This isn’t just true for Darksites. It holds true everywhere on the internet: IRC chatrooms, e-mail, message boards…As a person who has been on the internet since 1995, long enough to take it for granted, I forget that there are many to whom cyberspace is new and exciting and just a little bit daunting. Netiquette helps us all get along smoothly. It’s not about fussy rules, it’s about making things easy for other people to get to know you and converse with you.
Here are the basic rules that I have learned. Yes, some of them I learned the hard way.
1) When sending e-mail, cut the forwarding path. Don’t show all the addresses to whom the e-mail got sent originally; a spammer might harvest them. Don’t leave in the >>>’s - these make the message hard to read.
2) DON’T TYPE IN ALL CAPS. This, too, is hard to read. People will understand that what you say is important without your “shouting” it in caps.
3) Consider using a spell checker if you are poor at spelling. Try to use proper grammer, punctuation, and capitialization. try not 2 type 4 others in hip-hop shorthand. (It’s hard to decipher. Really. Not everybody speaks the language or reads the shorthand easily. Your message will be more powerful if it is written in plain English. Or whatever language you speak in.)
4) When posting to a list or a message board, avoid one-liners. “Hi.” “I agree.” This is considered clutter. People don’t want to have to sort through clutter looking for messages that have actual content.
5) When replying to a list, cut and paste. Keep only the part of the message that you are directly replying to. We read it once; we don’t need to read it again. If you are on a digest, this is especially critical. Many people have limited bandwidth and/or slow connections and don’t have the time or the space to scroll past gobs and gobs of messages to reach your comment at the very bottom.
6) Do not spam. This means do not send out advertisements, petitions, jokes, poems, etc unless you know for a fact that these will be appreciated. If you are on a list, and the list has a rule saying “stay on topic,” do not send messages that have nothing to do with the topic of the list unless everybody else disregards that rule. This, alas, was the first rule that I found out the hard way. I sent jokes to all my friends, and to a list, because I had so many friends on the list. I lost my posting privileges, and pissed off some friends. By the way, most internet petitions (esp. anything that says “you must pass this on or something dire will happen!”) are bunk.
7) Do not flame. Heated debate means saying, “I strenuously disagree with you and these are the reasons why I think you are wrong.” Flaming means “you moron, fuck you and all your family blah blah blah.” There is a fine line. The best way to see the line is to remember that the flame attacks the person, not the idea.
When signing a guest book, leave the frou-frou out. Don’t make huge blinking images. Just sign. (A link to a small image is okay.)
9) When applying for awards for your website, sign the guestbook and try to look at the rest of the site.
10) When creating web pages, make them easy to view. Don’t use dark type on dark background, or light type on light background. Don’t use loud, glaring, harsh, busy backgrounds that hurt the eye. Don’t use blinking words or too much animation or java. If you use music, try to make it easy to turn off somehow (especially if it is very loud). If you use images that are not public domain, and they are not yours, give credit where credit is due.
11) Long posts in e-mail, lists, forums, etc are okay. What’s not okay is typing long rambling paragraphs that are hard to read. Keep your paragraphs short; nobody likes to read dense prose while fighting a headache from a glowing screen.
12) Emoticons (:P, >:|, etc) and actions (*jumps up purring*, *huggles!*, etc) are best used very sparingly.
13) Remember that when you post a message, nobody can tell if you are being serious or not jst by looking at you. Emotions cannot be conveyed visually. The only clue that your reader has to your state of mind is the message itself. Strong words can come across as anger, aggression, or worse if you do not make it clear that you do not mean to attack somebody.
14) Don’t troll. This means don’t lurk on a list or a site hoping to find somebody to attempt net sex with, don’t “flame bait” and say thyings that are offensive just because you want to start a fight, don’t use the internet to attempt to convert somebody to your religion. Ever.
15) If somebody asks that you keep a conversation private, think real hard before taking it public. Likewise - and this is a conmmon sense precaution - if you want to say something in private, like “Here’s my phone number,” be very careful that you are saying it privately rather than to the list! I’ve made this mistake a few times, and the results were catastrophic.
16) If you are typing in anger, remember that once you have posted something, you can’t un-post it. You might want to consider saving your angry message and then re-reading it a few hours later before deciding to actually post it. Yep. I’ve sent a few things in anger and regretted it later, too. Mending fences takes more energy than not breaking them in the first place.
17) When using sig files, keep them less than five lines long. (A sig file is a quote or a signature that you attach to your messages when using e-mail.) Long sig files take up bandwidth.
18) Pretty “stationery” files (coloured backgrounds, some with music or images or animation attached) might look cool, but many people have a hard time downloading them. Some can’t even open the message if it is written on stationery. The same holds true for messages that have been written in HTML. Consider using plain ASCII (type).
