Below is a guide that explains a bit on the Etiquette in use in Email.
A more extensive (and better :) version are the; Internet and Web guides.
A more tongue-incheek version is the 'Dear
Emily Postnews' page (Also available in Dutch, French, German and Italian).
Another helpful page is the Filter page wich explains how
to get a better grip on your incoming emails.
This guide should get you "up-to-speed" quickly. It tries to point out
a few pitfalls that users seem to fall into. A lot of these
"unwritten rules" come from users who have read millions of messages and
have been emailing for decades.
In any case, if you follow them, you'll fit in the email-community just
fine and be well on your way to becoming a member in good standing.
If you choose to ignore them, expect to be reminded from time to time by
other users!
GENERAL GUIDELINES:
1. BE HELPFUL AND FRIENDLY
2. READ THE MESSAGE BASE TILL
YOU'RE COMFORTABLE
3. BEWARE OF HOAXES AND URBAN LEGENDS
4. KEEP YOUR MESSAGES ON TOPIC
5. POST ONLY PUBLIC MAIL
6. POST ONLY PLAIN TEXT MESSAGES
7. NO PERSONAL FLAMES OR PROFANITY
8. AVOID DUPLICATIONS
9. HOW NOT TO BUG YOUR FELLOW USERS
10. NO (COMMERCIAL) ADVERTISING
11. NO ALIASES
GLOSSARY:
I. HOAXES AND URBAN LEGENDS
II. TERMS
GENERAL GUIDELINES
====================
1. BE HELPFUL AND FRIENDLY
The electronic acquaintances you'll make on a network may well turn
into lifelong friends. You may see a lot of characters in mail like
:-) or :) or ;-). These aren't line noise. They're smiles (if
you hold your head right). You'll also see <GRIN>s and other
manifestations of this idea everywhere. Many people use these little
touches to indicate that the comment was meant to be humorous.
2. READ THE MESSAGE BASE TILL
YOU'RE COMFORTABLE
Jumping into a message base can be a scary thing at first. Read the
conference description (where applicable) and understand what type of
discussions are welcomed in the conference in which you want to begin
participating. Try to read at least several day's worth of messages
before you post that first note.
3. BEWARE OF HOAXES AND URBAN LEGENDS
Sometimes you will see messages that ask you to "spread the word"
that you can make lots of money, fight the government, do a good
deed, or warn people of some online or real-life peril by posting
copies of a message in lots of conferences. There are some examples
of the more popular hoax messages in the glossary.
Please do not post *or reply to* ANY messages concerning those
subjects, or any other message that urges you to copy it to as many
places as you can.
4. KEEP YOUR MESSAGES ON TOPIC
When you do start to post, try not to stray to far off of the topic
of the conference.
Another thing to avoid is posting personal chitchat messages.
Occasional chitchat does happen in conferences. It's to be
expected when people are comfortable and are having a good time.
But when it threatens to become an unreasonable percentage of the
mail, or pulls the focus of the conference off-topic, or goes on a
long time, it disrupts the conference.
5. POST ONLY PUBLIC MAIL
Users should not cross-post captures of mail from other
electronic mail networks, nor directly post copyrighted material
without the express consent of the owner of the material.
Please remember that all users across the net can read
everything you post. Do not use public mail to send information
that should be kept confidential -- use the post office for that or
pick up the phone.
6. POST ONLY PLAIN TEXT MESSAGES
In public mail there is no way of knowing what kind of software the
recipient of a message is using, or on what platform. As such the
messages you send should not rely on those systems to recognize
embedded code. HTML for example is, contrary to popular believes,
NOT the standard format for email messages (it is for web-pages),
plain text is.
Although it's possible to send files over a public mail network,
this is usually frowned upon. Please do not post binaries,
"UUENCODED" files, Debug scripts, or any other encoded file format.
Use private mail instead.
7. NO PERSONAL FLAMES OR PROFANITY
Although users can express personal opinion, the use of personal
flames in messages directed at others is prohibited and often can
result in suspension or expulsion from a conference.
There is a difference between a personal attack directed toward an
individual, and a lively discussion or expression of personal
opinion. Remember, treat people as you would have them treat
you.
The issue of profanity is clear as well. We all know the "Seven
Dirty Words". Avoid them in your public mail.
8. AVOID DUPLICATIONS
YOU can help us! These hints will help your Sysops and all the
other users who download mail save money when they transfer
your messages. Remember, a LARGE percentage of users
use charged (phone)services to get their mail.
Please avoid posting the same message to more than once.
This is called "carpet bombing". Each time you post a message, it
takes up extra space on hard drives around the world, and adds to
everyone's costs to transfer and store the message.
* AVOID UPLOADING DUPLICATE MESSAGES.
Ensure that the recipient-list only contains those addresses
that you wish to send the message to and does not contain
duplicates.
* DON'T QUOTE EXCESSIVELY
All mail-readers offer "quote" functions. Quotes are parts
of the original message that you copy into your reply to help
maintain the continuity of a thread. Big quotes mean big phone
bills for everyone, since these messages are effectively
duplicates. Experience also shows that people just DON'T READ
posts with lots of big quotes. Quote sparingly!!! Of all, this is
the biggest and most blatant problem plaguing private e-mail
systems. Help us stamp out big quotes!
* QUOTE GUIDELINES:
* Whenever possible limit yourself to 2 or 3 lines of quote
from the previous message to establish the context of your
reply. Although there will be times when it makes sense to
provide larger quotations, if you find your message is
15-20% quote, you are probably quoting more than you need
to. Also, please minimize the use of quote boxes.
* 50% or more quotation is almost certainly unnecessary.
