Message board and chat room etiquette

Here are some rules to follow when participating in chat rooms or message boards.

Do unto others, as you'd have others do unto you. Be polite and courteous at all times, just because you are not engaged in real world conversation, does not mean you can abandon real world manners and ethics. Remember that you're not communicating with a computer screen, but with a human being in possession of thoughts and feelings just like you. So before you fly off the handle, or send a rude or offensive message, think about the person on the receiving end.

If you are new to a chat room or forum, the golden rule is to lurk before you leap. As various countries have different norms and cultures, the domains of cyberspace vary in their ideas of acceptable behavior. When entering a new domain, make sure you listen and observe for a while before speaking your mind, find out what people are talking about and what their acceptable practices are. If possible take a look at the list of FAQs before you participate. This way there is less chance of you offending someone.

Do not TYPE ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING. If you need to emphasize a word, use asterisks, like *this* or lines, like _this_.

Be aware that the biggest problem with the Internet is that the written word is not easy to interpret. When you say something out loud, people can hear the tone of your voice. If they can see you, they can take visual clues from your face and body to see if you intend humor or if you are trying to soften what sounds like a harsh sentence. All of this is lost in text, and sometimes responses can come across as mean or rude, even when the writer did not intend them this way. This is the reason some people use emoticons (visual clues) in their e-mails, it saves a lot of confusion.

Be careful not to use rude or bad language online. Many providers will terminate your account.

Respect the privacy of others. If someone sends you e-mail on one topic, don't add him or her to your mass e-mailings without their permission. NEVER sell or give their e-mail address without permission to anyone else who will use it for promotion or advertising. Remember... you wouldn't want people reading your mail, why should you read theirs? It is poor manners - and thus poor netiquette - to read other people's private material without permission.

Don't break any laws. Cyberspace may seem like a completely different world, but remember that you're still in the real world, a world with laws and standards of ethics. When you're on the Net, follow the same standard of behavior that you would in real life. Remember, if it is against the law in the real world, it is against the law in cyberspace.

Be universal. The world isn't all the same and other users have different Web browsers, different online services, different e-mail programs etc. So don't, for example, send out e-mail with text formatting -- boldface, italics, indentations, etc. -- because many other programs will not be able to read the formatting and the recipients will receive your e-mail filled with muddled codes.

Be brief where appropriate. Don't make people read stuff they don't want to know about. Never waste bandwidth with unnecessarily long postings and repeated postings. One of the golden rules of replying to an e-mail is to try editing out unimportant information and anything that is repeated. Long e-mails and forum postings also tend not to be read, so all your effort may be wasted.

Don't flame. Do not send rude or offensive e-mails or postings. It's bad manners and can get seriously out of hand (flame wars). So don't flame others and if you are flamed, do not respond: you will never win. If you are flamed in a forum or chat room, contact the system's administrator and make your complaint. If you receive nasty e-mail, delete it or ignore the meanness and respond to the sender's actual points, minus the meanness.

Be patient with newcomers. Once you have become an Internet expert, it is easy to forget that you started out as a newbie too. Learning the protocol of cyberspace is much like learning a new language; it takes practice, and includes making mistakes. So if you come across someone else's mistakes on the Net, don't put them down, just politely point them in the right direction for guidance (send them a copy of these rules to get them started on their way!).