Netiquette rules: standards of behavior. Networket Rules

Netiquette is the norms of communicative behavior adopted in cybernetic spaces. It includes the traditions of a given Internet group, web portal, community, which are observed by the majority. The rules of online decency and norms cannot be considered indispensable for all users. Their boundaries are quite flexible. In addition, in various Internet groups, websites and forums, norms often differ significantly. This is due to the desire to simplify communication and ease. The main goal of web etiquette is to simplify communication.

Rules in various online societies are set based on technical limitations, project goals, and prescribed communication style. On some portals, the norms of netiquette may even resemble a formal charter. Often there may be unspoken rules on sites. These are not written down standards anywhere, but known to the majority of users and strictly observed by this majority.

What it is

Netiquette or netiquette are simple rules invented by individuals who communicate a lot via the Internet. It was developed to create comfortable communication for both Internet natives and debutants. Most regulations do not contain specific requirements. Most often, online “commandments” are a set of habitual norms of good manners generally accepted in society. Such rules are merely wishes.

Internet communications etiquette includes rules for conversation on the web, conducting electronic correspondence, and interaction in chat rooms and forums.

Understanding the principles of netiquette is quite simple - you just need to know the key points and follow the basic laws of politeness.

Often, obvious violations of netiquette mean various insults, deliberate departure from the given topic of a given community (offtopic), and advertising of third-party content. Also, on certain web portals, libel, malicious disinformation, and plagiarism may be a violation.

In order to understand what the rules of netiquette are, it is necessary to understand the main public places on the World Wide Web that exist for people to interact. The considered places for user interaction are intended for sharing experiences, communication, dating, and flirting.

You can highlight the main places visited by active users, such as chat and forum. The latter is considered the main springboard for honing one’s own eloquence in the epistolary genre. As a rule, a forum is a site with a narrow focus. For example, on the Internet you can find religious forums, forums for travelers, and mothers. Such web portals contain various introductory information, as well as specialized information. It is usually placed in graphical and text form. Here users can get advice, advice, or discuss a situation that concerns them.

The main purpose of chats is online communication. They can be personal, where two users interact with each other, or group.

The rules of online etiquette allow newbies to get comfortable on the web, and advanced users not to feel discomfort even when interacting with previously unfamiliar Internet residents. In essence, “netiquette” represents standards of behavior that society adheres to in everyday life, but transferred to the virtual space.

In general, the provisions of etiquette are conditionally divided into three subgroups: emotional norms (psychological), design (technical) and administrative.

The first subgroup includes addressing “you” or “you”, using emoticons (determining the permissible number, their nature), interacting with newcomers (supporting or ignoring).

Design (technical) standards include the use of a certain number of characters, line length, transliteration, advanced formatting (color, italics, frames), and the admissibility of printing messages in capital letters.

Administrative rules imply the naming of topics, the order of citation, the admissibility of advertising, the permissibility of flames (verbal skirmish, bickering for the sake of the dispute itself), the need to adhere to the direction of the community.

Users accustomed to the norms of a particular forum can often unintentionally violate the rules of another online community. That is why in almost every forum there is a requirement to familiarize yourself with the rules and express formal agreement to follow them.

Below are typical violations and mistakes of people entering the path of Internet communication. Messaging on web portals can spoil the mood of an inexperienced user if he violates the prescribed rules. There are several things that, avoiding, will help you enjoy communicative interaction on the web, and first of all, these are flames, using the “Caps Lock” key, and flooding.

Flames are comments that do not carry any special meaning and are used to provoke a response. This term in network communications implies insults to opponents, discrimination, and humiliation of an individual.
Messages of this kind are often prohibited by the rules. In addition, the policy of most portals strongly recommends leaving remarks of this kind unanswered, so as not to incite confrontation even further. Usually in any communities, groups and forums there are people who keep order, called moderators. It is they who are entrusted with the role of the so-called “orderlies” of places of communication. They monitor compliance with internal standards of behavior. Moderators have the right to edit or completely delete remarks that contradict the community rules, limit the rights of users who violate the established order of this portal, and even delete their pages.

Using the Caps Lock key causes all text to be written in capital letters. Such messages irritate users and provoke conflicts.

Flood is called phrases that do not make sense, remarks that are off topic. Often, flooders just like to send all sorts of emoticons or monotonous offers to everyone. Excessive flooding slows down the loading process of web pages and simply irritates users.

Rules for correspondence by email

The ability to correctly and competently conduct electronic correspondence will be useful in life in any field more than once. First of all, the ability to adequately communicate via email is an indicator of a person’s professionalism, a sign of general cultural and intellectual development. Based on the ability to formulate one’s own thoughts in writing, one can draw a conclusion about the personality and business qualities of the writer himself, about his attitude to his activities and social environment.

When conducting electronic correspondence, you need to clearly distinguish between messages to friends and acquaintances and business communications. If in messages addressed to relatives and other close associates, liberties of almost any content and direction are permissible, then in business correspondence the use of slang, emoticons, lexical and grammatical errors, and punctuation errors are not welcome.

