Netiquette Knowhow

The term "Netiquette", an obvious contraction of "Net" and "etiquette", first appeared in the early days of the Internet. Its function was to help describe appropriate behaviour on the Internet and electronic mailing. As the Internet eased the ability to communicate on a "one-to-many" basis, certain conventions became necessary to ensure smooth interaction and clear communication.

Since the Internet changes rapidly, so does its netiquette. To some extent, netiquette depends on understanding how e-mail, the Usenet, a collection of notes on various subjects posted to servers worldwide, chatting or other form of communication on the Net works. A little preliminary observation can help. Poor netiquette by a new comer is understandable but deliberate practices like spamming and flaming is unacceptable. On the Internet, "flaming" is giving someone a verbal lashing in public. Unless in response to some rather obvious flamebait, flaming is poor netiquette.

Certain issues tend to provoke emphatically stated responses, but flaming is often directed at a self-appointed expert rather than at the issues or information itself and is sometimes directed at unwitting but opinionated newbies who appear in a newsgroup.

The basic precepts of online politeness started out as commonly agreed upon rules. They included courtesies such as not cross-posting newsgroup articles to unrelated groups and not advertising in newsgroups or mailing lists meant for discourse. Users were advised not be obnoxious, provocative or stir-up trouble. They were asked to think before they posted and more importantly—to read the FAQs.

Common courtesy was expected of the online community and those who didn't comply would usually be publicly reprimanded. The worst contempt has always been reserved for those people who push unsolicited commercial e-mail onto the rest of us. Spam heads the list of bad netiquette.

As the number of Internet users has skyrocketed, the need for agreed upon guidelines to online behavior is even more important. Common uses of the Net have their own rules of netiquette.