This section Copyright (c) 1996, 2001 Terry L. Neill
The Society for Creative Anachronism revolves around ideals of Chivalry and Honor. Etiquette is merely an extension of those ideals.
When posting to the list, please bear these simple rules in mind:
Trim the message you are replying to. In other words, do not quote the entire message then tack your message on to the end. This is extremely annoying! Instead, cut all but the relevant part of the post and add your reply to that.
Add substance to the discussion. Resist the impulse to post a "Me too" or "I agree" message to the list. If you agree, state some reasons why. Add value.
Stay on topic. This is a list to discuss aspects of the SCA, medieval history, and Atlantian topics. It is not a place for virus warnings or the latest modern political jokes.
Change your subject line. If your reply drifts the discussion from the original topic, change the subject line to reflect that. Many people delete mail un-read based on the subject line. If you've got inspirational things to say about Viking Longship construction, make sure your subject line doesn't say "(SILLY) Hagar the Horrible!"
Post items of general interest to the list. Send personal notes to the person.
"Mary, remember that discussion we had last week?"is inappropriate.
"Lady Mary and I were discussing exactly the same thing last week and we thought..."is very appropriate.
Make sure your message is addressed ONLY to the list. There are few things more annoying or wasteful of disk space than getting two (or more!) copies of every message. If your e-mail program automatically replies to all then make sure you delete the person's personal address (or delete the list address if it's a personal message).
Be polite. It seems like it wouldn't be necessary to say this in an SCA FAQ. Unfortunately it is. The print-only medium of the e-mail environment makes misunderstandings common. The reply feature makes angry posts easy to send. Re-read your post before you send it. Would you say that to the person's face? In front of someone who's good opinion you value? Assume there has been a misunderstanding and strive to correct it.
"Do you really mean to say that East Kingdom Sheep are superior to Atlantian ones?"is MUCH better than
"You idiot! How dare you insult Atlantia's sheep! You should be thrown out of the Order of the Hooked Crook immediately!"
If you have a problem with a post or poster, send a private message. Posting chastising messages in public does not help to solve the situation.
Do not post private e-mail on a public forum without permission from the sender.
"Lord John wrote to me the other day that he liked court."is appropriate.
"Lord John wrote to me the other day: 'I like court because I can get in a good nap.'"is not appropriate.
Realize that a large portion of the Atlantian populace does not have access to the Merry Rose. Issues discussed here cannot turn into 'decisions' without input from the rest of the kingdom. The Merry Rose supplements, not replaces, conventional means of communication.
Make sure you're sending posts in ASCII and not with foreign characters like accents and umlauts. Some American mail programs cannot read non-ASCII characters.
Several e-mail programs balk at HTML-encoded e-mail. So if you have Outlook or some other HTML-friendly program, please set your mail format options to "Plain Text" instead of HTML.
Finally - enjoy the discussions generated here. Share them with your non-e-mail friends!