Thus, when writing a message to an unfamiliar web user or an unfamiliar individual, it is recommended to observe the following rules of netiquette.

Any electronic interaction should begin with the subject of the message. Therefore, the “field” column must always be filled out. In addition, what is written in this line must correspond to the general content of the letter. After all, it is precisely by this criterion that the addressee decides to read this message now, or to postpone it or delete it without opening it. Also, following this standard of correspondence via email allows the interlocutor to quickly find the desired message among the mass of correspondence.

After filling out the “subject” column, you can go directly to the message itself, which should begin with welcoming words. If the letter is of an official nature, then the form of greeting should be appropriate, for example, “Good morning, Ivan Ivanovich.” After the greeting, be sure to include the recipient's name.

You also need to remember the golden rule of a truly successful person and an interesting interlocutor - brevity is a sign. If the subject of the email requires clarification and detail, then you should indicate the necessary parameters, while trying not to fill the text with “water”. You need to write specifically. The ideal version of the letter is a short message that outlines its essence and a proposal to discuss the topic raised in the message via telephone.

The style of the letter is determined by the “proximity” of the addressee to the sender. A message to relatives can be presented in free form, but it is better to write to prospective clients in a more restrained style and neutral tone.

The letter should be completed with a signature, which includes the sender’s name or surname and initials; in case of business correspondence – position, contacts, company logo.

Before sending an email, it is recommended to re-read the message, correcting lexical and grammatical errors. Carelessness is not a sought-after quality. An illiterate message, filled with slang expressions and unnecessary abbreviations, is unlikely to please even close people, not to mention potential clients.

Rules of conduct for online communication

In cybernetic space, the norms of behavior practically do not differ in any way from the established rules in society. The laws of politeness have not been canceled and it does not matter where communication takes place - online or in real interaction. In the virtual space, the ability to carefully “listen” to the interlocutor, respect for the other side, humor, and the absence of rude words and rudeness in speech are valued.

When communicating in cyber spaces, you should always remember that even if you don’t know who is sitting in front of the monitor on the other side of the country, he is still a person. Therefore, the rule at work here is that you need to treat other individuals the way you want to be treated yourself. You must defend your opinion in a correct form, confidently, but without stooping to personal insults.

In written interactions online, it is considered good form when the interlocutor respects the time of a virtual friend. This rule calls for limiting the amount of writing: it is recommended to split large text into parts; if this is a blog, then you need to make subheadings. The frequency of mailings and reposts (posting entries from a friend or some group or web community on your own page) is also important. When new posts appear every minute in their news feed or the feed of online friends, most users will simply unsubscribe from such a community.

Summarizing the above, we can add:

– if communication is not business-like, then in cyberspace the informal “you” is accepted; addressing “you” is better left for the boss;

– you shouldn’t start every message of the day to one interlocutor with a greeting; it’s enough to say hello once a day;

– the concept of netiquette presupposes, first of all, respect for cyber interlocutors, therefore the “Caps Lock” mode should be permanently excluded from your virtual communication style.

Typical violations

So, to summarize the above, the situations listed below are considered unacceptable for online communication. However, there are resources for which such phenomena are considered normal. If there is no obvious permission for such behavior, then it is advisable to refrain from it, since the interlocutor, having the data, has the right to file a statement of violation of the law with law enforcement agencies, citing insults, humiliation or threats.

To attract attention

Many communities do not welcome writing messages aimed at drawing attention to oneself.

A common mistake newbies make is writing a “greeting” after registration, which does not carry any semantic meaning. The abundance of such messages contributes to the development of flooding.

Another example is “bumps”, messages to raise a topic in forums, as well as imageboards, where they will be sorted by the date of the last entry.

Ignore

Bad form includes ignoring a correct question (except for an insult, as well as an obvious one).

Incorrect answer

Any question must be given an accurate, informative answer. A clarifying question is allowed.

Flame

This is a type of dispute in which the truth is not born. It arises spontaneously, turning into a heated discussion when the participants forget about the original topic of conversation and, getting personal, cannot stop. The development of the flame occurs rapidly and stops after the intervention of the moderator or when the participants get tired. After the end of the flame, no constructive result is observed.

The most reasonable behavior during such a dispute is to clearly state your position once and not enter into further discussion. After that it will subside on its own. If you try to prove that you are right, the flame will become hotter, and the person’s image will only worsen.

Flood

Refers to messages that do not contain useful information. It spreads out of nothing to do or for the purpose of trolling to annoy someone.

A technical flood is a hacker attack with a large number of requests that results in a denial of service.

Spam

These are messages coming from organizations or unknown people. This often involves sending emails that include advertising.

Offtopic

This is an online message that goes beyond the established topic of communication. Offtopic refers to a violation of netiquette that blurs the declared restriction on the topic of communication. This in turn makes it difficult for users to find information, turning the forum into an information dump.

Hotlinking

Refers to the process of embedding and displaying on a web page any object (music, picture, video, or other files) located on another server.

Overquoting

This is a pointless redundant quoting of a post.

Netiquette rules

Currently, certain rules of communication have been formed on the Internet, which can be found on many sites. It is clear that both teachers and students must adhere to them.

