Etiquette

Much of the information contained in this section has been derived from various articles posted on Usenet and available through out Internet.

This section is a guide to using Internet e-mail politely, effectively and efficiently. Communication by computer is new to many and there are certain aspects that can make it a frustrating experience. This document should help you avoid the worst traps.

This section summarizes the Internet community's practices.

• Use Descriptive Subject Headings

  Always use the subject field. Messages with blank subject fields are less useful to the recipient. The subject line of a message is there to enable a person with a limited amount of time to decide whether or not to read your message immediately. Some sites truncate the length of the subject line to 40 characters so keep your subjects short and to the point.

• Limit Line Length and Avoid Control Characters

  Try to keep your text in a generic format. Many (if not most) of the people reading e-mail do so from 80 column terminals or from workstations with 80 column terminal windows. Try to keep your lines of text to less than 80 characters for optimal readability. If people quote part of your message in a follow up, short lines will probably show up better, too.

  Also realize that there are many, many different forms of terminals in use. If you enter special control characters in your message, it may result in your message being unreadable on some terminal types; a character sequence that causes reverse video on your screen may result in a keyboard lock and graphics mode on someone else's terminal. You should also try to avoid the use of tabs, since they may also be interpreted differently on terminals other than your own.

• Be Brief

  Never say in ten words what you can say in fewer. Say it succinctly and it will have a greater impact. Remember that the longer you make your message, the fewer people will bother to read it.

• Be Careful with Humor and Sarcasm

  Without the voice inflections and body language of personal communications, it is easy for a remark meant to be funny to be misinterpreted. Subtle humor tends to get lost, so take steps to make sure that people realize you are trying to be funny.

  No matter how broad the humor or satire, it is safer to remind people that you are being funny.

  The Internet community has developed some symbols/icons for expressing emotions in electronic messages. This mechanism is often referred to as smiley or emoticon.

  To better introduce this concept, the following section has been reproduced from "The new Hacker's Dictionary", hacker.dictionary.

  emoticon /ee-moh'ti-kon/ n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in e-mail or news. Hundreds have been proposed, but only a few are in common use. These include:

    :-) & 'smiley face' (for humor, laughter, friendliness,
    occasionally sarcasm)  :-( & 'frowny face' (for sadness,
    anger, or upset)  ;-) & 'half-smiley' (ha ha only
      serious); also known as semi-smiley or winkey face.
     :-/ & 'wry face'
  

  (These may become more comprehensible if you tilt your head sideways, to the left.)

  The first 2 listed are by far the most frequently encountered. Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie, and BIX; see also bixie. On USENET, smiley is often used as a generic term synonymous with emoticon, as well as specifically for the happy-face emoticon.

  It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on the CMU bboard systems around 1980. He later wrote: "I wish I had saved the original post, or at least recorded the date for posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that would soon pollute all the world's communication channels." [GLS -- Guy L. Steele Jr. -- confirms that he remembers this original posting].

  Note for the newbie: Overuse of the smiley is a mark of loser-hood! More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign that you have gone over the line.

• Summarize What You are Responding To

  When you are responding to a message, summarize the parts of the message to which you are responding. This allows readers to appreciate your comments rather than trying to remember what the original message said.

  Summarization is best done by including appropriate quotes from the original message. Do not include the entire message if it is not relevant to the points you are making. Summarize only the major points you are discussing.

• Cite Appropriate References

  If you are using facts to support a cause, state where they came from. Don't take someone else's ideas and use them as your own.

• Don't Overdo Signatures

  Signatures are nice, and many people can have a signature added to their messages automatically. Don't overdo it. Signatures can tell the world something about you, but keep them short. A signature that is longer than the message itself is considered to be in bad taste. Every signature should include at least your return address relative to a major, known site on the network and a proper domain-format address.