Netiquette
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Netiquette, a portmanteau of "network etiquette", is a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks, ranging from Usenet and mailing lists to blogs and forums. These rules were described in IETF RFC 1855.[1] However, like many Internet phenomena, the concept and its application remain in a state of flux, and vary from community to community. The points most strongly emphasized about USENET netiquette often include using simple electronic signatures, and avoiding multiposting, cross-posting, off-topic posting, hijacking a discussion, and other techniques used to minimize the effort required to read a post or a thread. Netiquette guidelines posted by IBM for employees utilizing Second Life in an official capacity, however, focus on basic professionalism, maintaining a tenable work environment, and protecting IBM's intellectual property.[2] Similarly, some Usenet guidelines call for use of unabbreviated English[3][4] while users of online chat protocols like IRC and instant messaging protocols like SMS often encourage trends in the opposite direction.
The Golden Rule
Always use good manners when communicating over the internet, use netiquette.
The Golden Rule
Always use good manners when communicating over the internet, use netiquette.
Top Ten Netiquette Rules
I. Do not put anything you do not want your employer to see on social networks.
II. Make sure a site has a secure checkout before shopping on it, https://.
III. Spell check and proof read messages before sending them.
IV. Do not search the internet for anything illegal. Yahoo, Google, & Other Search Engines save searches and IP Addresses.
V. Do not do business with spammers or pop up advertisers.
VI. Do not write or respond to personal insults or flames.
VII. Do not send personal email from business email accounts.
VIII. Tell the truth in your online profiles.
IX. Do not send email late at night.
X. Be conservative in email you send and liberal in what you receive.
Do not put anything you do not want your employer to see on social networks.
Employers regularly search for employees on Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Employers can search by name or email address for a given person. Since employers search Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn for employee pages, do not put anything on LinkedIn, Facebook, or MySpace that you do not want your employer to see.
There are ways to keep your social networking pages discreet.
- Use the privacy settings in your account profile to block anyone but friends from viewing your page.Use a personal email that your employer does not have as the contact email on your account.
- Set up your account under a nick name rather than your real name.
- Do not include any information about your current occupation or place of employment in your profile.
Make sure a site has a secure checkout before shopping on it, https://.
Sites with a secure checkout will have a small lock in the lower right hand corner of the screen and a web address that begins with https:\\. Notice the "s" stands for secure.
Secure websites protect you and your information.
- Secure websites encrypt data to prevent hackers from accessing your personal information.
- A website becomes secure by purchasing a security certificate from a third party internet security company.
- Do not forget to check for the security certificate once you begin checking out on an e-commerce website.
Spell check and proof read messages before sending them.
Spell checking a message, whether it is a Yahoo email or Craigslist post, is important because misspelled words project a negative image. If you are using Hotmail or Microsoft Outlook make sure the spell check feature is turned on. If you are using Yahoo mail, make sure you manually push the spell check button above the text you are typing.
Proof reading is just as important as spell checking an email or message post because spell checkers cannot tell if you are using the wrong word or words. Spell checkers check for misspelled words. Therefore, you must proof read all messages because spell checkers do not catch all grammar errors.
Spell Check & Proofread all Messages:
- Make sure the built in spell checker is turned on or press the spell check button when you are finished typing. If there is no built in spell checker write your message in a word processing program with a spell checker. Copy and paste the message from the word processing program to the internet message program.
- Proofread your message before sending it by re reading it after you have typed it.
- Send the message.
Do not search the internet for anything illegal.
Yahoo, Google, & Other Search Engines save searches and IP Addresses. This information can be sold to employers or turned over to the police. Therefore, do not search the internet for anything illegal because search information is saved.
Saved search information can be matched to an IP address and traced to the user of the computer through a number of different methods.
Proper netiquette is to obey the laws of the country you are in.
Do not do business with spammers or pop up advertisers.
Spam and Pop Up Ads are a security threat to your computer.
Spam and Pop Up Ads allow the sender of the email or pop up ad access to your computer, provided you open the email or click on the ad. Once you open a spam email or click a pop up ad your computer becomes vulnerable to spyware. Spyware is a name for computer programs that can steal information from your computer. Spyware programs can track your keystrokes and steal your credit card information when you make a purchase. Also, spy ware programs can infect your computer with a virus.
Given that spammers and pop up advertisers pose a security threat to your computer you should not do business with them because they are putting your security at risk.
Do not write or respond to personal insults or flames.
A flame is a written personal insult communicated through the internet. For example, a person could send you an email that is insulting, that would be a flame. Another example of a flame is a personal insult on a message board.
Responding to a flame is bad netiquette because it brings you down to the level of the flamer.
Writing or responding to personal insults is low class and ineffective communication, therefore, do not respond to personal insults or flames.
Do not send personal email from company email accounts.
Email from company email accounts is official company communication because the company owns the rights to the domain.
Given that email from company email accounts is official company communication the company has the right to read your email. Therefore, it is bad netiquette to send personal email from company email accounts because they are for official company communication, not personal communication.