Etiquette is the rules of good manners adopted in a particular social group. Netiquette is a set of rules about how to behave online.

Rule 1: Remember that you are talking to a person.

Do not do to others what you do not want to receive from them yourself. Put yourself in the shoes of the person you are talking to. Defend your point of view, but do not insult others.

In cyberspace they say: remember that you are talking to a person. When you use telecommunications, you are dealing with a computer screen. You cannot gesture, change your tone, and your facial expression does not play any role. Words, only words, are all that your interlocutor sees.

When you are having a conversation - over email or in a conference - it can be very easy to misinterpret the words of your interlocutor. And, unfortunately, forget that your recipient is also a person with his own feelings and habits.

However, do not forget about the main principle of netiquette: there are real people everywhere on the Internet.

And one more reason to be polite online. When you communicate with someone in cyberspace, remember that your words are recorded. Perhaps they will be stored in places where you can no longer reach. In other words, there is a chance that they will come back and harm you. And you have no opportunity to influence this process.

^Rule 2: Adhere to the same standards of behavior as in real life

In real life, most of us obey laws, sometimes because of restrictions, sometimes because of fear of getting caught. In the virtual space, the chances of being caught are relatively small. People sometimes forget that there is a real person “behind the screen”, and they think that the rules of behavior on the Internet are not as strict as in real life.

This misconception is understandable, but it is still a misconception. Standards of behavior may differ in different parts of the virtual space, however, they are no softer than in real life.

Maintain communication ethics. Don't believe anyone who says, "The whole ethics here is what you set for yourself." If you encounter an ethical problem in cyberspace, think about what you would do in real life. Most likely, you will quickly find a solution.

^Rule 3: Remember where you are

What is accepted without hesitation in one place may be considered rude in another. For example, in conferences where television programs are discussed, various rumors and gossip are quite normal. But if you decide to invade a journalistic discussion with them, this will not increase your popularity.

When you find yourself in a new area of virtual space, first look around. Spend time studying the situation - listen to how and what people are talking about. After that, engage in conversation.

^Rule 4: Save face

On the Internet you can meet people you would never meet in real life and no one will judge you for the color of your skin, eyes, hair, weight, age or manner of dressing.

However, you will be judged on how you write. For those on the Internet, this matters. Thus, grammar rules play an important role.

Be aware of what you are saying.

Consider the content of your letter. When you want to say something like “it seems to me...” or “I heard that...”, ask yourself if you should double-check the correctness of your facts. False information can cause a whole flurry of emotions on the Internet. And if this is repeated a second and third time, it can happen, like in the game “broken phone”: your words will be distorted beyond recognition.

Also, make sure your messages are clear and logical. You can write a paragraph of text that is grammatically perfect but completely meaningless. This often happens if you want to convince someone that you are right, using a lot of complex and long words that you yourself are not very familiar with.

Don't insult users. Finally, be patient and polite. Do not use profanity, do not enter into conflict for the sake of conflict itself.

^Rule 5: Do not get involved in conflicts and do not allow them

Flames are emotional remarks, often made without taking into account the opinions of other participants in the conversation. These are messages where tact is not the most important thing, and the goal is to provoke a reaction from users: “Well, come on, tell me what you really think about this?”

Does netiquette prohibit flames? Not really. Flames are also an old tradition of the Web. Flames can be fun for both writers and readers. And the recipients of flames often deserve them.

But netiquette is against flames that escalate into wars - a series of angry messages exchanged, as a rule, by two or three participants in the discussion. Such wars can literally take over the conference and destroy the friendly atmosphere. This is unfair to other conference readers. And very soon people who are not participating in the discussion get tired of conflicts. In fact, an unacceptable monopolization of resources occurs.

^ Rule 6: Learn to forgive others for their mistakes

Everyone was a newbie once. Therefore, when someone makes a mistake - be it a typo in a word, a careless flame, a stupid question or an unreasonably long answer - be lenient with it. Even if your hands are itching to answer, think twice. Just because you have good manners doesn't mean you have a license to teach those manners to everyone else.

If you decide to draw the user’s attention to his/her mistake, do it correctly and preferably not in a conference, but in a private letter.

^ Network "wisdom"

What are these strange icons?

When exchanging text messages, we do not hear the live intonations of our interlocutor. Therefore, Internet users have become adept at using simple “pictures” made up of several punctuation marks to indicate their emotions. They are called "emoticons". The most common emoticons:

:-) - smile, joy

:-(- sadness, sadness

:-o - surprise

;-) - wink

Emoticons are a favorite way for users to express their emotions in a letter; in addition to text emoticons, graphic and animated ones are also available. However, it is worth remembering that an excessive number of emoticons makes it difficult to read the text, and messages consisting only of emoticons already become “flood” and most often violate the rules.

