Netiquette -- Net Etiquette
And common sense..

    The Internet is an "Eternal September." Just as a new class at school each September must be indoctrinated, there are always newbies on the Internet that need to know a certain minimum. They don't need to know about the technology, but can benefit from some advice about usage.
    If a person has email, then they have Internet, so there is no reason to copy/duplicate and email that full copy of web something when only the internet address needs to be sent. Then the recipient can look it up themselves at their convenience.
• Excess email sizes caused by this mistake, can fill up a person's mailbox so that important personal mail is rejected because they are driven out of mailbox space.
• Those on slow dialup have only hateful thoughts while giant downloads slowly appear.
• Some email packages will not allow a person to get to important mail until AFTER all of these unnecessary, giant emails have downloaded.
    Do not enclose the entire mailing list in addresses. Each internet service sets its limits on how many address on the same email will be considered span and deleted..
    Do not email a list of the members because this is what spam harvesters are looking for -- a lot of addresses at the same time.
    Do not create spam, unwanted emails. That is, don't send an email to everyone you know, no matter how cute that picture is of a puppy ; do not send prays or patriotic messages no matter how inspiring, and do not send jokes no matter how funny you think they are.
    Do not give snotty responses, no matter how much the other person deserves it. Some of us know ways to ruin your online futures, and if you push too far we will activate those techniques.
    Along these lines -- all capital letters is considered to be SHOUTING and is not used.
    Do not REPLY ALL
• Your cute response to your friend, may not be taken kindly by other people.
• Also, you are cluttering peoples In-boxes, which is a decided annoyance.
• And thirdly, if other lazy people "reply all", then the number of messages being transmitted is increased exponentially and can bring down local systems.
    Trim your forwards.
• There is not reason to retain the past chain of forwards like my sister does -- tho it is amazing to see how many people have nothing better to do than forward jokes -- but the extra size slows the service and slows the reading.
• Your address included in carelessly forwards to dozens of people and many generations are prime hunting grounds for spam harvesters.
    Nor is it very useful to even keep, in the email message, the past thread of conversions with your corespondents.
• Keep only the last message and write your new contribution.
• A big controversy is wither to top-post one's reply or to bottom-post? A solid argument can be made to bottom post to let the person first be reminded what they had said. I top-post so the receiver can quickly see what I have to say in my prompt reply, yet their last message is available at the bottom if he needs to be reminded.
    Use the subject line
• Make the subject something that identifies a thing shared between you and them so that they know the email is real, not spam.
• It should also be something that allows the person to identify the message later if they need to refer to it.
• If questionable, your message may be summarily deleted and you have wasted your time.
• Or, the recipient may have to save the message and open it in a text reader, so that, if it is spam, it is not auto responding that you are live address that opens everything.
    Why spam to be despised?
• It wastes time of receptients in opening the message , only to be disappointed..
• It fills and overflows inboxes making real messages harder to find.
• Spam spreads because one spammer sells his lists to other spammers and you can quickly be inundated with spam and not be able to find your desired mail in the clutter.
      Some well intended do-gooder posted one of my addresses on his website where it was picked up by a spammer who sold it, who sold it, who sold it. Eventually I could no longer find real messages among hundreds a day.
  • Hint : Agencies that promise not to reveal the ID of members, will immediately sell your address when you cancel your membership.
      Many of my correspondents in Basic English are almost illiterate, so I was spending hours doing the safe reading techniques. I had to change my email return address. The only way to be safe is to encrypt return addresses, so this meant I had to revise 300 web pages with a new email address by adding new encrypted code.
  My readers who had Basic English recorded in their address books were out of luck.   I hate spam!

You have heard and wondered if it is so. Yes. It is true.
    Anything posted on the internet can be recalled Forever, by anyone including people you don't want -- like the IRS, your boss, your spouse. The whole net is backed up with a net-change technique. Everything has a date stamp and the computer and the system identity is retained. Anything new is added to the permanent archives. The national security agency, or lessor agencies like your spouse's lawyer ,can do key word search on everything related to you or your computer and recreate everything surrounding it.
    When your 12-year old granddaughter proudly posts her chest buds, then these can be reviewed as part of her job application ten years later. Dr. Laura learned this. And bosses better not discuss people on any electronic media. Some of us and unions, too, can read your mail. I read payroll files once and found I was had been hired as the highest paid engineer in that company. That told me two things, (1) some very good and loyal , too loyal, engineers were making half of what I was -- they had not been getting worthy raises for years.   (2) I had little expectation of any more raises with that company and I left after a year.
    And not just by computers
• Paris Hilton's PDA was cracked.
• All computer based rolodex of private phone numbers of important people are prime targets of hackers.
• Or, for us lessor people, your address book.

More Netiquette
    Use of a web page for information can reduce the size or eliminate the need for distribution by a mailing list and reduce member's exposure to spam.
    Just as the southern lady can slander somebody and get away with if you says, "She is so clumsy, God bless her soul. You can soften your remarks with smilies.   ;-)
    Things for those of us on the net all the time, not applicable here, but mentioned to give a feel for the professional side of things.
    Everything on the Internet is copyrighted. You are not allowed to steal from the Internet. But, anything you put there, anybody can grab, be it your thoughts and your pictures and do with them as they wish, including changing your words and photo-shopping your head onto a mule.
    You don't need to be told not to participate in Flame Wars in which people condemn every idiot on the other side of an issue. Wait a day before responding.
    A note about humane behavior may be in order. Many of my correspondents are quite curt and use email as if the world centers on them.  "Send everything you have on WW2, I am in a hurry, my paper is due Friday."   Most Americans are aware that if they are asking for information, they should do so politely.
"Dear Friend. My father was on a ship in WW2. His name was Fred Smith and he was a good man. Will you please send me the names of his friends so that I can write to them."
    Even nice people forget there are real people behind the email address. I spent over an hour gathering information for a woman who responded with Thanks -- to the wonderful Internet -- for giving her the information. I was actually from a person. Courtesy does not go away just because the other person is not physically in the room with you.

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Last updated: 29October2009
21Oct09 -- first draft
URL : http://www.manorweb.com/topic/netiquette.html