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If you are like me, you’ve probably felt foolish after misinterpreting the tone of an email or blog comment. There’s been many times after reading an email that I’ve thought that the person was annoyed or apathetic to our topic of conversation. There’s also been times that I wished that someone had not shared, what I assumed to be a confidential email with someone else. Maybe I’m just too sensitive, or it could be that there was a direct violation of “netiquette.” Netiquette is a new term that literally means “network etiquette,” but more importantly it refers Internet/Email etiquette.
Seriously? There’s a book of etiquette for the Internet? Well, of course! Etiquette has seeped into the fabrics of almost all institutions around the world…religion, sports, dining, office, family, and now the Internet! The bottom line is that as the popularity of an institution grows the necessity for rules of conduct always arise. In general people need to find a set of common rules from which they can begin working together. In fact, there are many different rules of netiquette for different on-line arenas (ie: international communications, blogs, forums, emails, academia, etc).
As we, the world, increase our reliance on electronic communication it will be become more important that people develop their on-line social skills and soft skills to get what they want out of people they’ve never met. Pretty much all internet sites that allow communication of any kind will have a code of conduct of some sort listed within their terms of use. I’ll share some of the netiquette information that I found while researching, however I think it should be said that they all lead to one overall theme…treat others as you would like to be treated!
Here are some of the reoccurring rules of “netiquette”:
- Don’t overuse CAPS LOCKS (it relays anger and is annoying to read)
- Don’t overuse exc!a!mat!on po!nts!!! (they lose their intent!!!!)
- Be realistic with response times when chatting or emailing
- Do not spam or over-forward hoax emails to others
- Do not “flame” or verbally abuse people and hide behind anonymity
- Respect others’ copyrights
- Do your research before quoting statistics
- Check your spelling and grammar
- Don’t send anything you haven’t read and re-read
- Don’t use reply-all as your default (not all situations are reply-all situations)
- Update your anti-virus software often
- Contact recipients prior to sending huge email attachments
- Don’t fire off responses without thinking through the consequences
- Don’t share emails without the sender’s consent or knowledge
- Never communicate professional discontent via email, confront people in person
- Break the cycle of email wars by continuing the conversation via phone
10 Best Rules of Netiquette, Yale University Netiquette Rules, About.Com: Email
Click on this picture to test your netiquette!
