Date: March 23, 2002
From: Bob
Netiquette
Netiquette is the essence of good manners, when communicating on the Internet, boiled
down to a few rules. In general, it seems (though 'tis not for me to say), all
participants in the CompuClues Forums are expected to abide by these simple but effective
guidelines. The Rules of Netiquette are expressed in many places on the Internet and other
networks. Not the least among these is RFC 1855 (which while
predated by others, and being, itself, dated, is still appropriate.)
There are other forms. See the notes at the bottom of
this page.
Rules, of course, do not delineate the defining characteristics of good Netiquette; they
are but a feeble attempt to articulate some principles of good Netiquette. Ergo, there
will be no list of rules to discuss here. Well, maybe one, two.
Remember that the recipient of any message (private or public) is a human being
whose culture, language, and humor have different points of reference from your own.
Remember that date formats, measurements, and idioms may not travel well. Be especially
careful with sarcasm.
Adhere to the same high standards of interaction and courtesy that you would when
addressing any human face-to-face. In other words, aspire to be gentlemanly, an attribute
which transcends class, caste, vocation or gender and in fact abolishes such differences.
John Walter Wayland puts it well:
"The true gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute
sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make
the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his
inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble
another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions
or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose
deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his
own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue
safe."
Model your actions and content according to this principle and you almost don't need to
know the rest.
(It still would be a good idea to read the documents once.)
It might be noted that, written communication, in general, can follow the same set of
rules regardless of the format or method of presentation. It does not matter if the
communication comes via store and forward methods or in real time. File transfers, e-mail,
public bulletin board posting, forums, news feeds, mailing lists, talk, chat, phone calls,
instant messaging, wireless text messaging, or ultimately, cross-modal messages all have
common requirements. (This list of messaging forms does not attempt to be complete.)
In general, if you can write a succinct, logical, clearly written message, correctly
formed and spelled, that includes necessary details, you are prepared to communicate using
any media. You will be judged by the quality of your writing; Spelling and grammar count.
Notes:
As hyperlinks go, they seem to decay quite rapidly.
Please report any broken links in the forums and we'll fix them.
Another source for RFC 1855.
Rinaldi. Netiquette
Index. -- Internet Guildelines and Culture. -- Netiquette
Home Page.
One of those other forms is the book written by Virginia Shea, the essence of which is
published to the internet by Albion (which has a stake in selling books.)
Forums 
