Netetiquette
October, 1. 1996

ELECTRONIC MAIL

* Maintaining your mailbox
Check your >mailbox daily for new mail and remove it from the mail *server. Leaving much mail over a long time on your mail server costs unnecessary money. Don't think, that you are the only one, that can read mail addressed to you. There are other people who can. So don't send mail, where contents could offend you when seen in the evening news.

* Use the appropriate degree of formality.
*E-Mails are as permanent as paper. Since an e-mail is written more quickly than a mail on a paper, you might be less formal than on a written mail. Keep in mind that your mail might not only be read by the person to whom you sent it, but by other people. These people might know you only by what you tell or how you tell it in your e-mails. You'll never know if someday you will have to deal with these people face to face. When writing mails, take you time to ensure no mail embarrasses you later. Minimize spelling errors and make sure you mail is easy to read and to understand.

* Summarize what you're responding to
Today's mail clients offer a technique called quoting. This means, that the original message (especially the parts you are responding to) is included in your answer. These passages are usually marked using the character ">". This is done by the mail client automatically. There is no need to add this character by hand. Don't quote the whole original mail message. Only the main parts you are responding to or discussing. When requesting information from an information source you might get several different responses. You might want to post these responses in order that others can benefit from it. When summarizing these responses, strip unnecessary mail headers, eliminate duplicate information and credit the information to the person who sent it to you, where possible. If you don't credit or pretend that the posted information is from you, you might easily get *flamed.

* Keep your messages short and precise.
The chance that your mails are read by busy people is much higher.

* Format your messages clearly.
Don't write an endless queue and don't repeat yourself. Insert blank lines. Blank lines can improve the formatting and therefore the readability of you mail and empty lines only add one byte to the mail.

* Use a descriptional subject line.
Keep the subject line short and if possible it should summarize the contents of the mail in 2-5 words. If you don't use a subject line, then it might happen that your mail is considered unimportant and trashed without being read.

* Humor might be misinterpreted.
Because the receiver doesn't see, hear or even know you. People have different kinds of humor. Therefore expressions have been developed, to indicate emotions such as humor or sadness. These expressions are called *emoticons. So use them to indicate humor in your mails.

* Don't Shout.
Be careful with capital letters in mails. Sentences or words in capital letters are considered as shouting with a touch of anger.

* Be careful with personal data.
You should never post personal data from any person or company without their permission. Also be careful with statements about other persons. Such mails may circulate and you'll never know where they might end up.

* Different machines.
Always keep in mind, that people might use a different machine or mail reader than you do. So, limit you lines to 80 characters, 72 when possible.

* Sending large files.
Many mail readers offer the opportunity to attach files to the mail. Don't do so, unless you have been asked to send a file. People might get annoyed by large files (it raises their phone costs !!!) and flame you or trash them unread. So be sure to ask, if an attachment is desired and in which format to send it !! Note for *Microsoft Exchange users: Exchange allows to send formatted e-mails (multiple fonts, colors, attachments, ...). To transmit this formatting data, the data is encoded and sent as an attachment. People not using Exchange, can't use this *attachments. It only floods their harddisk. So when mailing to a person for the first time, be sure that the receiver also uses Exchange. If you're unsure turn off Exchange RTF formatting for the mail !

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E-MAIL WITH USENET OR MAILINGLISTS

* Listen, then talk.
When joining a discussion (e.g. *newsgroup) listen to the current discussion topics first. Don't start by posting mails. There might exist a *FAQ for this group, so ask where you can find it, get it and you might find answers to your question.

* Interest groups.
Don't post information of local interest to the world or people who might not be interested. Try to find a newsgroup, which is only read by local persons. Also don't flood *mailinglist or individual persons with unwanted (advertising) mail. This might result to the opposite - your product might be ignored. Also don't post something like Today is my birthday to inappropriate newsgroups. You are wasting other peoples money !

* Respect Copyrights.
Be aware that you might post copyrighted material. It's perfectly all right to post short excerpts for critical discussion, but posting a whole article is illegal. Also keep in mind, that each information posted is public domain, unless it is posted with an appropriate copyright notice.

* Responsibility.
You are responsible for the contents of your mail so don't go posting information on how to build and atomic bomb or whatsoever. It's illegal. It's also dangerous to ask for such information.

* Signatures.
Mails often have *signature. These are usually the full name, address, phone and e-mail address of the sender of this mail. Keep them short! Don't use more than 3-5 lines for a signature.

* Don't flame, advise.
Be careful flaming people. It would be no good idea, if you flame another person about posting unnecessary or unwanted data, if your is 10 lines long.

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FILE TRANSFER

* Look at indices.
Before downloading megabytes of programs, have a look at an index file. Such index files can usually be found in each directory. Uncontrolled download produces unnecessary 'Net traffic.

* Use local servers.
If possible, transfer files using the nearest server and download larger files (> 1 MB) during non office hours.

* Credits and registration.
I you have downloaded software and are required to pay a registration fee for usage, then please do so. This will help the author of the software to continually improve it.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

You can find additional information about the topics discussed in this chapter at the following chapters/locations:

  • Classical Netetiquette.

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    © 1996 Christian Feichtner
    Redistribution without prior permission prohibited.
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