No matter whether you're new to Groups, or a long-time user, there are always some things you might have overlooked when you're building or re-building your Group, or just adding a couple of pages. So here's a small list with do's and dont's that will help you make your Group better than ever!

Absolute No-No's!

The first two items on this list are extremely important. Why? Because they're found in Groups a lot, they're highly illegal and they can get you in trouble big time!


  1. Bandwidth theft

Never copy/paste an image directly from a non-MSN site to your Group, but copy the image to your harddisk first, and upload it from there to a photo album or message board post. If you copy it directly (meaning: if the url of the picture is the same as on the site you took it from - this is known as 'hotlinking'), you're using the storage space of somebody else, who is probably paying for it. Which also means that this is theft. Don't think they'll never find out... bandwidth theft is very easy to trace!


  2. Copyright violation

Everything you create is yours, whether it's a poem, a painting, a web page, a piece of music, or even a letter. This also means that everything you didn't create is not yours. So if you 'find' a nice graphic or an interesting piece of text somewhere on the Internet, and want to use it in your Group, make sure that the owner doesn't object. The fact that you 'found' it on the Internet does NOT mean you can use it freely, even when you can't find a copyright sign anywhere. Also, changing a text or graphic a little does NOT mean it becomes yours. Use without permission is a violation of copyright laws... and therefore a crime. (Ouch.) It can also get your group shuttered by MSN very quickly.


Things to consider!

  3. Not everybody has a 20 inch monitor

When you create a page, bear in mind that most people use a 800x600 screen resolution, and sometimes even less. If people have to scroll back and forth to see a whole page, they lose interest rather quickly. Use percentages instead of pixel widths for the tables you put your backgrounds in and check how your pages look with various resolutions.


  4. Choose your fonts and backgrounds with care

Fonts should be clearly visible against a background. When you have a light background, use a dark font and vice versa, and make sure that the colors don't clash (like red fonts on a green background - eeeeeeewww!!) A good 'color scheme' is essential for a nice looking web page.

Large pieces of TEXT IN ALL CAPS or with £Ø†$ Øf WÊí®Ð ÇHÅ®Ådžʮ$ are not only difficult to read, but (in the case of weird characters) may result in totally different letters on other PCs. Also, many people find them rather annoying.

Don't use size 1 or size 6/7 fonts for whole pages. The small ones are near unreadible, the big ones look like you're shouting, which isn't very polite.

Use only fonts that come standard with Windows (see list). If you use other fonts, you might be very well the only one who will see them!

A font like Lucida Handwriting may look nice and natural to you, but it's overused and not a good readable font for large pieces of text.

And finally: There are many nice 'web sets' available for backgrounds and page illustrations. Just don't overdo it. 8 to 12 layers of nested backgrounds on top of each other can be a bit much, especially for people with a slow connection, or if the file sizes of the backgrounds are rather large. Don't be afraid to experiment and look around a lot - there are also other ways to make an interesting looking page. And if you use somebody else's graphics, don't forget to credit them for it!


  5. Organize your nav-bar

Making your Group easy to navigate starts with an organized nav-bar (that blue-grey column thingie on the left where the page names are). Use the 'indent' fuction of your Page Manager to keep pages off of the nav-bar that don't need to be there constantly (this will also shorten your nav-bar a lot!), use separators or double separators to combine subjects into groups, use no weird characters (this is one of the causes of the Weiner Doggie error!), and use ALL CAPS as little as possible.

Also, a too-long nav bar will stretch your pages vertically, so that the bottom half has nothing on them, which looks a bit silly.


  6. Keep the number of messageboards low

Having a lot of unneccessary or (near-)empty message boards makes it hard to navigate within your Group. Don't create new messageboards until you really need them.


  7. Don't use large image files, especially on the home page

Nobody has the patience to wait several minutes until all the pics on your home page have loaded. Images with a file size larger than 40 KB don't really belong on a home page.