Trim it down! It goes without saying that the following is
urgently requested:
DO NOT QUOTE THE ENTIRE MESSAGE.
* Don't copy in a huge quote and leave a single line or short
reply like "Right" or "I agree." Think about all the bulk
we all had to download to see this single line!
* Don't quote the signature that's often found at the end
of a message.
9. HOW NOT TO BUG YOUR FELLOW USERS
The following are small irritations in the big scheme of things, but
after you have read hundreds and hundreds of messages, little things
tend to mean a lot.
* SIGNATURES. Don't add lots of 'extras' to your messages,
like large fancy signatures, large quotes or pictures. They
are cute once, but people get annoyed seeing them over and
over again. They also waste message space. If you must add
a signature, make it small -- two lines or less -- and
tasteful.
The person's name, nickname, handle, initials and/or "e-mail
name" are often used. In addition, signatures might contain
information which provides the time and/or location of
authorship and/or contact information. If the author is a
representative of a company or other legal entity, the
entity's name, their disclaimer and the individual's title
might be used.
* HIGH ASCII. Avoid using high ASCII in the body of your
messages. Some programs used by the visually impaired cannot
deal with it.
* KEEP YOUR TAGLINES SHORT AND SWEET. If you use taglines at the
bottom of your messages keep them to 1 line. Some people
don't like them at all and object VERY strongly if they take
up extra space.
* USE UPPER AND LOWER CASE LETTERS IN MAIL. A message in
all-caps comes across to the reader as shouting since all caps
are used for emphasis. A message without any capital letters
looks childish. Both are harder to read and invite the reader
to skip your posts.
* DON'T REPLY TO EVERY MESSAGE. A lot of new users (and
some of our experienced messagers) want to get mail, so they
reply to everything. This is silly. Make your posts COUNT
-- put something substantive in your messages, not drivel.
* COMBINE THANK YOU NOTES. When you get help from other users
combine your 'thanks' messages into one and thank EVERYONE at
once or add it to a post that has information or more
discussion in it. This saves precious message space.
10. NO (COMMERCIAL) ADVERTISING
Commercial advertising is only accepted in limited conferences.
If you are not sure whether or not a particular conference permits
commercial advertising, please ask.
11. NO ALIASES
People like to know who they are dealing with and generally don't
take people who use aliases very seriously. If you usually do use
aliases, sign the message with your own name, or maybe vise versa.
GLOSSARY
==========
I. HOAXES AND URBAN LEGENDS
Please do not post *or reply to* ANY messages concerning the
following subjects, or any other message that urges you to copy it to
as many places as you can:
"GOOD TIMES" MESSAGE VIRUS and other virus warnings: This hoax
message claims that email with the subject "GOOD TIMES" contains a
virus that can somehow infect your computer and cause damage through
the simple act of reading the message. The hoax message urges people
to post copies of the warning in as many places as they can. You
CANNOT get a virus simply by calling a SP or reading a message,
regardless of what the warning says.
MAKE MONEY FAST: This is a chain letter originally from someone named
"Dave Rhodes" that promises to make you thousands of dollars simply
by adding your name to the end of a list, and posting the message to
as many people you can find. The fact is, despite what the letter
says, this is a pyramid scheme and it's illegal in almost every
part of the world. The only thing you'll make by posting this
chain letter is enemies.
DYING CHILD WANTS TO SET A WORLD RECORD: This story originated in
England, where a young lad named Craig Shergold really was suffering
from a brain tumor. His last wish was to become famous by receiving
huge amounts of mail. His luck changed, however, when a wealthy
benefactor in the US paid for medical treatment and Craig has now
completely recovered and grown up and does NOT want to receive any
more mail. The recipient's name and address has changed many times
since then, but neither the Guiness Book of Records nor the
Children's Make a Wish foundation have anything to do with this scam.
If you truly want to make a difference in the life of someone dying
of an incurable disease, make a donation to your favorite charity
instead of wasting money on cards and postage.
MODEM TAX WARNING: This letter resurfaces from time to time, and
warns that some government agency wants to tax your modem calls, and
to post the message in as many places as you can. Sometimes the
letters look very convincing and even contain docket numbers, but in
every case to date, they have been completely false. If anything is
likely to provoke the government into trying to regulate modem
users, it is harassment from users who fall for this scam.
II. TERMS
ACRONYMS In addition to the smiley faces: :) :-) ;-) and
friends, there are several shortcut ways of saying
certain frequently-used phrases, such as:
BTW = by the way
OTOH = on the other hand
IOW = in other words
IMO = in my opinion
IMHO = in my humble opinion
FWIW = for what it's worth
FYI = for your information
CONFERENCE A message base devoted to discussion of a specific
topic. Conferences may be local or internationally
echoed. Examples are newsgroups, mailinglists and
messageboards.
FLAMES This term originated at MIT and migrated to the
Arpanet and Internet computer networks. The story was
that the term was taken from a comic book character who
could turn himself into a superbeing by uttering,
"FLAME ON!" at which point he flamed the bad guys, then
turned back into a normal person by saying, "FLAME
OFF!". The analogy has stuck. With flames nasty,
personal attacks that go directly at people rather than
at their *ideas* are meant.
QUOTES When you reply to a message online or via an offline
reader, you have the option of importing a section of the
original message into your reply. This part of that
message is called a "quote".
THREAD A collection of related messages within a conference
which may be sorted by SUBJECT and DATE. Offline readers
will often sort messages by thread to make it easier to
follow a conversation.
UUENCODE A utility that translates binary files such as
executable programs and images into text that can be
transmitted as email messages.