Abbreviations

Many “seasoned Internet residents” actively use strange letter combinations in their messages: IMHO, asap and something else like that. If you come across something like this, don’t be alarmed - these are stable abbreviations that came from the English-speaking part of the Web and they always mean something. List of the most common abbreviations:

IMHO, IMHO - "In My Humble Opinion" - "in my humble opinion";

LOL - “Laugh Out Loud” - “I laugh out loud”;

BTW - "By The Way" - "by the way";

AFAIK - "As Far As I Know" - "As far as I know";

NFC - "No Further Comments" - "I said everything";

WBR - "With Best Regards" - "With best wishes";

ASAP - "As Soon As Possible" - "As soon as possible";

AKA - "Also Known As" - "Also known as:".

If you are an expert in such phrases, do not rush to use them. They may simply not understand you, try to find suitable Russian words, there are quite a lot of them.

What is an offtopic?

The conference is usually divided into several forums, each of which has its own topic, such as sports, science, computers and technology, etc. Posting a message that is not suitable in its content to the topic of the forum or a specific thread in which a discussion is already underway is called offtopic and is quite often considered a violation of the rules. Read the description of the topics of the forums and only after that, having chosen the appropriate topic, publish your message.

What is overquoting?

Typically, when a user responds to someone's message in a forum, it is possible to graphically highlight a quote from the message. This is done so that the rest of those present understand what is actually being commented on. The most common mistake in this case is the so-called overquoting - excessive quoting. Because in order for the answer to be clear, there is almost always no need to quote the entire original message. It is enough to quote only the part that is necessary to understand the answer. But it often happens that a user quotes a huge letter only to write “Agree” or “I agree with every word.” Please do not overuse excessive quoting, this will only complicate readability, and in some cases this may be a violation of the rules.

What is flooding?

Flood is a stream of messages that carry almost no meaning. These are messages that could be painlessly deleted (or rather, not even published) without any damage to the community. Usually flooding is done by users who, by and large, have nothing to say, but who want to attract attention to themselves. They begin to respond to almost every message in the forum, and the answers do not carry any semantic meaning and usually look like short one-line remarks: “Exactly!”, “I agree!”, “I think so too!”, “Wow!” as well as extensive messages that have nothing to do with the topic of discussion, for example, stories that usually begin with the words: “But I had this too, but in general I don’t know...” and so on. In some forums, flooding is allowed and encouraged, but in thematic forums, flooding is most often prohibited by the rules.

What is "CAPSIT"?

You should not write words in CAPITAL LETTERS (CAPS - type messages while holding the CAPS key) - this is perceived as a rude shout. If you want to make your speech more emotional, enclose words with asterisks or underscores, for example: “I'm just _sure_ of this.”

Netiquette is just a guide to normal, human communication for many Internet users. Following these simple recommendations will help us all quickly obtain the necessary information in response to our questions, find new friends, strengthen old connections and simply enjoy virtual communication with each other, despite distances, differences in age, upbringing, national origin and religion - Let's be polite to each other and have a good connection!

(English version).

The rules of etiquette are not universal and rigidly established - they can vary significantly in different communities. Since the main goal of etiquette is to not impede communication in a community, rules can be established based on the goals of the community, the accepted style of communication, technical limitations, etc. Some rules are written down, and even formalized in the form of a charter, and sometimes and simply as a list, other rules are not written down anywhere, but are known to most members of the community and are strictly followed.

Most often, a clear violation of etiquette is understood as insults and personalization, malicious departure from the topic (offtopic), advertising and self-promotion in places not intended for this. It is also quite likely that libel and other malicious misinformation (deception) or plagiarism may be a violation of etiquette.

Psychological, emotional - address you or you, whether to use emoticons and in what quantity, whether to indicate the area code in phones, support newcomers or ignore their questions, or send them directly to FAQ and Search...
Technical, design - the use of lines of a certain length, the use of transliteration, restrictions on the size of a message or signature, the admissibility of advanced formatting (bold, italics, color, background, frames, etc.), the admissibility of writing messages in UPPER CASE...
Administrative - rules for naming (headings) of topics, rules for quoting, admissibility of advertising, admissibility of flames, the actual need to adhere to the topic of the community...

People accustomed to the rules of one online community may unwittingly violate the rules of another. Therefore, almost all online communities require you to familiarize yourself with the rules and express your formal consent to comply with them.

Good tone

The rules listed below are, of course, not binding on all communities. In some cases, their implementation is impossible, or even undesirable, but such cases are usually rare.

Study of traditions

Before becoming an active participant in an online community, it is advisable to visit it for a certain time, leaving a minimum of your own comments in order to get used to the rules of the community, as well as learn about some of its traditions. The exception is resources that do not involve long-term participation in their lives, or are built according to the “question-answer” scheme. As an alternative, some use encyclopedias, like Lurkomorya, but the information posted in such sources is not always reliable: they may be outdated, incomplete, biased, or require interpretation - they can only serve as a supplement, but not a replacement for the independent assimilation of community rules.

Search

Before asking a question, do not be lazy to use the search - perhaps this question has already been asked and answered. When an old topic is appropriately brought up, the reaction is usually favorable, while the re-opening of a topic is usually not welcomed at first.

Formatting messages

Try to make your notes readable. For example, you should not write in transliteration or replace letters with similar symbols. Naturally, if a post is difficult to read, it will most likely be either ignored or viewed negatively. Failure to comply with language norms also often leads to prejudice. You should also not type whole words in capital letters (even more so, alternate case), and also avoid using a large number of punctuation marks and emoticons in a row.

