Netiquette.
Netiquette or Network
Etiquette is a set of
rules or guidelines on how to interact with others on local
networks and the world wide web.
These guidelines have been
extracted from a memo written by the Responsible Use of the Network
(RUN) Working Group of the IETF. For further information or the
complete memo please visit http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html
or search for netiquette on the net.
User Guidelines
Email
- You should assume that mail on the Internet is
not secure. Never put in a mail message anything you would not put
on a postcard.
-
Never send chain letters via electronic mail.
Chain letters are forbidden on the Internet. Your network
privileges will be revoked. Notify your local system administrator
if your ever receive one.
-
A good rule of thumb: Be conservative in what
you send and liberal in what you receive. You should not send
heated messages (we call these "flames") even if you are provoked.
On the other hand, you shouldn't be surprised if you get flamed and
it's prudent not to respond to flames.
-
Be careful when addressing mail. There are
addresses which may go to a group but the address looks like it is
just one person. Know to whom you are sending.
-
Use mixed case. UPPER CASE LOOKS AS IF YOU'RE
SHOUTING.
-
Be brief without being overly terse. When
replying to a message, include enough original material to be
understood but no more. It is extremely bad form to simply reply to
a message by including all the previous message: edit out all the
irrelevant material.
-
Limit line length to fewer than 65 characters
and end a line with a carriage return.
- Mail should have a subject heading which
reflects the content of the message.
-
"Reasonable" expectations for conduct via e-mail
depend on your relationship to a person and the context of the
communication. Norms learned in a particular e-mail environment may
not apply in general to your e-mail communication with people
across the Internet. Be careful with slang or local
acronyms.
-
The cost of delivering an e-mail message is, on
the average, paid about equally by the sender and the recipient (or
their organizations). This is unlike other media such as physical
mail, telephone, TV, or radio. Sending someone mail may also cost
them in other specific ways like network bandwidth, disk space or
CPU usage. This is a fundamental economic reason why unsolicited
e-mail advertising is unwelcome (and is forbidden in many
contexts).
-
Know how large a message you are sending.
Including large files such as Postscript files or programs may make
your message so large that it cannot be delivered or at least
consumes excessive resources. A good rule of thumb would be not to
send a file larger than 50 Kilobytes. Consider file transfer as an
alternative, or cutting the file into smaller chunks and sending
each as a separate message.
Online chat.
Any time you engage in
One-to-Many communications, all the rules for mail should also
apply. After all, communicating with many people via one mail
message or post is quite analogous to communicating with one person
with the exception of possibly offending a great many more people
than in one-to-one communication. Therefore, it's quite important
to know as much as you can about the audience of your
message.
-
Assume that individuals speak for themselves,
and what they say does not represent their organization (unless
stated explicitly).
-
Messages and articles should be brief and to the
point. Don't wander off-topic, don't ramble and don't send mail or
post messages solely to point out other people's errors in typing
or spelling. These, more than any other behavior, mark you as an
immature beginner.
-
Forgeries and spoofing are not approved
behavior.
-
If you are sending a reply to a message or a
posting be sure you summarize the original at the top of the
message, or include just enough text of the original to give a
context. This will make sure readers understand when they start to
read your response.
-
Be careful when you reply to messages or
postings. Frequently replies are sent back to the address which
originated the post - which in many cases is the address of a list
or group! You may accidentally send a personal response to a great
many people, embarrassing all involved. It's best to type in the
address instead of relying on "reply."
-
If you should find yourself in a disagreement
with one person, make your responses to each other via mail rather
than continue to send messages to the list or the group. If you are
debating a point on which the group might have some interest, you
may summarize for them later.
-
Don't get involved in flame wars. Neither post
nor respond to incendiary material.
-
Be careful with monospacing fonts and diagrams.
These will display differently on different systems, and with
different mailers on the same system.
-
In general, it's not possible to retrieve
messages once you have sent them. Even your system administrator
will not be able to get a message back once you have sent it. This
means you must make sure you really want the message to go as you
have written it.
Spam
Spamming is using the Internet's ability for one person to
communicate with many people in a manner that is likely to annoy
those Internet users. Some examples would include:
- The sending of unsolicited
email.
- The sending of mass
commercial e-mail.
- Posting chain letters or
pyramid scheme letters.
- Posting of off-topic
messages to newsgroups.
- Posting a commercial ad to
a newsgroup that does not permit it.
- Cross-Posting to a large
number of newsgroups.
- Email harassment of other
Internet users.