19) Don’t engage in a private conversation on a public forum. If the banter gets to be more than three or four posts, take it to private e-mail or ICQ or a chatroom.
20) Expect heated discussions if you bring up controversial topics.
21) Consider “lurking” in a chatroom, on a list, etc until you have a good idea of what the atmosphere is like and what kind of posts are appreciated.
Netiquette is basically about courtesy - keep the limitations and sensitivities of other people in mind when you post. It’s about common sense. It’s not hard to follow. And no, no “internet cops” will arrest you for violating the rules of netiquette, but you might lost posting privileges on some lists, or even worse, lose your audience. Nobody wants that.
25 comments ↓
This is very funny. You’re a great teacher.
What are you trying to teach, pardon, I didn’t get it. Would you please give me some private hours, in English lesson. Thank you.
Aside from the benighted reply post above mine from Darklady (get with the program dear). I am in complete agreement with this post.
Well done Gp, I understand how difficult that would have been to put to words.
It is a pity though that ppl have to be taught basic common sence. However, hopefully they’ll listen to what you have to say and learn from your experience and net-wisdom!
I suggest you work a little harder on your idioms.
Ah, Darklady doesn’t like me for some reason. I think she’s on a crusade because she didn’t like my porn or something. either that, or she’s got a Secret Identity and she’s one of my enemies from the Vampire Church or the House of St “Germaine” or another one of the groups that I ripped to shreds.
You are right. i have to work on my idioms, i have to work on my English, but no one talks English to me cause I’m Italian and live in Sweden. And people don’t speak another language when they ‘ve got an existing language to communicate, u know.
I am so sorry for my bad grammar, my idioms and my poor English.
BTW: DarkLady, i logged in my nickname but I don’t know why it didn’t work, again.
How make your soulmate happy?:
You dial her phonenumberand tell her what you think about her and tell her if you will ever move your ass to meet her or not and don’t make her suffer any longer.
Sorry, I’m a bad teacher.
Unfortunately the ones most in need of lessons will not comprehend they are.
Thank you…i have done my share of pissing people off because i’m a computer moran. I’m gonna have to save this.
faet55
…I have no idea where, what or how that “soulmate” post fits in. It really does not make much sense at all.
on a semi-related note, there’s nothing i find more irritating, and downright stupid, than completely antisocial people who hop on irc with names like ‘DarkLurker’ and huge attitudes. you go to them to say hello because you figure if they’re in a CHAT room they want to CHAT, and then they get all up in your face with their introspective morbidities and say “get away, you fool”. it’s actually laughable that twats like this jump on irc (friendless in real life, hoping someone will talk to them) and then act like they’re all superior. chances are, if they’re earning $80,000 per year for “doing nothing” (as 70% of tech-headed goths claim), they’d have better stuff to do than sit around not talking on irc.
basically, if you’re getting on irc, or a chat room, or an online discussion group, your responsibility is to chat. otherwise you’re just an irritant, like that droplet of piss on the toilet seat: you are not productive, you are not constructive, you are not useful. you’re wasting bandwith, time, and space.
that’s what i think. reason i say this is because i have a profound loathing for the majority of internet-savvy gothic types. they’re beautiful, popular, superior and rich (of course), but they’re on irc 18 hours per day, and don’t talk to anyone except other people who they consider beautiful, popular, superior and rich. essentially, complete and utter redundancies.
It’s easy to work on idioms - native speakers of English don’t even notice that they are using them! (By the way, “work on” is an idiom.)
Here’s what I tell my students. I hope this helps.
1) Watch American television and movies. For basic grammar lessons, children’s television is actually pretty useful (and it’s so much fun anyway). Broadcast news is good for listening comprehension. If you want to learn about the culture, and pick up some slang and idioms, watch movies and comedies. If the speech is too fast to be intelligible, use closed captions (or subtitles if you are renting a cassette).
2) Practice, practice, practice. You’re on the internet. That’s a good start. Try to study English for at least two hours a day.
3) Consider immersing yourself by spending a couple of weeks in America or England or some other English-speaking country, in the house of a friend.
4) Keep a daily diary in English. Try to use new grammar and vocabulary when you write in it.
5) Flash cards help a lot with memorization. Use them for idioms, prepositions, and new words. Consider using them for rules of grammar.
6) English is weird. For every rule, there is an exception. Many times, things just don’t make sense. Accept this. Compared to other languages, English makes no sense. It’s a hard langiage to learn. It’s normal to struggle when doing your lessons. Heck, most Americans don’t even speak the language correctly.
