Berkeley Parents Network: Posting Tips

Berkeley Parents Network

Posting Tips

Berkeley Parents Network > Help & Frequently Asked Questions > Posting Tips

Copy-pasting a message from another document

For best results, type your message directly into the BPN posting form. Do not paste in a message you've copied from Microsoft Word or any other application that allows you to format text. The BPN newsletters are mailed as plain text. If you paste formatted text into the posting forms, results are unpredictable! Your message will not display in the newsletter the way you intended. For example:

Line breaks (carriage returns) from copy-pasted text may not match line lengths used in the newsletter, resulting in irregularly broken lines that make your posting hard for others to read.
Formatting such as italics, boldface, colored text, and different fonts and sizes will not show up in the plain text newsletters.
Special characters may or may not show up, such as bullets, copyright and trademark symbols, and diacritical marks (accent marks and other pronunciation symbols for non-English languages). The newsletters are sent in plain text, which recognizes only the ASCII character set (the set of characters found on a typewriter keyboard.)

We strongly recommend that you type your message directly into the form. Note that even if you save your Word document as "plain text", some formatting and non-ASCII characters may persist. If you must copy-paste, do it from an application like Notepad that has minimal formatting, and use very short lines (BPN uses 60 chars/per line).

Style and Formatting

Don't use tabs or any other kind of formatted spacing in your posting. Just use the plain old spacebar. Other kinds of spacing may not show up.
Don't use all-caps (every letter capitalized). It's too hard to read. It looks like yelling.
Don't do this: NEW MOMMAS' GROUPS STARTING SOON
Do this instead: New Mommas' Groups Starting Soon
Don't use punctuation symbols to draw attention to your heading or message. They do make your post stand out from the others in the newsletter, but this can be undesirable. BPN newsletters are circulated to a private list, and BPN does not accept advertising, so postings that look too much like ads may annoy the reader and put people off.
Don't do this: ~~**~~ !!! AWARD-WINNING MUSIC CLASSES !!!! ~~**~~
Do this instead: Music Classes for Toddlers in El Cerrito

Choosing a heading for your post

Be Specific! Most readers scan headings in the Table of Contents to pick which postings they want to read. Few people read the entire newsletter line by line. Therefore, you need to put as much information into the heading as you can. If your heading is not specific enough, people may skip over your post.

Bad Heading	Good Heading
School opening	Opening at Happy Days Preschool
Open House	Jan 23: Open House at Randolf School
Sleep problem	10-month-old staying up till midnight
Potty Training	4-year-old refuses to use potty at school
Music Class	Seeking Weekend Music class for toddler
Nanny Wanted	Nanny wanted M-T-W in Montclair

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