Hiding part of a message

Most often, the message trimming function (the so-called “cut”, from the English. cut- trim) is used in blogs, where posts, which can be quite long, are lined up in one row on the main page, and only a brief summary of the topic should be displayed there, which can be seen in full if you follow the link. It is also advisable to hide large files, for example, images that can take a long time to load (of course, the file should be downloaded only after the visitor expresses a desire to see it), as well as content that some visitors would not like to see on the page (for example - spoilers revealing the plot of the work of fiction).

bad manners

Just like good manners, the situations listed below are not considered acceptable in all communities. There are resources for which downstream phenomena are the order of the day, or even resources created for them. But if there is no explicit permission for such behavior, it is better to refrain from it.

Attracting attention to yourself

In many communities, writing messages with the sole purpose of attracting attention to one's person is not encouraged. A common mistake made by beginners: writing a “greeting” immediately after registration that has no meaning. A large number of such messages contributes to the development of flames. Another example is the so-called “bump”, or “up” - messages to raise a topic in forums or imageboards, where they are often sorted by the date of the last entry. And if on image boards this is sometimes the only means of combating wipe (a type of flood, due to which topics are lost in a stream of meaningless topics), then on forums such messages are often an attempt to attract attention to a topic that is uninteresting to other participants, and therefore restrictions are often imposed to raise the topic up to a complete ban.

Flame

Offtopic

Offtopic(otherwise offtopic, offtopic or simply off; from English off topic, lit. “off topic”, a phrase on the English-speaking Internet off topic sometimes abbreviated as OT.) - an online message that goes beyond the pre-established topic of communication. For example, record on the web forum, does not correspond either to the general direction of the forum, or to the topic within which the entry was left.

Sometimes in online communication they use the antonym of the word offtopic - ontopic, ontop, meaning following a predetermined theme.

Even before the spread of Internet forums, the concept of offtopic began to be widely used in echo conferences on the Fidonet network. Also, as a rule, off-topic content in mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups is not acceptable.

Offtopic is considered a violation of netiquette, since it blurs the pre-announced restriction on the topic of communication, which makes it difficult for forum users to find information, turning it into an information dump. As a rule, moderators monitor compliance with online ethics in forums and other similar online communities.

Creating a new forum topic (“topic”) in an inappropriate subsection can also be considered as an off-topic in forums. Sometimes forums introduce special sections “for flooding and offtopic topics” to discuss issues unrelated to the forum topic and just for fun.

From a sociological point of view

Although the offtopic, along with meaningless messages (see flood) contributes to clogging a forum or other platform for online communication, the head of the laboratory at the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philosophy Valery Valentinovich Patsiorkovsky sees the positive side of the offtopic in the community in what it gives to the user forum, the possibility of defusing “by sending a message, perhaps far from the interests of the community, but important at the moment for him personally.”

In turn, Peter Kollock (eng. Peter Kollock) and Mark Smith (eng. Marc Smith) from the University of California consider the need to follow a given topic when communicating online within a large group in terms of a social dilemma, like the prisoner's dilemma - each individual wins by acting selfishly, but if everyone chooses the selfish alternative, that is, engages in off-topic, he loses the entire group - meaningful communication in the online group will become impossible.

Hotlinking

Notes

Links

RFC 1855 (English)
O.A. Lavrov Outline of rules for participants in electronic communications // Educational Technology & Society. - 2005. - V. 8 (1). - pp. 183-190. - ISSN 1436-4522.

10 COMMANDMENTS OF NET ETIQUETTE

What is netiquette,

Why is it needed and how to comply with it?
Netiquette is a set of simple rules that were invented by people who communicate a lot with each other via the Internet. It is needed so that everyone - both experienced users and beginners - can communicate with each other equally comfortably. Most of the rules are not of any special nature, but simply represent a repetition of the rules of good manners accepted in society as a whole. These rules are just wishes. But since we are all a community, following these rules will raise your authority, and you will attract attention as a pleasant and interesting interlocutor.

How to observe netiquette? You must learn to behave as if you are in an unfamiliar world, very similar to your real world, and do not want to offend anyone with your tactless behavior. In fact, it is very simple. Netiquette is the same as regular etiquette. Most clashes on the Internet stem from the inability and unwillingness of participants to hear each other. First of all, try to use common sense. Respect your interlocutors, no matter who they introduce themselves, and then your life in the community will become easy and enjoyable.

What should you not do on the Internet?
First of all, you should not do those things that are not encouraged in any civilized society:

use
profanity;

incite national
discord;

insult
of people;

steal;

deliberately try
to break something;

call for
overthrow of the existing system;

don't send it
your commercial offers;

send
instructions explaining how to commit illegal acts, as well as
ask about possible ways to perform this kind of action;

publish
personal letters without the consent of their authors;

start or
continue the discussion on an abstract topic in places (conferences,
forums, etc.) not intended for this purpose.
Before
consider the rules of netiquette, get acquainted with the basic
concepts used in communications on the Internet.

