All Muslims are encouraged to contribute to the IMDL, either to take part in the discussions of issues, or to post information relevant to the topic of the list for the benefit of other members.

Contributors are requested to read the following guidelines carefully, and to abide with them as far as possible in their contributions.

• Relevance
  Please ensure that your contribution is relevant to the subject of the list. Advice on what may or may not be considered relevant is given in Section 2, Themes of Discussion, on the IMDL homepage.

• Etiquette
  Please ensure that your contribution meets the standards of etiquette appropriate for discussions between Muslim brothers and sisters (see Section 5, Etiquette, on the IMDL Homepage).

  Generally, all contributions should be presented as personal letters from you to other list members, beginning with salams and signed with your full name.

• Referring to previous postings
  If you are writing in reply to an earlier posting, or as part of an on-going discussion, please make sure it is clear what you are referring to, for the convenience of other list members.

• Brevity
  Please be as concise as possible in your contribution. If you are sending a long article, please preface it with an introductory summary for the convenience of other list members.

• Prefaces
  If you are posting a link, article or piece of writing published elsewhere, please preface it with a note to other list members explaining what the item is and why you are posting it.

• Subject line
  Please use the subject line of your email to give other list members an idea of the content of your contribution. If you are replying to another contribution, please update the subject line if necessary, to reflect your own contribution.

• Delete unnecessary material
  If you use your email program's "reply" function, the full text of the email to which you are replying is usually included in your email. This can quickly accumulate, making emails unnecessarily large. Please delete all unnecessary material (including the IMDL information) from the bottom of your emails, leaving only the specific point that it relevant to your reply.

• Small talk / humour
  The IMDL is not the place for small talk, flippancy or personal correspondance. Members are politely reminded that informality, flippancy and humour that work among personal friends may not be appreciated more widely.