From: annen@forsyth.wsnc.org
Newsgroups: misc.emerg-services
Subject: Private messages and flames
Date: 2 Jan 93 11:52:10 EST
Organization: Forsyth County, Winston-Salem  NC

In article <MfFAO5200iUzI1nalx@andrew.cmu.edu>, ig00+@andrew.cmu.edu
 (Ian J Gardner) writes:
> I don't know WHAT is causing it; I don't care!
> 
> Perhaps it is just my feed of the newsgroup, but I am getting a helluva
> lot of personal traffic between readers that I personally do NOT care to
> hear.  I understand that this group is comprised of a variety of
> different sources:  BBS's, fidonet, Internet, and BITNET to name a few. 
> However, there has GOT to be some way for you people to send a personal
> message to another person without telling ALL of us.  I don't care to
> hear about which patches you just got, or that you have the frequencies
> for a certain city so call, or that you saw Dave the other night and
> he's fine.  That's not relevant to the entire newsgroup.
> 
> I understand that this message is getting out on a hostile note, but I
> could have sworn that this has been discussed time and time again.  If
> you are the one sending personal messages for all to read - STOP! 
> Figure out what you are doing and how to correct it.  Please.  We do not
> have time to read every little personal message you have, so please be
> considerate.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Ian Gardner
> Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Emergency Medical Technician
> Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA
                                                       
A lot of sites which have news feeds do not provide for their users to send
private messages to users at other nodes.  For such users, sending a public
reply is the only way to get an electronic message to a user at another node. 
For users at nodes on networks which provide internode email services (such as
BITNET and the Internet), sending private messages via a public forum is
considered poor etiquette and a sign of ignorance; for some BBS users,
such messages are considerd normal and acceptable.  There are some
conventions which have been adopted by some discussion groups which have a
heterogenous membership in order to overcome some of the inherent confilicts
which arise.  In particular:

1) Put something to indicate private messages at the beginning of the subject
line of such messages.  e. g. "Private -> name of recipient"

2) Keep private messages short so that they do not take up band width and so
that they are easy to read past. (Members of this group seem to be good about
doing this).

Since private messages are inherent to this news group, perhaps those who are
unable to send email would be willing to keep the above suggestions in mind.
Beyond that, those of us who are used to BITNET/Internet etiquette will just
have to be patient and live with the personal messages or abandon the news
group.  I hope that most people will choose the former.

- John

p. s. On a personal note: please keep the flames off this news group.  I would
much rather put up with personal messages than flames.  (My experience is that
most readers of most groups agree with me).  I have seen many an interesting
electronic discussion be destroyed by a few people's flame war.  This is an
interesting and useful group; please don't flame it to death!