Furthermore, companies routinely read employee email for a number of reasons from security to monitoring employees. Since companies read emails it not a good idea to send personal emails from company email addresses because the company can read your messages.
Tell the truth in your online profiles.
The purpose of online social networks is communicate with friends. Lying in your online profile prevents effective communication because the people you are communicating with are basing their communication on lies.
Since lying in your online profiles make all online communication based on a lies it is bad netiquette to lie in your online profile.
Do not send email late at night.
Email is time and date stamped. Therefore, is you send email late at night the recipient know what time you sent the message.
Sending email late at night may call your lifestyle into question. For example, if you send an email to a friend at 3:00 AM that friend or business associate may wonder what you were doing up at 3:00 AM.
Once your life style is questioned the recipient may begin to question all contact with you. You may subject yourself to more scrutiny because you sent an email late at night calling your lifestyle into question.
Be conservative in email you send and liberal in what you receive.
Be conservative in email you send because once an email is sent you cannot take it back. If you send a lot of emails you have a greater chance of sending a bad message. Therefore, it is proper netiquette to be conservative in email you send because it makes your communication more effective.
Be liberal in email you receive because email is great way to get news. The more email you receive the better informed you are. Therefore, it is proper netiquette to receive a lot of emails because it makes you better informed.
From: http://www.networketiquette.net/
Introduction to Network Etiquette
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The Internet is a relatively new medium--different from any means of communication that humankind has previously known. Some people have compared it to TV, a mass-medium, while others have noted its shared qualities with the telephone, a non-broadcast, two-way medium. Most computer users, however, conceive of the Internet as an amalgam of both these types, though it is different enough so as to not quite fit into any existing class. Even though the Internet is not yet very well defined, it is evolving at an incredible pace.
At the most rudimentary level, the Internet consists of millions of computers around the globe connected together by wire, fiber-optics, and satellite. These connections allow information to be quickly and easily exchanged between people and machines anywhere in the world. The network itself, however, acts only as a medium for applications designed to utilize it. Among the more common of these are electronic mail and the World Wide Web, though the Internet can be utilized in many more sophisticated ways.
E-mail, formally known as "electronic mail", works very similarly to U.S. Postal mail, only without any paper or human labor involved. It serves as a way of sending text or other data from one person to another via the Internet. The World Wide Web, more commonly known as "The Web", is a scheme that unites the informational resources of educational institutions, public and private organizations, and businesses from around the world. While not as widely used or as commonly available as e-mail, more and more computer users are discovering this unique way of information interchange.
In structure, the Web is as amorphous as the network itself; it is really nothing but a huge mass of documents located at various institutions around the world. Because these documents are all interconnected, inter-indexed, and inter-referenced, one can easily access information from several different countries in the period of a few moments. The Web and the Internet upon which it lives exist independent of geographic and political boundaries.
Because the Internet is such a new and unique medium, people are having difficulty making rules for its use. Out of sheer necessity, the users of the Net have, over the period of time since the network was born, tended toward certain rules of network conduct. This code of network ethics has been given many names over the years--the one that has seemed to stick, however, is "netiquette", a conjunction formed from "network etiquette."
The interesting and unique thing about netiquette in contrast to a hard-and-fast system of rules is that it allows room for interpretation. From the point of view of a Wabash Man, netiquette can be seen as a corollary of the Gentleman's Rule: "A Wabash Man, while using the Internet, shall conduct himself as a Gentleman and Responsible Citizen" There is nothing to stop someone from abusing the network. As with your daily actions with those around you, you will have to face the consequences of your behavior. If years of network use have produced anything resembling a system of order, it is surely embodied in what is here explained as netiquette. Adherence to the guidelines below will make your use of the Internet infinitely more enjoyable and productive.
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Netiquette Guidelines
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Adapted from "Core Rules of Netiquette" by Virginia Shea (Educom Review, Sept./Oct. 1994, p. 58-62) Which was in turn excerpted from Netiquette by Virginia Shea, Albion Books,-=:<>:=-<>-=:<>:=-<>-=:<>:=-<>-=:<>:=-<>-=:<>:=-
Assume Publicity
Whether you are composing an e-mail message or writing your own WWW document, it is wise to assume that everyone in the world will read your words. Though e-mail is sent to only one person, it is very easy to forward an e-mail message to hundreds or thousands of people. Unless you have complete trust that the recipient of your mail will keep it confidential, assume complete exposure to the rest of the world.
The same rule applies to WWW documents, only to a greater degree. Anything put up on the Web is openly available for anyone in the world to see. That not only includes your professors and peers, but also the government, your future employers, students from other countries, your professors, etc. It is wise to be cautious with what you put on the Web. Since the people out in Cyberspace have only a small bit of information by which to judge you, it only makes sense to make the information as appropriate, representative, and informative as possible.
