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Netiquette is the collective term to describe social norms for emails, bulletin boards, forums, blog comments and all other forms of on line communication.

For some reason, not being able to see the person you are “talking to” removes the normal common sense checks on our behaviour or we simply forget to consider how they will feel about what we say. There is also the fact that without the nuances of spoken words and the absence of body language many things can be misinterpreted or can cause misunderstandings.

There are many documents on the web discussing netiquette, here are two:

http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiquette

Here are a few points usually included:

1) Ask if you would say the same thing to the person face-to-face. If not you may need to tone it down a bit. Also pause before sending things in anger as you may regret it later and your typed words may literally come back to haunt you.

2) Re-read your message before you send it. If you expect some one to take the time to read your message you should at least be willing to check that it makes sense and possibly clean up typos and spelling.

3) Never use UPPERCASE TEXT BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING AND THIS CAN REALLY MAKE THE OTHER PERSON ANGRY!

4) If you are making a joke or a point which may be misinterpreted add a smiley face (which can be seen by tilting your head to your left shoulder) like this :-) or if you feel sad about what you are saying (like when you are apologising for offending because you did not add a happy face) you can do :-(

You can make up other smiley faces by varying the character you use but try to stick to generally used ones like

:-) happy

:-( sad

:-b sticking out tongue

:-D laughing

;-) winking

8-) wearing goggles

:o) big nose

5) When answering questions or responding to points made in a previous email, it is customary to include a “quote” from the original message so the person knows what you are answering or commenting on. Quoted text from an earlier email message is usually indented or prefaced by “>” characters or shown in a different colour. Many email programs will “quote” the entire original message.

You should only include the relevant text from the original message since including it all not only does not show precisely what you are responding to but limiting the amount of quoted text makes it easier for the recipient to read the message.

6) Be careful of what you send as an attachment. People often send huge files and if they have a fast internet connection it may not take long to send, but if the recipient has a slow connection it can take them ages to receive it and it can end up blocking up their email account. Always check attachment sizes. Also consider if the recipient has the program needed to open the attachment.

7) Respect other people’s privacy. If you are sending a message to lots of people use the BCC rather than to To addressing line because some people will not appreciate you giving out their email address to all your friends. (Plus everyone can see who you are mailing to which you may not want yourself). BCC stands for blind carbon copy which means no one can see the names or addresses of the people listed under it.

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