10 COMMANDMENTS

1. Remember that you are talking to a person.
Do not do to others what you do not want to receive from them yourself. Put yourself in the shoes of the person you are talking to. Defend your point of view, but do not insult others. When you use telecommunications, you are dealing with a computer screen. You cannot gesture, change your tone, and your facial expression does not play any role.

Words, only words, are all that your interlocutor sees.

When you are having a conversation - over email or in a conference call - it is very easy to misinterpret the words of your interlocutor. And, unfortunately, forget that your recipient is also a person with his own feelings and habits.
However, do not forget about the main principle of netiquette: there are real people everywhere on the Internet.

2. Adhere to the same standards of behavior as in real life.

This misconception is understandable, but it is still a misconception. Standards of behavior may differ in different parts of the virtual space, however, they are no softer than in real life.

3. Remember where you are in cyberspace.

When you find yourself in a new area of virtual space, first look around. Spend time studying the situation - listen to how and what people are talking about. After that, engage in conversation.

4. Respect the time and capabilities of others.

When you send an email or post to a conference call, you are essentially vying for someone's time. And then you are responsible for ensuring that the recipient does not waste this time in vain.

The concept of “capability” includes the bandwidth of the channel through which communication occurs and the physical capacity of the storage media on the remote computer. And if you accidentally sent five identical messages to the same conference, you wasted both the time of the subscribers of this conference and the capabilities of the system (after all, you took up the transmission line and disk space).

Many conference readers are slow, and receiving a new message takes time. The program must scroll through all the message headers in order to get to the one you need. No one is particularly happy if it turns out that time was wasted.

People don't have much time to read messages given the number of recent ones. Before you send your letter, consider whether the recipients really need it. If you answer yourself “no,” it’s better not to waste their (and your) time. If in doubt, think twice before sending a message.

5. Save face.

Take advantage of anonymity.
On the Internet (for example, in conferences) you can meet people you would never meet in real life and no one will judge you for the color of your skin, eyes, hair, your weight, age or manner of dressing.

However, you will be judged on how you write. For those on the Internet, this matters. Thus, grammar rules play an important role. Be aware of what you are saying.

Finally, be patient and polite. Do not use profanity, do not enter into conflict for the sake of conflict itself.

6. Help others where you can.

Why is asking questions in virtual space effective? Because your questions are read by many people who know the answer to them. And even if only a few people answer qualifiedly, the total amount of knowledge on the Internet will increase. The Internet itself grew out of the desire of scientists to exchange experience. Gradually, others became involved in this fascinating process.

It is especially important to exchange answers to your questions with other users. If you anticipate that you will receive a lot of answers to your question or send it to a conference that you rarely attend, respond to replies by email, not to the conference. When you receive all the remarks, summarize them and send them in one message to the conference. This way, everyone will benefit from communicating with you.

If you are an expert yourself, you can do more. Many people freely post entire bibliographies, from lists of legal resources to lists of popular books on UNIX. If you are leading a group that does not have a list of answers to the most frequently asked questions, try writing one. If you have discovered or authored a paper that you think may be of interest to others, please submit it to the conference. Sharing experiences is a fun activity. This is an ancient and glorious tradition of the Network.

7. Do not get involved in conflicts and do not allow them.

"Does online etiquette prohibit flames? Not really. Flames are also an old tradition of the Internet. Flames can be fun for both writers and readers. And the recipients of flames often deserve them.

8. Respect the right to private correspondence.

9. Don't abuse your powers.

Some people feel like professionals in the virtual space. These are aces in every network game, experts in every office and system administrators of the system.
With greater knowledge or greater authority in their hands, these people automatically gain an advantage.

However, this does not mean that they can use it. For example, system administrators should not read private email messages.

10. Learn to forgive others for their mistakes.

Everyone was a newbie once. Therefore, when someone makes a mistake - be it a typo in a word, a careless flame, a stupid question or an unreasonably long answer - be lenient with it. Even if you really want to answer, think twice. Just because you have good manners doesn't mean you have a license to teach those manners to everyone else.

If you decide to draw the user’s attention to his mistake, do it correctly and preferably not in a conference, but in a private letter. As you know, corrections in the text often also contain grammatical errors; Also, an indication of non-compliance with the rules of etiquette sometimes demonstrates a violation of the same etiquette.

Email etiquette rules

Addresses and personal names
A personal name (not to be confused with a signature) is a custom string that many email programs allow you to attach to your messages as a text comment.

If your system allows, always write a personal name: it is a better “business card” for you than an e-mail address.

Use meaningful names. Expressions like “figure it out for yourself” not only make it difficult to identify the author of the letter, but also insult the intelligence of the addressee.

If your mail system allows you to send letters along with the recipient's name, use this feature. This will make it easier for the network administrator to find the recipient by name if the address itself turns out to be incorrect.

Letter subject
(Subject)

Don't forget to give your letters titles. Often the user is guided by names when looking through his mail.

Avoid meaningless names. For example, when sending an email to WordPerfect technical support, you shouldn't call it WordPerfect—you might as well not write anything at all.

