"The rules of netiquette can be boiled down to one sentence; Never forget that the person on the other side is human."
-ListProcessor User Manual, Copyright 1995 by the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking
Author's note:
This netiquette information is intended for use with discussion groups whose
language of discussion is English and whose cultural base is U.S./Western. Some
netiquette rules listed here may not be appropriate in other cultures or with
other languages.
Be brief. Never say in ten words what you can say in fewer. Say it succinctly and it will have a greater impact. Remember that the longer your message, the fewer people will bother to read it.
Use descriptive subject lines. The subject line helps people decide whether the message is something they want to read. You'll appreciate descriptive subjects from others, do it for them too.
Avoid typing in upper case letters. Typing in upper case is considered shouting. Unless you want to be perceived as shouting (and risk being flamed), use * to *emphasize* words.
Summarize and snip. When replying to someone else's post, it is not necessary to include the entire original message (although you should include some of it, for context). Either summarize the previous person's post and add your comments, or include the parts to which you would like to respond and delete the rest. Including entire original posts takes up bandwidth and reduces readability of your message. Parts of the text that you have omitted should be indicated with <snip>.
Be careful with humor and sarcasm. Without the voice inflections and body language of personal communications, it is easy for a remark meant to be funny to be misinterpreted. Remember that persons from all over the world may be subscribed to the list. You have the benefit of writing in your native tongue, many do not. Subtle humor tends to get lost so take steps to make sure that people realize you are trying to be funny. The net has developed a symbol called the smiley face. It looks like :-) or :) and indicates your humorous intent. See Acronyms and smileys for more information about these Emoticons.
Pay attention to the reply address. Discussion groups vary considerably in their configuration. Using the reply function on your email program can send your reply directly to the person who posted the original message or it can send your response to the entire group. For example, if the original message is asking who will be attending the dinner on Saturday, make very sure that your response goes to the originator of the message and not back out to all of the people on the list.
Get to know the culture of the group. Before you post a message, it is a good idea to have an understanding of the way the group behaves. That is, do they have requirements for the way you should structure your Subject: line? Are there acronyms in use by the group and do you know when/how to use them? Avoid embarassment by understanding the culture of the list before you begin posting.
Know your list addresses. Send commands to the administrative address and messages to the list address. Never, never, never send commands to the list (unless you enjoy being flamed). Save (print) the information you receive when you initially subscribe (join). You will need it later. It is poor netiquette to send a message to all list members asking for information on how to unsubscribe from a list.
It is more blessed to give than to receive. Depending on the nature of the list, you may benefit immensely from the information shared. Likewise, take the time to share what you know with others. It's easy to ask questions and await answers and get lazy about helping others with their questions.
Your posts are a reflection on you. Most people will know you only by what you say and how well you say it. Take some time to make sure your post won't embarrass you later. Minimize your spelling errors and make sure that the message is easy to read and to understand. Read it through before sending it. You'll likely find misspellings, missing words, or breaks in thought logic. Be clear.
Be careful what you say. Remember, thousands of people may read your message. They quite possibly include your boss, your friend's boss, your girlfriend's brother's best friend, and one of your father's colleagues. Information posted on the Net can come back to haunt you or the person you are talking about.
When summarizing, summarize! When you request information from a discussion group, it is common courtesy to offer to summarize and report your findings so that others can benefit as well. The best way to do this is to take all the responses you received and edit them into a single message. Take the time to delete headers, combine duplicate information, and write a short summary. Try to credit the information to the people who sent it to you, whenever possible.
Avoid dittos and me toos. If you agree with what is posted, no need to add to the volume of mail in people's boxes by saying "ditto". If you have additional, helpful information or another angle on the subject, or a comment to make, by all means share it. You will soon grow weary of reading a dozen "me too"s to every opinion expressed, so avoid submitting them yourself. If someone has posted a survey-type question, respond with your "me too" privately to that person.
Mark your spoilers. When you post something (like a movie review that discusses a detail of the plot) that might spoil a surprise for other people, mark your message with a warning so that they can skip the message. Do so by making "spoiler" part of the message subject. Additionally, if the topic of your post could be difficult or painful for other list members to read, be sure to indicate this in your subject. An example might be an announcement from a subscriber to a list for women struggling with infertility that she is pregnant. Netiquette says that such messages should begin with several blank lines so that the body of the message does not immediately appear on the reader's screen and catch him/her by surprise.
Take it private. If a subject has evolved into a conversation between 2 or 3 three people, correspond privately rather than sending your messages to the list.
Save the welcome message. The system-generated message you receive when you have successfully subscribed to a list usually also contains other useful information (such as how to unsubscribe!). Save the message, print it, and post it where you can find it. It is not cool to send a message to the list asking how to unsubscribe.