7) Try to think in English - out loud if necessary.
Hope this helps
But we do like pizza.
How can you be beautiful, popular, superior, and rich while wasting time on IRC eighteen hours a day? That’s not redundant, that’s oxymoronic.
I mean, good grief. I’m not rich
I don’t think my ass could handle sitting on anything for 18 hours a day, may my ass be rich or poor it is still tender.
Course, my ass is not beautiful, popular, superior (unless you count superior size) OR rich, so I guess I don’t qualify all the way round.
Now, now, no hitting the bong in between sentences.
“If we all went to hell…perhaps…as he wanted to.”
Quote by Aidee
I thought DarkLady might know what this meant.
Perhaps the soulmates are aidee and DarkLady, if not god damn it GrandPoobah, why don’t you call her! She loves you damn it all to hell. All she wants is to see you- and you wont even move out to Sweden and be with her! That’s just cold.
faet55
Glorious Day! Thank you, precious Mistress!
Thank you from MORE of us than are saying so….Bless you!
I agree, though, with some of the replies…..the ones who need it the most either won’t, (or can’t), “get it”.
A valiant, noble, and appreciated attempt. Thank you again!
HDJ
Poobah, I think your rules stray beyond what you claim them to be in your opening paragraph. They create restrictions to aa persons freedom to type as they choose. I agree with most of the rules and wish people would stick to them, but the way you have written them seems very condascending towards other users. I think you should have put more emphasis on the fact that they were suggestions and that they came from your own opinion, rather than making it seem like they were the correct way for anyone to communicate.
Who? What? Sweden? That wasn’t meant to be directed to me, was it? I’m really lost now.
I can’t pretend to be anything other than what I am. It isn’t nice to be proud, condescending, and a know-it-all, but that’s what I am. Even when I’m polite, I’m an arrogant bitch. But I refuse to apologize for being myself.
I agree with nearly all of them, especially having spent so much time on the internet. Sometimes it is just better to sit and watch before you wade into the fray. I do that with nearly every message board/newsgroup I visit. If you’re unsure of the way anything will be taken, sit and wait, and see how things flow. People do not like it when you upset their community.
However, I am a big emoticon person. Not necessarily all those annoying smilies, but more of the *grin* *glare* variety. After working in CS on an internet game, I’ve discovered that many many people take what you say the wrong way. If there are two ways to take something, 9 times out of 10 the customer is going to take it the offensive way.
Emoticons help get the point across better then leaving it be. Unfortunately, your true intentions cannot be picked up on the internet. That’s the drawback of a text medium. However, certain well placed Emoticons can help make your point understand where you are lacking the appropriate tones of voice and facial expressions.
~Kitashla
It’s the people who use constant IRC-isms, constantly peppering their sentences with *huggles* and *smiles curiously* and *looks at you seductively* and *smiles sweetly* and
=:( etc etc that I was thinking of. I’m sure you know what i’m talking about. Moderate use of emoticons is like moderate use of punctuation - it helps things flow. Overuse is just - eeeeeeeew.
They don’t create anything more than suggestions, one and all. If you’re reading more into some of them than others, it’s just the way you’re seeing it. I think they are marvellous. I also believe the large part of them to be condensed and digested from the best sites on the web, (which I believe Darksites to be one of…). So, while the Mistress may be part author and part editor, she’s at least 100% on-the-mark. There is FAR too much “WWW-ish” being typed into countless keyboards these days. A lot of people like to call it “a freedom of expression” or, “the code of the rebellious generation” as wonderful euphemisms for slacking.
There are also WAY too many, HERE included, waiting to write tomorrow’s headline. (Chicken Hawks) I have no idea what our membership role looks like, but I BET the average age to be between 16 and 20. Decidecdly female, too. Re-read the threads about the explosion of “GothPorn” sites…
Also….notice the “Anonymous” posts in our “chat”, “BBS”, and even here in the main threads, where some prep gets in and flames us. or another twisted soul flames religions/a religion. Even each other. I wish there was an IP-ID system which would only allow three “anon” hits to a site before you had to register. Talk about your draconian egalitarianism! GP is being a little slack, herself!
Also, I bet she’s JUST retentive enough to use a spell checker!
Nope. I only use a spell checker when I do a final draft of something on the word processor. Otherwise, I rely on my having been the second runner-up in my lower school’s spelling bee…
Yeah but I doubt those people are truly rich superior or beautiful. Its been my experience that the people who spend that much time on the internet are usually no life havin, fat sloppy, pretending to be someone their not, types. I mean you know as well as I do how many times you hear someone tell people all kinds of wonderful things that you know aren’t true. Yeah sure I did that yesterday.