Netiquette / The Core Rules of Netiquette

What is Netiquette?

"Netiquette" is network etiquette, the do's and don'ts of online communication. Netiquette covers both common courtesy online and the informal "rules of the road" of cyberspace. In other words,Netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly on line.

When you enter any new culture -- and cyberspace has its own culture -- you're liable to commit a few social blunders. You might offend people without meaning to. Or you might misunderstand what others say and take offense when it's not intended. To make matters worse, something about cyberspace makes it easy to forget that you're interacting with other real people -- not just ASCII characters on a screen, but live human characters.

So, partly as a result of forgetting that people online are still real, and partly because they don't know the conventions, well-meaning cybernauts, especially new ones, make all kinds of mistakes.

Learn Netiquette basics by reading the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea. Shea's "Core Rules"are the classic introduction to the subject and are widely cited in cyberspace.

Browse through the Complete Online Edition and have access to topics such as Business Netiquette, The Art of Flaming, Egregious Violations of Netiquette, and Love & Sex in Cyberspace.

The book Netiquette has a dual purpose: to help net newbies minimize their mistakes, and to help experienced cyberspace travelers help the newbies. The premise of the book is that most people would rather make friends than enemies, and that if you follow a few basic rules, you're less likely to make the kind of mistakes that will prevent you from making friends.

The list of core rules below are excerpted from the book. They are offered here as a set of general guidelines for cyberspace behavior. They won't answer all your Netiquette questions. But they should give you some basic principles to use in solving your own Netiquette dilemmas.

* Remember the Human
* Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life
* Know where you are in cyberspace
* Respect other people's time and bandwidth
* Make yourself look good online
* Share expert knowledge
* Help keep flame wars under control
* Respect other people's privacy
* Don't abuse your power
* Be forgiving of other people's mistakes

If you want to read the explanations for each rule , click here:

http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html