If you change the topic of conversation when replying to a letter, do not forget to change the title.

A precise title is the easiest way to determine the topic of a conversation, and if you change the topic while leaving the title the same, the recipient may become confused.
Length, content and format of the letter

Try to keep the length of your letter consistent with the style of conversation: if you are simply answering a question, keep it short and to the point.

Stay as close to the topic as possible. If you want to talk about something new, it is better to send a separate letter. Then your recipient can store it separately.

Don't write all text in capital letters - it becomes difficult to read (although short highlighting can be used as reinforcement). Try to break your letter into logical paragraphs and avoid overly long sentences.

Try to avoid grammatical errors. A letter full of errors and typos is difficult to read. Just because email is a fast way to communicate doesn't mean you can relax and forget about spelling.

If you consider your thoughts worthy of expression in a letter, make sure that they are presented correctly.

Avoid public flames - letters written under the influence of emotions. Messages sent at the moment of emotional distress most often only worsen the situation. You may later regret your words, so before you start a flame war, calmly think about the situation.

If your mailer supports different text styling options (bold, italics, etc.), make sure that the recipient's mailer has the same capabilities. At the time this document was written, most Internet e-mail programs were text-only, although this is certainly changing.
Answers

Include in your message excerpts from the letter you are responding to. Remember, email is not a real-time telephone conversation, and your recipient may forget the contents of the previous letter (especially if he is actively corresponding). Include excerpts of the original text in your response, and the recipient will more easily understand what you are talking about.

Don't overdo it by quoting previous messages. Separate the text of your message in some way from the text of the quoted letters, then your answer will be easier to read. The > sign is usually used for these purposes, although this is not the only option.

Try not to mix general and personal information in your message.

Ask yourself: is your answer really necessary? For example, if you received a letter as a result of a fan mailing, it is unlikely that you should notify everyone
addressees about your attitude towards him - it is better to send a letter directly to the author.
Signatures
A signature is a small piece of text at the end of a message, usually containing information about contacts. Most mailers can automatically attach a signature to outgoing messages. A signature is an interesting thing, but you also need to know when to stop it.

If you can, use a signature. It must identify you and contain information about alternative communication channels (regular telephone, fax).
On many systems, particularly those where mail passes through gateways, your signature may be the only identifier.

Make your signature shorter - 4-7 lines are enough. Unreasonably long signatures load communication channels.

Some mailers allow you to add random lines to your signature: be careful with this.
In any case, you need to remember:
- Brevity is the soul of wit
- The concept of “insult” can be interpreted very broadly, so try to avoid expressions that could cause conflict on a religious, racial, or political basis.
- Do not use “local” (understandable only to you and a small circle of people) remarks. You will not find understanding among users of other cities, countries or cultural communities.
- Changing captions work best when they are humorous. Political remarks, for example, may upset some people, while a short joke will only lighten the mood.
  Simple rules of politeness

Email is a means of communication between people, and rules of politeness are indispensable.

If you ask someone with a request, don't forget to say "please." At the same time, thank your interlocutor in response to help.

Don't expect a response immediately. The fact that you have not received an answer to your question within ten minutes does not mean that the recipient is ignoring you.

Remember that there is no reliable mail system. It is not wise to put very personal information in an email unless you intend to encrypt it using a strong encryption program. Remember the recipient. You are not the only person who will suffer if a sensitive message falls into the wrong hands.

Include complete information on the topic in your letter, especially if you expect a qualified response. You must include a detailed description of the problem.
"Smileys"
The correct use of emoticons can give your letter a lively character and even replace gestures. However, don't overdo it.
And finally, remember that e-mail is a means of communicating with real people. Before you send a letter, read it carefully again and put yourself in the recipient's shoes.

Internet communication is increasingly becoming a part of the lives of modern people. With the help of the World Wide Web, we conduct business correspondence, communicate with friends and even make new acquaintances. This means that it is useful for everyone to know the rules of netiquette. If we all start following them, living and communicating on the Internet will become much more enjoyable!

Don't lose face

An interesting fact: many Internet users, while communicating online, sometimes completely forget that on the other side of the monitor they are having a conversation with real people. And this is an unforgivable mistake. Remember, any public recording is your statement in society. If you communicate privately with one person, then the conversation is not much different from a one-on-one meeting. What is the basic rule of netiquette, you ask? It's very simple - observe politeness and decency. Don’t forget to say hello and goodbye, be sure to use the “magic” words: “thank you” and “please”. It is also advisable to follow the rules of the Russian language. Slang, distorted spelling of words and all kinds of letter abbreviations irritate cultured people even when communicating on the Internet. In official and business conversations, this style of communication is unacceptable in principle.

Each community has its own rules

It's easy to remain yourself during a private conversation or business negotiations online. If you want to communicate on some forum or chat, it will be useful to first get acquainted with the basic rules of this online community. Typically, recommendations and prohibitions for participants are included in a separate section. Read it and remember all the most important things. Netiquette rules vary slightly from site to site.

