Usage and Posting Tips

1. Choose your subject heading carefully. Ten times as many people will read your subject line as will read your message.
2. Think the message through carefully before you post it. Having just one message in a given thread reflects much better on you than if you need multiple posts to explain one idea.
3. Accept that no matter what you say, someone can find a way to turn your own words against you. When that happens, do not counterattack.
4. Accept that other people have the right to express wrong opinions. Do not argue when someone disagrees with something you posted. As long as your original post still exists, anyone can read it and accept it as if it were a response to your critic.
5. Do not post the same message multiple times, either on the same message board or on different boards.
6. Do not feel obligated to respond to any post. Of course, when someone asks if you meant "Howard Schwartz" when you said "Howard Grossman" and the answer is affirmative, a response is appropriate.
7. Let the other person have the last word in a disagreement. Making the final post in an argumentative thread is perceived as weakness, not strength.
8. Assume that any comment overly critical of you will not be believed, and will soon be offset by a response from someone else, who thinks you are being treated unfairly.
9. People judge you by your own posts. If visitors to BJ21 think you have a particular attribute, it is because your own posts have demonstrated that attribute and not because somebody else has posted accusing you of having that attribute.
10. Use humor, but use it sparingly. A little humor sharpens an argument, but too much humor comes across as meanness.
11. A truth about posts: Meanness is magnified. Posts with a little bit of meanness will be read as having a lot of meanness. So before you post, edit the meanness out of your message. And when you read a message that you interpret as mean, discount the meanness.
12. It is easy for one person to post multiple messages, attaching a different name to each. Therefore, multiple anonymous attacks might all be posted by just one person. The more outrageous the attacks, the more likely that they were all posted by one person.
13. If you are asking a question or requesting information, use a question mark in the subject line.
14. Do not post in all capital letters. This goes for the subject heading as well. Posting in all caps is considered shouting and rude. Posting a subject heading in all caps implies that you think your post is more important than anyone else's. There are only rare situations when shouting is appropriate. Of course, posting an acronym like ROTFL is done in all caps.
15. Unless you want to publicly disclose personal information about yourself, do not post an email address which may indicate your real name or other personal information.
16. Do not disclose others' personal information.