  8. Get rid of unnecessary red X's

Red X's are annoying and look rather unprofessional. They can be caused by the following:

- temporary server or connection malfunction. There's nothing you can do about that... in most cases the pic will eventually return (you can try to right-click on the absent pic and choose 'Show Picture', which sometimes helps)

- the picture was uploaded incorrectly - try to upload the pic again.

- the pic was stored by somebody else and he/she deleted it from his/her storage. This can happen when you copy a pic directly from another MSN Group (this is not hotlinking, because it happens within the MSN domain) and the person who originally posted it has deleted it. To avoid this, copy the pic to your harddisk and upload it to one of your own photo albums before you use it on a page.

- the pic was hotlinked (see point 1: bandwidth theft) and the owner of the site has blocked or deleted it.

- the url (address) is incorrect. Sometimes a provider can change site urls (like when MSN changed Communities to Groups) and then the pic can of course no longer be found at the old address.

- the pic is stored on a Group or site that has restricted access. Which means that you might be able to see it, but others might not. Make sure that you store your graphics where others can see them too!


  9. Consistent page layouts

Try to make your pages look like they belong on the same site. Don't use a different design for every page, but use slight variations on a single design (or maybe two or three if you have many pages). But don't use exactly the same design for each and every page (booooring!)


  10. No mile-long pages

Nearly nobody will read a page that is 20 or 30 screens long. This goes especially for 'Rules' pages. Why so many rules anyway? They're probably already in the MSN Code of Conduct! (Note from author: my main Group has 2½ rules and functions perfectly on those.)


  11. Stay away from clichés

Be original. If there's something you've seen in a lot of Groups, no matter how cool it looks, doing something just like it really won't get you a lot of members. Also, avoid "Where is everybody?" discussions on the messageboards - it doesn't give potential new members a very good first impression.


  12. Make a real homepage

Keep the welcoming message on the What's New page small (there's just too much distracting info there) and make a real full-size Welcome page. You can make it your default page by moving it up to the top of your nav-bar, using the Page Manager tool. Also, changing a little something on your home page / What's New page on a regular basis will make your Group really look alive!


  13. Make your members feel welcome

Getting lots of new members is cool, but cooler still is if you can keep them. Don't swamp them with rules and posting requirements ("if u dont post within 2 days ur baned" etc etc), but welcome every new member and participate in their discussions.


  14. Check your pages for errors

A homepage that starts with [TABLE] [/TABLE] [NOBR] [NOBR] [NOBR] [NOBR] makes a great first impression. Not. When a page is finished, check it carefully for spelling errors, red X's and stray HTML codes.


  15. Read MSN's CoC and ToU

Most of the rules you want to impose on your members are probably already there! It also won't hurt if you're aware of what you and/or your members can or cannot do within the limits of your Group.
- MSN Code of Conduct
- MSN Terms of Use


  16. Does your Group have a theme?

When you've exhausted your circle of friends to increase the number of members on your Members list and want to get some more, remember that the people you do not know personally will only join a Group if they can find something of interest there. If your Group has a clear theme (or maybe two or three) you're more likely to get new members than if every page in your Group is about a different subject.


  17. Make good use of available tools and help sites

So now you've read this entire page. Twice. And even though you think: yes, I should be doing something about this or that, you still haven't got the faintest idea how to do it. For that you can turn to one of the many great help sites, of which a listing can be found here.

Never be afraid to ask something, even though you think it might be a stupid question (I can guarantee you they won't mind - we all remember far too well how we once started!), because the only really stupid question is the one you should have asked, but didn't.


And, oh yes...

  18. Don't promote your Group too quickly

Many of the larger Groups have special boards, where you can promote your Group. But don't start promoting until you have actually something to show. A Group consisting of a single message board with only one message on it is not likely to attract any members. What's even worse, when you've finally added some content, people won't bother to visit your Group a second time, because they will remember that the first time they came over, there was nothing worth looking at.


Well... that's it! Now go out and give 'em something to talk about, OK? ;-)