Be Considerate

On the Net it's easy to feel insulated and anonymous. Since the chance of a face-to-face confrontation between users is almost negligible, novice users often let their opinions and/or tempers get carried away. Discussion in a newsgroup or mail list often leads to disagreement, disagreement can lead to quarrels and quarrels quickly leads to publicly hurling insults, or "flames."

Regardless of how strongly you may feel about a heated discussion, shouting matches, or "flame wars," are regarded by the vast majority of net users as petty and boring. It wastes everyone's time, including yours, and does nothing to win you friends on the Net. If you seriously feel you need to tell someone off, wait a few hours (or even an entire evening). If after waiting you still feel you have to confront someone, do it in E-mail and keep it between you and the other person.

In short, conduct yourself on the Net in the same way you would in public: respect the feelings and opinions of others, avoid hurling insults, don't take things too personally and never do anything while when angry.

While there is often no formal punishment for rudeness or pettiness, the net has its own way of dealing with poor manners. For example, if you make an ass of yourself in a chat group by being insulting or arrogant, no one will want to associate with you. Or worse, you will find yourself on the receiving end of the net's seemingly endless supply of hostility.

On a related note, grammar and spelling matter. No one expects you to be an English professor or a prize-winning author, and everyone knows that many systems are not supported by spell-checkers. However, do your best to use the most correct and clear version of English that you're acquainted with, if only so that others will understand what you're trying to say.

Don't Waste Space

The net is made up of individual computer systems, each of which has finite storage capacity. When the net's space, or "bandwidth" gets wasted, it can slow things down intolerably and can even crash whole systems. For this reason, bandwidth is jealously guarded and wasting it is another way to get yourself on the net's bad side. You can conserve (or waste) the net's space in a number of different ways, a few of which are mentioned here.

Be Brief

Write what you want to say, but don't ramble on. Remember that you are usually much more interested in what you have to say than others are. Also, trim any quoted material to only what is necessary for clarity. Newsgroup and email replies often contain followed-up articles in their entirety. If someone asks you 12 questions about remote-control airplanes, for example, and you reply to three of them, edit out the other nine.

Stay on Topic

Newsgroups, mail lists and discussion areas usually have a topic or charter which specifies what is to be discussed. Occasionally straying from the chartered topic is permissible during the course a conversation, but material which is totally inappropriate or off-charter should be avoided. For example, don't ask for help with your mail reader on alt.sex.scuba.

Be smart about disseminating information around the net. If one person asks you for a very large file, send that person the file, accompanied perhaps by a short public notice that you can send to others the file on request. Needlessly posting big files in public or mailing to a long list of users creates countless copies of the information around the net, most of which is just waste. Keep in mind that many users must pay for things you send them and that your waste cost them.

The penalties for wasting space are, like those for being rude, somewhat vague, ranging from informal cautionary notices to loss of privilege or access. Suffice to say if you make a habit of knowingly or purposely wasting space, you'll find that others make a habit of ignoring you. Or worse, you'll be publicly chastised, humiliated and then ignored.

Don't Do Anything Illegal

As you have seen, most of what we call netiquette is informal, built on years of tradition and enforced by individual users working in concert. However, there are rules on the net which are enforced by formal law-enforcement and should be observed at all times. Note that some areas of the net will have even more rules that you will need to be familiar with.

Commercial and Monetary Gain

Publicly subsidized systems, such as those offered by universities, should not be used for commercial profit. Advertising commercial products, announcing commercial promotions or otherwise conducting commerce is illegal on such systems. Penalties for breaking such rules are typically quite stringenteven for unwitting violationand might include academic pen-alties, loss of access and prosecution by government or civil authorities. This is not to say that selling things on the net is always illegal. It is, almost without exception, legal to sell personal items (such as your old CD player or computer) on the net, given you utilize the appropriate forum (like a foresale newsgroup). Also, if your access to the net is through a commercial provider, you are limited only by the provider's own rules, which will vary from company to company. In short, become intimately acquainted with the rules of your access provider before setting up shop in any way.

Theft, Fraud and Dishonesty

Generally speaking, everything that is illegal in your real, public life is also illegal on the net. Theft, fraud and other forms of dishonesty are grave, punishable by a wide variety of penalties from any number of law-enforcement bodies. Stealing access and attempting to steal access is likewise frowned upon and punishable by, in many cases, jail time.

All this talk of punishment, humiliation and law-enforcement might strike you as excessive or intimidating, but it's really not meant to be. Most of your time on the net will probably be spent in casual, enjoyable pursuits which never take you near infraction of netiquette and official laws. This discussion is including mostly for your information and to make your time on the net as enjoyable as possible.