Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 10:46:03 -0500 From: David B. O'Donnell To: Multiple recipients of list GLB-NEWS Subject: ** Administrivia: GLB-News Guidelines ** EDITORIAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR GLB-NEWS Version 1.0.1 17 January 1995 GLB-NEWS endeavors to be a conduit of information for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and sympathetic communities. The main- stream media are and have been biased against our communities, so GLB-NEWS serves an important function in providing timely information, urgent alerts and news. Because GLB-NEWS serves this important function, we have developed the following guidelines for article submission and publication. The volume of traffic and information flow of the list, coupled with the ephemeral nature of electronic communication, prevents the Editors and Staff of GLB-NEWS from verifying that all articles meet these guide- lines. We therefore ask that you honor them as closely as is humanly possible. This will help ensure that GLB-NEWS will continue to be a valuable resource in the future. Please consider this document as a "work in progress" -- open to suggestions for improvements, constructive criticism and so on. GLB-NEWS is a success because the contributors (both Editors and subscribers) have made it so. These guidelines are not an effort to sitfle this success, but rather to help ensure that the success continues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. LEGAL ISSUES Much of the information which is suitable for publication on GLB-NEWS comes from sources other than the Editors, Staff and subscribers of the list. This material is covered by US (and possibly other nations') copyright laws. Please make every effort to secure approval for re-publication of material on GLB-NEWS from the proper sources. When securing approval, you may wish to mention that GLB-NEWS is an entirely volunteer effort with no capital gains by either the Staff or Editors from publication of material on the list. If/when you do obtain permission for material to be posted, be sure to include the proper copyright information in the article. If you cannot obtain permisson for publication, please do your best to paraphrase the information so that it can still be sent to the list. Remember, the Staff and Editors of GLB-NEWS disclaim any responsi- bility for the material which is posted to the list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. COMMERCIAL ISSUES GLB-NEWS' primary mission is to disseminate news and other important information to its subscribers. Please keep in mind that your definition of "important" may not be that of the editorial staff and, if so, you are certainly welcome to post to any of the other GLBT* mailing lists or newsgroups which exist on the Internet. That said, we welcome job announcements for GLBT*-related positions. If you have a product or service you'd like to sell to the subscribers of GLB-NEWS, please consider making your article *BRIEF* and to the point. Catalog listings, for example, will be returned. As an advertiser, you should be held responsible for paying for the ad(s), not your potential customers. Always consult your service provider's guidelines before considering a commercial post or solicitation; GLB-NEWS does NOT enourage such ads and we reserve the right to not publish your article. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. COSMETIC ISSUES When composing posts to GLB-NEWS, please keep in mind that not everyone has the same interface to the list as you do. Some general guidelines which will make posts easier to read: (a) Assume a working line-length of 75 characters. If your editor permits, format lines for this length. AOL users: DO NOT MANUALLY BREAK LINES. Use standard word-processor-style, or paragraph-broken, text and let the mail system/USENET reader format for you. If you don't have a clue what this means, send mail to owner-glb-news@brownvm.brown.edu for a free one. (b) Break paragraphs with a blank line (as in this guide). The addition of the extra whitespace will help break up dense clumps of text into more manageable chunks. Studies have shown that people find it difficult to read densely formatted text, particularly on a computer screen. (c) If you're going to post columnar data, use TABs instead of SPACEs to align the columns. Some GUI editor-users may not be able to directly enter a TAB, but you should be able to use your "clipboard" function to copy one from a word processor and paste it into your article as needed. (d) Please use only ISO "Latin 1" fonts -- that means no curly quotes or emdashes, sorry. Non-ASCII/Latin-1 characters get transmogrified into odd control sequences and can cause headaches for recipients.