Netiquette

Kenji Kitao and S. Kathleen Kitao

The Internet is not administered by any central organization, and the Internet as a whole does not have formal rules and regulations. People who use it are expected to use good manners, so that everyone can use it without any problems.

However, some institutions, mailing lists, or countries do have rules for their users. Most institutions have written rules, and if you do not follow them, you may not be able to use their computers and the Internet through them any more, or you may be penalized. Some mailing lists have rules, and if you do not follow them, you can be unsubscribed from the list. Some countries have laws related to the use of the Internet, and if you violate them, you will be punished. If you use the Internet with common sense, you will probably not be in serious trouble.

In order to avoid inconveniencing other people, there are some generally accepted standards of behavior. These standards are referred to as "netiquette." Thus, they are not rules, and even if you do not follow them, you will not be punished. However, if you do not follow the standards of netiquette, other users may criticize you for violating them.

The most important guideline for netiquette is to be polite and respectful to other people. Another guideline is not to reveal any information about other people which they may not want known, for example, phone and fax numbers, addresses, or any information related to the privacy of other people.

E-mail

It is important to show the respect to the person you send e-mail to. You should not show any discrimination based on religion, beliefs, race, professions, nationality, sex, wealth, etc. In other words, you should avoid racist, sexist, etc., remarks in public forums.

You have to be open minded to people who have different opinions, values, etc. You always respect other people and polite to them, even if you disagree with them. This does not mean that you are not allowed to disagree with anyone, just that you should do so in a tactful way.

In addition to politeness and tactfulness, you should be concerned about clarity and other characteristics of good e-mail. People who are using e-mail are often busy and handle many e-mail messages. The following is suggestions to write good e-mail messages.

1. Put a clear, concrete subject line which reflects the content of the message.
When the receiver sees the subject in a list of e-mail messages, he/she should be able to know what the message is about.

2. Address the person by name at the beginning of the message.
You can write Dear _____ or Hi, ____ at the beginning of the message to make it sound more friendly.

3. In a business-related e-mail, put the main idea at the beginning of the message.
Particularly if you are asking someone to do something, you should write what you want to do at the beginning of the message, in the first or second sentence. That way, the reader does not need to read the whole message to understand what it is you want.

4. Write clearly and concisely.
You should not write very long messages, unless that is necessary.

5. Make questions clear and easy to answer.
If you ask questions, make it sure that the reader can answer easily. If you ask how or why, the reader needs to explain a lot, which takes time. If you ask several questions, put them in list form so that the receiver can find them easier and copy them to the reply, if necessary.

6. Put the summary at the beginning, if the message is long.
It is a good idea to avoid long messages, but if you have to do write a long one, put a brief summary at the beginning. You can put the long message on the web and send the URL to the person you want to read it. Some people do not have much disk space for e-mail, or have to pay for every line of e-mail that they receive.

7. Make the messages more readable.
Use short paragraphs, put blank lines between paragraphs, and make sentences and lines short. Some software does not cut the lines, so press the enter key for every sixty characters or so.

8. At minimum, put your name and e-mail address at the end of messages.
If you do not have a signature file, you need to type in your name and, at least, your e-mail address at the end of each message. If you do have a signature file you should keep it short, usually between four and six lines.

Miling Lists

As mentioned above, the most important rule of netiquette is to be polite to other people. Most people on lists or newsgroups never see the people they correspond with face-to-face and sometimes some of them seem to forget that other people on the list might have their feelings hurt or become angry. It is perfectly acceptable on a list or newsgroup to disagree with the opinions of others, but you must never attack the person expressing the opinion personally or disparage the opinions. You should also not express opinions that are racist or otherwise bigoted, and you should avoid posting hostile, angry messages. Lists vary in their rules, but on many lists, if you engage in such behavior, you can be removed from the list and not allowed to return.

If you have an objection to the behavior of someone on the list, you should usually e-mail them privately. It may be that they just did not realize that what they were doing was wrong. You should not usually reprimand another list member by sending the message to everyone on the list.

Since the people who read your messages cannot hear your tone of voice, they may not be able to tell that you are joking. You can indicate that you are joking using symbols like :-) (a smile; the colon is the eyes, the hyphen is the nose, and the end parentheses is the mouth) or ;-) (a smile with a wink).