Most often, the following are mandatory: a ban on the use of profanity, a respectful attitude towards all community members, and the inadmissibility of publishing materials that could offend or shock other users. Knowing the rules of the site is useful for everyone, not only to create a good reputation for yourself. Most forums and chats today are regularly reviewed by moderators. And if one of the participants behaves inappropriately, he may simply be banned.

Express your thoughts correctly

Quite often, Internet communication is criticized for its lack of emotionality. And indeed, when talking with a person in person, we always supplement our words with facial expressions, gestures, and control the intonation and timbre of our voice. The situation is completely different with virtual correspondence. Some phrases are difficult to read with the correct intonation the first time. If a punctuation mark is accidentally missed, sometimes it is completely impossible to understand what is being said. Many Internet users lack one simple skill. Which one? The basic rule of netiquette is to communicate respectfully and express your thoughts as clearly as possible. It is very useful to re-read the typed text before sending it. This is the easiest way to correct any errors and inaccuracies, and to reformulate complexly constructed sentences.

Is it always appropriate to use emoticons?

In order to make virtual conversations more emotional and lively, emoticons were invented. These are combinations of punctuation marks or small graphic pictures that help express emotions. Netiquette rules allow the use of emoticons in many instant messaging systems and forums. Very often, the standard form for sending a letter even has a separate menu with these pictures. Emoticons help decorate a message and make it more interesting. Still, you shouldn’t get too carried away with them. About 70% of Internet users admit that the abundance of emoticons in their interlocutors’ messages frankly annoys them. Of course, these “funny pictures” have no place in business conversations and formal conversations.

The Internet is a place of mutual help

Have you learned all the rules of etiquette when communicating online, but in practice much remains unclear to you? Don't hesitate to ask for advice. If you do not understand how to use the functions of a particular site, feel free to ask one of the more experienced users. It is also appropriate to ask for help if difficulties are caused by the slang accepted in the community and some internal rules. Any site also has an official support service. It is appropriate to contact it if you have problems using the resource. Before writing a new message and sending a request, take the time to study the list of popular user questions. Unfortunately, not all people communicating on the Internet follow the rules of netiquette. Many sites offer their users self-organization tools. These are the “mark message as spam” and “complain” functions. Be sure to use buttons like these when necessary.

Communicate online just like in real life

Online dating is a real salvation for a busy modern person. There are millions of sites on the Internet where you can find interesting conversationalists or even potential love partners. It would seem that all you need to do is open the resource you are interested in and choose who exactly you want to make friends with. In practice, everything is a little more complicated. Surely you have at least once received messages from strangers with something like the following content: “Hello, how are you?” Agree, emotions usually arise strange, but more often than not positive. Netiquette rules should be followed at all stages of communication. Of course, the question is: “What is your name?” irrelevant for social networks and offensive to anonymous forum users. So how do you start a conversation with a stranger? It would be most appropriate to write the truth; admit in the first message that you are interested in this person’s profile and would like to chat. Most likely, after such a sincere message, the conversation will begin by itself.

You or you?

In real life, only a small child or a very ill-mannered person would have the audacity to address a stranger on a first name basis. Instinctively, we even call our peers and those noticeably younger than us “You” at the first stages of communication, emphasizing our respect. But on the Internet this rule is not always followed. For some reason, many people consider it appropriate to “poke” their interlocutor without knowing absolutely nothing about him. Netiquette is a network etiquette, the basic rules of which should be known to every user of the World Wide Web. According to the norms of communication on the Internet, the form of contact with the interlocutor should be discussed personally with him. If you are communicating on personal topics with a peer and feel sympathy for your interlocutor, addressing yourself as “you” is really strange. But it is better to clarify this point in advance. So ask: “Perhaps we can address each other as you?” And if you managed to make a pleasant impression on your interlocutor, most likely you won’t have to wait for a refusal.

Forgive others for their mistakes

All lovers of online dating and communication sites from time to time encounter uncultured or simply inadequate interlocutors. Don't be surprised or scared when a similar situation happens to you personally. How to proceed in this case? If a stranger wrote something unpleasant to you, the easiest way is to add him to the “black list,” thereby stopping communication once and for all. If the site does not have such a function, you can contact support. It is worth informing the administration even when you encounter something truly inadequate and frightening. If you are faced with banal ignorance or non-compliance with the culture of communication, you can try to resolve the situation on your own. Be lenient and try to explain the rules of netiquette to your interlocutor briefly. If a newcomer is communicating with you, tell him about how it is customary to correspond in a particular virtual community.

Online Security

Surely you have been told more than once that innocent communication on the Internet is fraught with a lot of dangers. How to avoid them? We must not forget that security measures and netiquette rules are strongly linked to each other. The most important thing is to behave the same way as in real life. Online dating is insidious in that it often creates the illusion of perfect mutual understanding. After chatting with a person for a couple of hours, we sometimes feel as if we have known him for many years. So, no matter how good and nice the interlocutor may seem, keep your distance. Even in private conversations, do not tell any too personal facts about yourself, try not to discuss material matters. In other words, you, of course, can “pour out” your soul to a virtual stranger, but you shouldn’t brag about your big salary and give your full home address. If you decide to meet in person with a pleasant acquaintance from the Internet, choose public places that are always crowded.