[nfbmi-talk] Ask Miss Whozit email etiquette

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    Ask Miss Whozit
Braille Monitor                                                    January 
2008

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Ask Miss Whozit
>From the Editor: From time to time Miss Whozit answers reader questions 
about etiquette and good manners, particularly as they involve blindness. If 
you would like to pose a question to Miss Whozit, you can send it to the 
attention of Barbara Pierce, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, 
or email me at <bpierce at nfb.org>. I will pass the questions along. Letters 
may be edited for space and clarity. Here are the most recent letters Miss 
Whozit has received:

Dear Miss Whozit,

As you know, the email age is upon us. The NFB has many enjoyable and 
informative listservs. Could you talk about email etiquette? I have read 
posts from people who have been downright rude to others. Other folks 
apparently enjoy gossiping about people on the lists as though they were 
talking in the privacy of their own living rooms. This spoils my enjoyment 
of the listserv experience, and I can’t believe that it is acceptable 
behavior. What do you think?

Civility Online

Dear Civility,

Miss Whozit could not agree more with you. Rudeness, insults, verbal 
attacks, and incivility have no more place in Internet posts of any kind 
than they have in face-to-face discussion. Of course some hot-headed people 
indulge in such comments in person, but many more exhibit this provocative 
and tactless behavior when they can hide behind the anonymity of a first 
name or email identity. I trust that I need not point out that ladies and 
gentlemen never stoop to insults and verbal attacks just because no one 
knows exactly who they are. In the same way courtesy and good etiquette 
demand that one refrain from discussing or gossiping about other people in 
any public setting, virtual or real. The test is simple: if you would not 
make the comment to the person’s face, don’t make it in an email post.

As long as our current topic is email, Miss Whozit would like to start the 
new year with her own small rant about general email etiquette. There is no 
right or wrong way to send an email message, but many users have slid into 
inconsiderate habits that are annoying enough to constitute discourtesy to 
those who read, or try to read, their posts. Here are a few tips that, if 
adopted by everyone, would markedly raise the level of civility and 
efficiency in all email exchanges. If you follow them, those to whom you 
send messages will bless you, and, who knows, they may even reform their 
ways. This list is drawn from the summer 2006 edition of the Buckeye 
Bulletin, a publication of the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio.

Be sure that your subject line accurately reflects the content of your 
message. This is especially important if you are sending messages to a 
mailing list. If you are really going to talk about your dog, you don't want 
the subject of your message to be "my favorite screen reader."
And while we are on the subject of writing messages to a listserv, be very 
careful to answer personal or individual questions or requests off-list. Few 
things are more discouraging than downloading seventy-five messages, only to 
find that sixty of them are from other listserv members responding to an 
invitation to participate in some off-list program or opportunity. Everyone 
on the list does not need to know that Joe wants the demo tape. Take note of 
the address of the person making the offer and write a separate email 
message to that person only. Also please take mercy on other list readers 
and stifle your impulse to respond to the entire list with the news that you 
agree with what Jean has said or by thanking John for his views. If you must 
respond, do it off list.

If you are sending an attachment, please indicate that fact. You may do this 
in the subject line, the body of your message, or both. If the recipient 
does not know to look for an attachment, a blind person may delete the 
message without ever noticing the attachment. Don't send an attachment 
unless it is necessary to do so. You must send an attachment if you want to 
send a word-processed file, a database file, a program, or a picture. But 
some email programs do not permit the user to receive attachments. If this 
is the case, the sender can do nothing about it.

Sign your name at the end of the message. This does not have to be done with 
a closing such as “Sincerely.” Just put your name at the end to signify that 
you have completed the message.

Many email programs permit a writer to scroll through a received message and 
make inserted comments. This is convenient for the sender because it ensures 
that the writer will not forget to comment on any part of the message or 
forget to answer a question. If you decide to engage in this form of 
response, however, remember that a blind reader of your message will have to 
reread his or her entire message, looking for your insertions. Making sure 
that you do not forget to respond to anything in the original message may be 
important enough to justify this inconvenience to the reader, but understand 
that this is what you are demanding of him or her.

When forwarding a message, it is courteous to everyone to delete the 
headers. Unless there is a reason for doing so, it is not necessary to show 
the origin of a message. Often the message is a great joke or good story 
that has already been forwarded to many people. By the time the recipient of 
your message struggles through all of the headers listing everyone that 
every sender has sent the message to, he or she has usually lost interest in 
or appreciation for the content of the message. Instead, copy the story or 
joke to your clipboard and exit the message entirely. Then you can open a 
new message to the group of your friends to whom you want to pass the 
information. Drop the text into the edit field from the clipboard. Everyone 
who gets to read the message without digging through pages of names and 
email addresses will bless you, and the recipients of your message will not 
have access to the email addresses of everyone who received the message 
before you did.

