[2561] in Consulting_FYI
OLC Tip #1: Do's and Don't's of sending mail to a user
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Nov 30 12:22:11 1989
To: cfyi@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: carla@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 89 12:21:46 EST
From: Carla Fermann <carla@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Hi! I was planning to do an updated OLCR manual that would include
some procedural and stylistic pointers for using OLCR. The manual isn't
ready yet, but I think this information is too important to be held up
any longer. I apologize for delaying it this long.
The following write-up is couresty of Jonathan Kamens. If anyone else
has tips or suggestions of this sort, please send them to me!!
Carla
*************************
THE DO'S AND DON'T'S OF SENDING MAIL FROM OLCR
There are a few things which consultants and volunteers should keep
in mind when sending mail to a user as part of a conversation in olcr.
Feel free to comment if you think something needs to be added to or
modified on this list.
1. DO provide context. Including the answers which were sent to the
user without including at least a brief summary of what the user
asked leaves him out in the cold with (possibly) no idea what his
mail message is talking about. If the user's question is long, a
one-line summary of its contents will suffice; if it is reasonably
short, you can cut-and-paste the whole question.
2. DO make the letter look pretty. That is, don't leave all the gross
headers that olcr automatically puts in, because they don't add any
informational content to the message, and they look ugly. The user
probably doesn't care to see the exact time at which each message
to him was sent.
3. DO edit the text of the message so that it makes sense as a mail
message. For example: a user asks how to do a page break and
you're not sure if he's asking about text files or scribe files.
You send him a message asking, "Are you asking about a plain text
file or a file that you're running through scribe?" Olcd tells you
that he's logged out, so you compose a mail message, in which you
explain about both ^L and @newpage. DO NOT leave the question you
originally sent him in the mail message, because it is no longer
useful or relevant.
4. DO NOT think that sending mail is, in and of itself, reason enough
to resolve the question. If the user's question is sufficiently
complex and your question has done nothing more than asked him to
clarify a particular point, then tell him that you are going to
leave the question active, and do so. This is especially important
if you think that another consultant might know more about the
topic than you and might be able to answer the question more fully,
even before the user logs in again.
