be in his show next tuesday!! ------------------------------ End of jewel-digest V4 #267 ***************************