It is also an important rule of netiquette that you should follow the conventions of the list or newsgroup. As mentioned above, you should read the welcome message and lurk for a while before you start contributing to the list. In addition, many lists and newsgroups have an FAQ (frequently asked questions list). The welcome message of a list should give you information about how to get the FAQ. In a newsgroup, the FAQ posted in the group itself or it might be in a special group labeled news.answers. Lists vary in their rules about, for example, posting messages not related to the main topic on the list or being rude to other list members. On some lists, you are not allowed to post messages that are off the topic, and on others you can, but you have to indicate in the subject line that it is an off-topic message. On some lists, you can be unsubscribed for personally attacking other list members. If you have a question about the conventions of a list that is not covered in the welcome message or FAQ, you should direct your question to the list owner, that is, the person who is responsible for the list. The welcome message will tell you how to contact that person.

You should think carefully before you post a message on a list or newsgroup--your message may go to hundreds or even thousands of people. Is the message likely to be of interest to other people in the list or newsgroup? (In the case of newsgroups, you can specify how widely the message is distributed, that is, whether it is distributed to your local area, your country, the entire world, etc. Think about how large a group of people would be interested in the message.) You should not respond to someone else's message just to say, "I think so, too." If you respond to a message, be sure that you are adding something substantive to the discussion. Copy into your message enough of the previous message to make your meaning clear, but don't repost an entire long message. If your message is intended for just one person on the list, you should send it to that one person by private e-mail, rather than sending the message to everyone on the list. (The individual's e-mail address is in the header at the top of the message.)

In general, you should only post messages on a list or newsgroup that are related to the main topic. In some lists or newsgroups, the rules allow off-topic postings under some conditions, so if you do want to post a message that is not related to the main topic, then you should follow those rules.

Even more so than with personal e-mail, your subject line is important in your messages to lists and newsgroups. Make it clear and specific. Many lists and news groups are very busy, and some people want to be able to choose just the messages that they are interested in.

Be active on the list, though don't overdo it--don't post more than one message a day on a list or newsgroup. Post your own experiences, opinions, and questions, and respond to messages from others, if you have something substantive to add, or if you can answer a question for someone.

When you first get started on mailing lists, or on a new mailing lists, you may make some mistakes. Once you get to be more experienced, you will see other people make mistakes. When you do, be nice to them and help them, instead of blaming or attacking them. Inform them tactfully and privately of what they are doing wrong.

The following are suggestions for writing messages for mailing lists, in addition to the suggestions for writing e-mail messages.

1. Make the subject line clear and informative, and change it if the subject has changed.
Some people don't have time to read all the messages on a list or newsgroup, so they decide whether they will read a message based only on the subject line. Therefore, this is particularly important for messages to a list or newsgroup. Often there will be a series of messages with the same subject line, as people respond to the original message. However, sometimes the subject has changed. If the subject started as "Listening tests" and has changed to reading tests, make the subject line "Reading tests (was Listening tests)."

2. In general, write one topic in one message.
While lists vary in their rules about this, as a general rule, you should limit your messages to one topic.

3. Write clearly and precisely.
Your message should be as short as possible.

4. Be cooperative.
You do not need to agree other people, but be constructive rather than just negative to other people's opinions. Cite facts, examples, etc., to support your opinion, rather than just stating it.

5. Make your message understandable to everyone.
Most lists include people from a variety of backgrounds. Try to make sure that everyone will understand what you write.

6. Be careful about quoting previous messages.
If you are responding to a previously posted message, use the same subject line. It may also be useful to quote part of that message to make the context of your message clear. However, do not quote an entire long message. Quote only as much of the message as is necessary. Specify who posted the original message.

7. Check your message before you send it.
Since many people may read your message, you should check your message very carefully before you send it. Make sure it is clear and free of mistakes.

8. Think about whether you should send your message to an individual person or to the list.
If your message is only intended for one particular person, or just a few people, you should not send it to the whole list. Since many people subscribe to different lists on similar topics, avoid cross posting, that is, posting the same message on different lists.

Conclusion

The Internet is very useful for many people, and more and more people are using it. It is therefore important that everyone follows netiquette, which allows everyone to use the Internet effectively and comfortably. We hope that you will follow netiquette and use the Internet effectively and let other people do the same.

If you find any problems, let me know.

kkitao@mail.doshisha.ac.jp