In the same spirit, if you can place the names of the people to whom you are 
sending a message in the blind carbon copy (bcc) field, you will protect the 
identity of your friends and business colleagues. It will also spare the 
next generation of readers from having to scroll down through your list of 
recipients, assuming that your recipients decide to pass along your words of 
wisdom or humor without copying the text to a new message.

My final note is addressed, as far as I know, to AOL users only. When the 
rest of us forward a message, the recipient can open the message and 
immediately read what has been forwarded. But if the message is from an AOL 
user, for some reason our email providers receive the entire forwarded 
message as an attachment. If, Heaven forbid, the message passes through the 
hands of several AOL users, the final reader must dig down through layer 
after layer of attachments, opening each and passing through to the message 
within. The solution is simple. If the AOL user highlights the text he or 
she wishes to pass along to other people, it can be copied to the clipboard 
and dropped into an entirely new message in the edit field. Your readers 
will receive your message and go straight to the text you want them to see 
without minutes of extra effort.

As I have already said, there are no hard and fast rules for sending email. 
Just think of these tips as good manners. They are not laws, but using them 
makes life more pleasant for everyone. Your coworkers and friends will enjoy 
receiving the email you send them a lot more if you employ these tips.

Note: Miss Whozit would no doubt be delighted to know that National Braille 
Press (www.NBP.org) has just published a new book titled, “SEND: The 
Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home.” It is available for $19.95 in 
Braille, or as a CD ROM Portabook or Portabook download.

Dear Miss Whozit,

With today's social conventions, I am never sure when it is appropriate to 
shake a person's hand. As a twenty-one-year-old college student, I do not 
wish to appear rude by not shaking hands with someone older than me. At the 
same time, it is generally considered inappropriate to shake hands with 
other students. However, during introductions, other students have sometimes 
said to me, "I'm trying to shake your hand," or "I have my hand out for 
you." I find it embarrassing when I do not shake someone's hand when it is 
expected, but it is equally embarrassing to extend my hand into space and 
have to pull it back. As a general rule I was taught that you shake 
professors' hands and those of other people who are older than you, e.g., 
friends’ parents or people of importance like the mayor, president, etc. Can 
you advise me about how best to deal with such situations so that I do not 
embarrass myself? I would like to conduct myself in a way that is socially 
acceptable. Because of this anxiety, social situations make me 
uncomfortable.

Embarrassed

Dear Embarrassed,

Shaking hands is one of those rituals of social interaction that can leave 
one feeling insecure. Good for you, however, for caring about conducting it 
properly. The culture of your campus community will dictate whether or not 
students shake hands when introduced to other students. Since you are all 
more or less equals, you would not be perceived as inappropriate when 
extending your hand for a handshake, unless students never shake hands with 
other students. Since you say that sometimes students call attention to the 
fact that they are trying to shake hands with you, I conclude that students 
on your campus do shake hands, at least occasionally. If you are going to 
extend your hand, do it with the clear intention of shaking hands. Sometimes 
blind people tentatively extend a hand a bit, hoping that, if it is not 
taken, no one will notice that they had offered to shake. It is far better 
to be clear about your intention. If the other person is sighted, he or she 
will take your hand or risk snubbing you, which is a social gaff in itself. 
Another blind person may need the prompt that you have sometimes received: 
“Here’s my hand.” That statement may feel a bit awkward, but the situation 
is under your control, and you will appear confident and in charge.

Now comes the general question of the etiquette of who initiates the 
handshake when the two parties are not equal in rank. These rules were more 
rigidly enforced years ago. Generally the older person or a woman decides 
whether to shake hands or to nod and smile. In these egalitarian times it is 
pretty safe to rise if you have been sitting when the introduction is 
beginning and extend your hand. If your intention by a warm smile and 
extended hand is to shake briefly, thereby acknowledging the new 
acquaintance, the other person will follow suit unless his or her hands are 
full. This is one situation in which it is helpful to have a dog or white 
cane conspicuously at hand. Offering to shake hands with someone who does 
not have a free hand with which to shake requires an explanation if it is 
not to be misconstrued as inattention or peculiarity.

The way you shake hands is important to making a good impression. The 
dead-fish handshake really does communicate weakness and ineffectiveness. On 
the other hand, gripping the other person’s hand so hard that you inflict 
pain is overbearing and just plain rude. If your hands are naturally clammy, 
wipe your hand along your slacks to dry it before extending it. If you 
anticipate that you may be shaking hands, at a reception, for example, you 
might consider investing in a small hand warmer to keep in your pocket. That 
will keep your hand warm enough not to be unpleasant. Clasp the other person’s 
hand firmly, but do not squeeze. Move your hand up and down two or three 
inches three to six times, and then release the other person’s hand. While 
you are shaking, look at the other person, smile warmly, and pay attention 
to his or her name. Use it again soon in the brief conversation. This will 
help you commit it to memory and demonstrate that you were paying attention.

If you adopt these little rules and apply them, you will soon find that 
shaking hands is not an ordeal and that any number of little variations can 
take place without your needing to feel that you bungled the interaction.


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