This can be described as a portmanteau “network etiquette” or “Internet etiquette” It is a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks, ranging from Usenet and mailing list to blogs and forums.
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 thread, and other techniques used to minimize the effort required to read a post or a thread. Netiquette guidelines, however, focus on basic professionalism, amiable work environment, and protecting intellectual personality. Similarly, some Usenet guidelines call for use of unabbreviated English while users of online chat protocols like instant messaging protocols like SMS often encourage just the opposite, bolstering use of SMS language. In simplier English Netiquette” is network etiquette, the do’s and don’ts of online communication. Netiquette covers both common courtesy online and the informal “rules of the road” of cyberspace.
In other words netiquettes is basically etiquettes of the internet.
We are in a highly advanced technological age where most of what we do are done on the internet or with the computer.
There are however rules which must be followed to ensure that we are actually putting these technological gadgets to full and proper use.
Here are a few of the network etiquettes [internet etiquettes]
- When forwarding mails, take a little time to edit all the other addresses and names of other forwarders and forward the major content. People often don’t say it but appreciate when you spare them the rigors of trying to find the main message in the midst of all the forwarded names and addresses.
- Take time to write a short personal comment at the top of your forwarded e-mail to the person you are sending it to.
- If you must forward an e-mail to more than one person, put your e-mail address in the “To:” field and all the others you are sending to the “BCC” field to protect their e-mail addresses from being published to those they don’t know.
- When someone makes a mistake — whether it’s a spelling error or a spelling flame, a stupid question or an unnecessarily long answer — be kind about it. If it’s a minor error, you may not need to say anything. Even if you feel strongly about it, think twice before reacting. Having good manners yourself doesn’t give you license to correct everyone else. If you do decide to inform someone of a mistake, point it out politely and preferably by private email rather than in public. Give people the benefit of the doubt; assume they just don’t know any better. And never be arrogant or self-righteous about it. Just as it’s a law of nature that spelling flames always contain spelling errors, notes pointing out Netiquette violations are often examples of poor Netiquette.
- The golden rule our parents and your teachers taught us was very simple,” Do unto others as you’d have others do unto you”.Always Imagine how you’d feel if you were in the other person’s shoes. Stand up for yourself, but try not to hurt people’s feelings.
In cyberspace, we state this in an even more basic manner: Remember that its humans behind it all.
When we communicate electronically, all we see is a computer screen. There is no opportunity to use facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice to communicate meaning; words are all that are available to us [even emoticons cannot carry out the facial expressions we need to pass across to the correspondent efficiently. And that goes for your correspondent as well.
When holding a conversation online — whether it’s an email exchange or a response to a discussion group posting — it’s easy to misinterprete correspondent’s meaning. And it’s frighteningly easy to forget that your correspondent is a person with feelings more or less like your own.
It’s ironic, really. Computer networks bring people together who’d otherwise never meet. But the impersonality of the medium changes that meeting to something less — well, less personal. Humans exchanging email often behave the way some people behind the wheel of a car do: They curse at other drivers, make obscene gestures, and generally behave like savages. Most of them would never act that way at work or at home. But the interposition of the machine seems to make it acceptable.
The message of Netiquette is that it’s not acceptable.
Yes, use your network connections to express yourself freely, explore strange new worlds, and boldly go where you’ve never gone before. But remember the Prime Directive of Netiquette: Those are real people out there.
Always ask yourself, “Would I say this to the person’s face?” If the answer is no, rewrite and reread. Repeat the process till you feel sure that you’d feel as comfortable saying these words to the live person as you do sending them through cyberspace
When you communicate through cyberspace — via email or on discussion groups — your words are written. And chances are they’re stored somewhere where you have no control over them. In other words, there’s a good chance they can come back to haunt you..
You don’t have to be engaged in criminal activity to want to be careful. Any message you send could be saved or forwarded by its recipient. You have no control over where it goes.
