Quality of Postings
How you write and present yourself in your articles is important. If you have terrible spelling, keep a dictionary near by. If you have trouble with grammar and punctuation, try to get a book on English grammar and composition (found in many bookstores and at garage sales). By all means pay attention to what you say—-it makes you who you are on The Net.
Likewise, try to be clear in what you ask. Ambiguous or vague questions often lead to no response at all, leaving the poster discouraged. Give as much essential information as you feel is necessary to let people help you, but keep it within limits. For instance, you should probably include the operating system of your computer in the post if it's needed, but don't tell everybody what peripherals you have hanging off of it.
Useful Subjects
The Subject: line of an article is what will first attract people to read it—-if it's vague or doesn't describe what's contained within, no one will read the article. At the same time, Subject: lines that're too wordy tend to be irritating. For example:
Good
Subject: Building Emacs on a Sun Sparc under 4.1
Good
Subject: Tryin' to find Waldo in NJ.
Bad
Subject: I can't get emacs to work !!!
Bad Subject: I'm desperately in search of the honorable Mr. Waldo in the state of…
Simply put, try to think of what will best help the reader when he or she encounters your article in a newsreading session.