Rule 1

Rule 1: Remember the Human When you communicate electronically, all you see is a computer screen. You don't have the opportunity to use facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice to communicate your meaning; words lonely written words are all you've got. And that goes for your correspondent as well. When you're holding a conversation online whether it's an email exchange or a response to a discussion group posting it's easy to misinterpret your correspondent's meaning. And it's frighteningly easy to forget that your correspondent is a person with feelings more or less like your own.