Please Sign My Guestbook
Manners for Signers and Keepers
by Rosemarie Hedges · Chattanooga, Tennessee

Come in and sit down. I taught home economics in the public schools here in Chattanooga for thirty-one years, and if there is one thing a home economics teacher knows, it's that manners are just kindness with the instructions written down. I taught a great many thirteen-year-olds how to set a table, write a thank-you note and introduce two people who haven't met. Now that I'm retired, it turns out the Internet needs the same lessons.

In the spring of 1997 my son set up a computer for me, and the first thing I found that I truly loved was the guestbook. Somebody makes a home page about their grandchildren or their roses or their dog, and at the bottom there's a little book where you can tell them you came by. Well, I was raised to sign the book at a wedding and at a funeral, and I wasn't about to stop now. I started with two or three a night. These days, Monday through Thursday after supper, I sign about ten. Friday is for my grandchildren and the weekend belongs to the Lord and the yard.

I keep a spiral notebook beside the computer, and I write each one down: the date, the name of the page, the owner's first name if they give it, and one thing I liked. I'm on my fourth notebook. Here is the tally as of tonight:

After three thousand guestbooks, I have some opinions. My son says I should put them where people can find them, so here they are, first for those of us who sign, and then for those of you who keep a book of your own.

Manners for Signers

Read the page first.
All of it, or at least enough to know what it's about. Somebody spent their evenings on that page. Signing the book without reading it is like signing the book at a funeral home without knowing who passed.

Say one specific kind thing.
"Nice page!" is better than nothing, but only just. Tell them one thing you noticed. "I loved the story about your father's fishing boat." "I'm going to try your squash casserole for Sunday dinner." "Your little dog looks exactly like one I had in 1962." One real sentence tells the owner that a real person was there and paid attention, and that's what they were hoping for when they put the book out.

Give a first name and a state.
"Rosemarie, Tennessee." That's all anybody needs. People love to see where their visitors come from, and a first name makes it friendly. You don't need to give your last name, your town or your street to be polite.

Leave your address only if they ask.
If the guestbook has a place for your e-mail address and you'd like a reply, fill it in. If it doesn't, don't put your address in the comments. And your home address never goes in a guestbook at all, no matter how friendly everybody seems.

Never "cool page, visit mine."
A guestbook is a thank-you note, not a billboard. If you'd like the owner to see your page, put your address in the box where it asks for one, and let them find it if they're curious. I have seen guestbooks where every single entry was somebody advertising their own page, and it made me sad for the owner, who was hoping to hear from people.

No chain letters or forwarded jokes.
Not the one about the lucky angel, not the one about the poor sick child who needs e-mail, not the one that's funny about husbands. A guestbook is a conversation with the owner, and nobody wants to come home and find a stranger has taped a flyer to their front door.

Be extra gentle on children's pages.
A child's page is the bravest thing on the Internet. Say something about the thing they love: their cat, their Pokémon cards, their drawings. Never mention anything that's wrong with the page. Don't ask how old they are or where they live, and don't leave your own address. Sign the way you'd want a stranger to speak to your own grandchild, and then go.

Never correct anyone's spelling.
Not ever. Not even if you taught school for thirty-one years. Especially not then. If a man has spelled "chrysanthemum" three different ways on his garden page, he already knows it's a hard word. You came to see his flowers.

Manners for Keepers

Answer the nice ones by e-mail.
If somebody took the time to tell you one specific thing they liked, and they left an address, write back two lines. "Thank you for stopping by. I'm glad you liked the boat story." It costs you a minute and it makes their whole evening. I know, because about one in five of the people whose books I sign writes back, and I read every one of those letters out loud to my husband, whether he's listening or not.

Delete the rude ones without a word.
Every so often somebody comes along and writes something ugly. Don't answer it, don't explain, and don't leave it up to show everybody how awful it was. Just delete it and go on with your evening. You wouldn't leave a muddy footprint on your parlor rug so the company could see it.

Don't argue in your own guestbook.
If somebody disagrees with you about something on your page, and they say so politely, let their entry stand and let it be. Your guestbook is your front parlor, not a courtroom. If you truly must answer, do it by private e-mail.

Ask fewer questions on the sign-in.
A name, where they're from and a comment. That's plenty. I have signed guestbooks that asked for my birthday, my favorite color, my browser, my age, how I found the page and a rating from one to ten. I'm a guest, not a census taker, and the census will be along soon enough. Every extra question is a reason for somebody to close the window instead.

Save a copy now and then.
Most guestbooks don't live on your page at all; they live on some company's computer somewhere, and companies close. I learned this one from Jerry Dietz, who works a help desk in Sacramento and spent seven months testing free guestbooks and hit counters on his Free Stuff Test Bench. His own guestbook lost eight months of entries overnight. His advice is to open your guestbook once a month and choose File, Save As. He says it takes ten seconds and it's the only copy you control. I do mine on the first of the month, and I printed the best ones, too.

From My Own Guestbook

Since I put this page up, people have signed my own little book, and some of their entries are folded into the back of my notebook where I can find them on a gray day. I won't copy anybody's words onto my page without asking, but I'll tell you about four of them.

Alexandria, who is ten and lives in Ohio, wrote that she read my part about saying one specific kind thing, and then wrote her grandmother a thank-you note for a birthday sweater that said exactly what she liked about it (the buttons are little strawberries). Her grandmother called her mother on the telephone to say it was the nicest note she'd ever gotten. Alexandria wanted me to know it worked.

Juan, from Texas, wrote to say that his mother, who is eighty-one, had started signing guestbooks after he showed her my page, and that she signs them in Spanish. I wrote him back in the Spanish I took in high school in 1947, and he was kind enough to say his mother understood most of it.

Sharon, from Oregon, keeps a page in memory of her daughter. I signed it in the spring of 1998, and she wrote in my book this summer to tell me that mine was the first entry from somebody who didn't know her family, and that she had printed it and kept it. I don't remember what I wrote. I only hope it was enough.

Darwin, from Kansas, wrote to confess that for two years he had been signing guestbooks all over the Internet with "cool page, visit mine," and that after reading this page he had gone back and signed twenty of them properly. He said three of the owners wrote back. He called himself a reformed man. I believe him.

kind visitors since April 1998

Rosemarie Hedges · [email protected]
Last updated Thursday, September 23, 1999
© 1998-1999 Rosemarie Hedges