Netiquette a colloquial portmanteau of network etiquette or
'etiquette, is a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over
networks, ranging from and to and
Like the network itself, these
developing norms remain in a state of flux and vary from community to
community. The points most strongly emphasized about Usenet netiquette often
include using simple electronic signatures, and avoiding multi posting, cross-posting, off-topic posting,
hijacking a discussion thread, and other techniques used to minimize the effort
required to read a post or a thread. Similarly, some Usenet guidelines call for
use of unabbreviated English[ while users of instant
messaging protocols like SMS occasionally encourage just the
opposite, bolstering use of SMS language. However, many online communities
frown upon this practice.
Common rules for e-mail[4] and
Usenet such as avoiding flame wars and spam are constant
across most mediums and communities. Another rule is to avoid typing
in all caps or grossly enlarging script for emphasis, which is
considered to be the equivalent of shouting or yelling. Other commonly shared
points, such as remembering that one's posts are (or can easily be made)
public, are generally intuitively understood by publishers of Web pages and
posters to Usenet, although this rule is somewhat flexible depending on the
environment. On more private protocols, however, such as e-mail and SMS, some
users take the privacy of their posts for granted. One-on-one communications,
such as private messages on chat forums and direct SMSs, may be considered more
private than other such protocols, but infamous breaches surround even these
relatively private media. For example, Paris
Hilton's Sidekick PDA was cracked in 2005, resulting
in the publication of her private photos, SMS history, address book, etc.[5]
A group e-mail sent
by Cerner CEO Neal Patterson to managers of a facility
in Kansas City concerning "Cerner's declining work ethic"
read, in part, "The parking lot is sparsely used at 8 A.M.; likewise at 5
P.M. As managers—you either do not know what your EMPLOYEES are doing; or YOU
do not CARE ... In either case, you have a problem and you will fix it or I
will replace you."[6] After the e-mail was forwarded to hundreds of
other employees, it quickly leaked to the public. On the day that the e-mail
was posted to Yahoo!, Cerner's stock price fell by over 22%[7] from a
high market capitalization of US$1.5 billion.[8]
Beyond matters of basic courtesy and
privacy, e-mail syntax allows for different types of recipients. The
primary recipient, defined by the To: line, can reasonably be expected to
respond, but recipients of carbon copies cannot be, although they
still might.[9] Likewise, misuse of the CC: functions in lieu of
traditional mailing lists can result in serious technical issues. In
late 2007, employees of the United States Department of Homeland
Security used large CC: lists in place of a mailing list to broadcast
messages to several hundred users. Misuse of the "reply to all"
caused the number of responses to that message to quickly expand to some two
million messages, bringing down their mail server.[10] In cases like this,
rules of netiquette have more to do with efficient sharing of
resources—ensuring that the associated technology continues to function—rather
than more basic etiquette. On Usenet, cross-posting, in which a single
copy of a message is posted to multiple groups is intended to prevent this from
happening, but many newsgroups frown on the practice, as it means users must
sometimes read many copies of a message in multiple groups.
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