Netiquette
It's a good idea. There is so much lost in communication over the net. Most especially body language and tone of voice. Sticking to netiquette will avoid pissing off people of by accident. Me, I try to save that up for people I actually want to piss off. Some of this is left over from the old days of the net, but it still make sense. Frex, in the old days bandwith was an issue because there wasn't as much of it. These days bandwith is an issue because nobody wants to wade through off-topic stuff to get the information they were looking for.
- Don't use all caps. People think you're shouting. If you wan't people to think you're shouting, go ahead. Standard forms of emphasis are *bold*, /italics/, and _underline_.
- Stay on topic. Don't crosspost unless it applies. Don't reply to crossposts if it doesn't apply, trim first. And get the damn commercial messages in the marketplace groups.
- Trim. Don't copy the whole post just to reply to one part of it. Just copy the part you're replying to. The rest is wasted bandwidth.
- Copy. Copy enough of what you're responding to so we know what you're talking about. It might come as a surprise to find out that most of us are not eidetic.
- Say something new. Don't reply just to say "me too." If you don't have anything new to add to the conversation, don't add to the conversation. You're just wasting bandwidth.
- Re-title. If you are no longer talking about the original topic of the thread, change the topic. That way those of us who aren't interested can not open the post in the first place.
- Email. If only two of you have any possible interest in the subject, take it to private email. By definition, the rest of us don't care.
- Flames. Give it a rest. I've been on-line over 15 years. No flame you've got is going to impress me anymore. And if you want to flame me, come down to Virginia and say it to my face.
- Think before you send. I know a lot of nice people who come across as total jerks on-line. Like me, frex. Look over what you typed before you send it, and make sure it isn't inflamatory. Big hint: the person on the other end is a person. If you wouldn't say it to their face, don't ruin their day by emailing it to them.
- Use Smileys. We don't know when you're kidding, so give us a hint. :) We don't always know when you're being sarcastic, so give us a hint. ;)
- Don't put HTML mark-ups in your email unless you know all of the recipients have HTML newsreaders. To the other 90% of us it's just wasted bandwidth, and it drives some of us batty.
Dictionary
A few terms for the net newbie, so you know what us old-timers are talking about.
- AFAIK: as far as I know
- BTW: by the way
- Frex: for example
- FYI: for your information
- IIRC: if I recall correctly
- IMHO: in my humble opinion
- LOL: laugh out loud
- Ob: Obligitory (used in off topic posts)
- ROFL: roll on the floor laughing
Last Modified 6/8/99
Created 8/30/98