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The Emotion Barrier
One of the biggest drawbacks of communicating electronically is the difficulty of communicating emotions through text. While our
If someone sends you an e-mail message that strikes you as just a little too critical, or you read a message in a newsgroup that seems a little too offensive, chances are that you're misinterpreting the intent of the sender. Perhaps the message that you are taking so seriously was intended to be taken sarcastically--or perhaps you have stumbled upon a newsgroup where no-holds-barred messages are tolerated, or even expected. Either way, it does no good to pour fuel on the fire of what could potentially become a "flame war," where a few people engage in pointless verbal warfare, usually as the result of a misinterpreted message or an undiscriminating author.
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Remember the Human
One of the most common sources of intentionally offensive exchange on the Internet are those users who are unaccustomed to the anonymity the medium allows. In the Cyberworld, you are known by nothing other than your e-mail address. Many people interpret this as a free license to verbally assault anyone who rubs them the wrong way--knowing that any retaliation will be confined to the verbal realm as well.
Since the Internet is so flexible, however, those who really know how to use it can wreak "virtual havoc" upon your "virtual world." While they may not be able to hunt you down and dismember you, or even send you a letter bomb via U.S. Mail, it is not all that difficult for a hacker seeking revenge to effectively disable your link to the Net. One example? Imagine finding 10,000 new messages in your e-mailbox every day. Sound like a good time? Such a cruel form of revenge is surprisingly feasible--without all that much effort on the part of the infuriated avenger.
So what's the moral of this story? Simply stated, behave on-line as you would in person. Watch what you type and how you word potentially volatile statements. Assume that what you say will be taken in the worst possible way, and that if someone is upset enough by it, it will come back to haunt you.
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Freedom of Choice
The most unique feature of the Internet is its user dependency. Since it is without shape or form, it can become whatever the user makes it--from an academic research tool to a source of digital pornography. In order to get anywhere on the Web you must choose where you wish to go. There is a plethora of information available online--way more than one person could ever read. Using available methods of searching the Internet and choosing certain pathways over others means that you are in control of what you see and hear. It is for this reason that the Internet has been allowed to exist uncensored for so long--and will remain so as long as its users understand its distinctive user-driven nature.
There has been a lot of talk among politicians as to whether of not the Internet should be censored by the government. As of the writing of this document, the government has not yet intruded. Because there is a substantial amount of questionable material available on the Net, however, it is up to the discretion of the individual as to whether or not he wants to access it. There is a simple solution to avoiding the cruder portions of the Net: don't look for them. Information is not going to just randomly pop up on your screen without you making a concerted effort to look for it.
Conversely, when posting to a discussion group or when writing anything which is intended for an unknown audience, it is expected that you will be discriminating in what you say. Profanity and pornography are by no means illegal on the Net, though they are usually considered rude and inappropriate. Again, though you won't receive a ticket from the Internet Police, you may bring upon yourself unwanted repercussions. Just imagine the Dean viewing everything that originates from your computer and judge what is appropriate in that context.
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Respect Others' Time and Energy
Surprisingly, it's possible to post a well written, completely inoffensive message to a discussion group and still receive a negative response. It is very important to keep in mind that people are busy--not everyone wants to spend his time reading about your life or what is of concern to you. Other people are similarly wrapped up in their own affairs. When posting to discussion groups, or when sending e-mail to those you don't know, try to be as focused as possible. While a mindless verbal rambling may be just the thing to send to your girlfriend at DePauw, chances are it won't be received well by a newsgroup that is read by thousands of people.
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Form Matters
As was mentioned earlier, you never know who will be reading what you write. The president of the college, or the President of the
There are, of course, cases where careful composition is not necessary. A brief note to a friend may require only enough literacy to get your point across. In such cases, it is usually acceptable to leave out punctuation and disregard capitalization, simply so that your intended audience realizes the casual nature of the message. Beware, however, that any reader will likely take your message as seriously as you make it look. If you don't bother to make your message intelligible, chances are he won't take its contents very seriously. On the other hand, if you take a few minutes to compose thoughtfully, your reader may pay a little extra attention to what you have to say.
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Be Forgiving
Finally, after all this advice on how to project yourself, here's a little on how to receive others: first and foremost, be forgiving. Just as you are trying to balance your valuable time with a desire to get your point across as respectably as possible, so are others doing the same. Sometimes it's all-too-tempting to tear someone apart for an obvious grammatical error, misspelling, or blatant display of stupidity. What we must keep in mind, though, is that what we are reading is only one small piece of the person on the other end, who is typing away just like we are. Perhaps he was uninformed--or in a hurry--or simply made a mistake. Regardless, each person is deserving of more than one chance before judgment is passed. If someone initially strikes you as inept, allow him another opportunity to confirm your judgment. And if you can't suppress a response, a kind word or two of advice in a helpful tone will leave a much better impression than a verbal barrage will. Always give the benefit of the doubt, and be kind with criticism.
From: http://www.namastecafe.com/computer/netiquette%20.htm
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