Todd's Netiquette Page

The Internet, e-mail and USENET newsgroups have been around way before you bought your first Internet service provider account. I've been on the 'net since 1989, and I'm just a pup! Here are some tips that will help you appear savvy and experienced, and avoid common newbie breaches of Internet etiquette (aka Netiquette).

If you've been referred to this page, perhaps you've had a transgression and I wanted to share some info. Or maybe you think me a pompous poo poo head, or maybe I was just cranky. At any rate, take these tips in good stride and you'll look like a old wizard in no time!
Best Regards, Todd 2/15/02. [ Go up to Todd's home page ]

• RTFF - Read the (Fine) FAQ. FAQ's are Frequently Asked Questions. If you are communicating on an on-line forum on a given topic, odds are that long-time participants see a lot of the same questions over and over from newbies. These FAQ's are assembled frequently into documents that attempt to address these frequently asked questions. See STFW below to find such info before leaping to posting your seemingly-new-and-revolutionary question. Learn to have confidence that if you're experiencing a problem on a common product, others have probably asked a similar question before!

• STFW - Search the (Fine) Web.
  The web is amazing. People have goofy pages and detailed good info on some stuff you'd never think of (say, bunnies, Caribbean cruises, building computers, drums and bass, and Microtek scanner problems??). There is also an entire world of on-line forums (USENET newsgroups aka Internet discussion groups) on almost every topic imaginable. Heck, bass guitar players have their pick of alt.guitar.bass, rec.music.makers.bass, and alt.bass. If you're a rabbit nut, see alt.pets.rabbits for a whole community of rabbit nuts. If you are having problems with an Asus brand motherboard in your computer, check out alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus. You get the idea... Learn to use a search engine to find your answers.
  Recommendations:
  • Use google.com for searching for web pages. Add the word "FAQ" to keywords you think will narrow down a question you think might be fairly common.
    
  • Use groups.google.com for searching Internet discussion group postings on a given topic. If you know what newsgroups the info is likely to be in, use the advanced search to narrow it down by group, date, etc.
  • FAQS.org archives the official FAQ's for every newsgroup. Note that the there are a lot of FAQ's that aren't associated with a given newsgroups, so be sure to STFW as well.

• RTFM - Read the (Fine) Manual.
  Many questions can be answered by reading the manual. Don't have a manual? STFW on your specific manufacturer and product name along with the word "manual" and see if the manufacturer has put one on line. Or visit the manufacturers web site.

• Quote the original message in your responses

  This helps people know what the heck you're talking about. Don't assume that folks remember what they said in the email to which your responding, or that they have just read the news posting to which you're responding (they often arrive out of order, or maybe not at all). Be sure to trim this quotation down to only what is needed to establish context (see rule 3 below). Note that the traditional method of quoting has you add your new comments to the bottom, and, darnit, it's the standard! Play along. English reads top to bottom. Click this link for further arguments. If you think "but they'll have to scroll down to see what I wrote," then perhaps you haven't trimmed your quotations quite enough....

• Use plain text, not HTML, not Word attachments. Heck, if all Internet standards can be specified entirely in plain text, surely your witty thoughts about your hobby or interest can be too!

  Email and newsgroups are plain text worlds--please help keep them that way by turning off the default "HTML" settings in many popular mail and newsreaders. Specifically, set the message format to "plain text only" and for the text to wrap at 72 columns (some folks still read on text terminals 80 characters wide--72 leaves room for some quoting). For example, here's how to do so for both mail and news in Outlook. All other mailers should have similar options.

  Go to Tools>Options
  	Click on the "send" tab
  		Select "Plain Text" for "News Sending Format"
  		Click Settings for Plain Text
              Choose either uuencode or "MIME Encode text using NONE"
  			Automatically wrap text at:   72
  			Check "Indent original text with >"
  
  		Select "Plain Text" for "Mail Sending Format"
  		Click Settings for Plain Text
              Choose either uuencode or "MIME Encode text using NONE"
  			Automatically wrap text at:   72
  			Check "Indent original text with >"
  

• Trim your quotations.
  You know that it's good practice to quote an email or news posting to establish context to the comments you are adding, but don't quote 80 lines of discussion and add a "Me too!" at the end.  

• Signatures 4 lines or less!
  It's not a resume, it's not a chalkboard for large ascii art, it's not a soapbox on which to post your philosophical or geopolitical treatise. It's a signature. Brevity is golden. Whatever you put in it will be seen every time you post so choose wisely lest thee be Warlorded (an essential FAQ) or otherwise flamed. Traditional newsreaders enforced a hard 4-line limit. If yours doesn't, strongly consider enforcing one on yourself!

• Don't post binary files (mp3's pictures) to newsgroups that aren't in the alt.binaries* hierarchy!
  It's a no-no because news administrators set up their servers expecting a given amount of traffic on various newsgroups. Posting a binary to a text newsgroup puts unexpected load on every of the thousands of news servers in the world, and it causes unpleasant surprises to those reading news and having to wait for a huge file to download. Post a link to a web site instead. There are lots of places to get free web sites for this purpose.
   
  
• The (reverse) Hierarchy of evils in email.
  1. Plain text is best! Never ever use a Word document, Powerpoint flier, huge attachment, or HTML when plain text will do! Remember, the entire library of technical documents that define how the Internet works (Internet RFC's) are plain text. Do you really NEED the graphics and colors to get your point across? If not, send plain text!
  2. HTML is more evil than text. Ask yourself "Do I really NEED fonts and colors for this email?" On the plus side, everyone has a web browser these days, and they're available for every computing platform known to man. Most modern word processors and spreadsheets give you the built-in option to save or export stuff as HTML if you need to express a table. Most people have web browsers (Internet Explorer or Netscape), but not all mail readers handle HTML natively, so it can still be a pain. The main reason not to use HTML is that not all mail readers support it well, it's the hallmark of unsolicited email (SPAM), and it's less bandwidth efficient and less univerally readable than plain text.
  3. Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files are more evil than HTML, but justified if you have absoutley must preserve a notion of a specific page layout. You can create Acrobat files if you have Adobe Acrobat. The reader portion of Acrobat is a free viewer that runs on nearly every computing platform known to man. You can get as fancy as you want in layout if you require, but with some work, your audience can eventually read it. Caveat: a lot of people (esp computer novices like Mom with her AOL account) do not have Acrobat installed, and may not be patient enough or experienced enough to download Acrobat reader over a modem. And don't forget that attachments are a pain to launch. People may not bother.
  4. Microsoft Office or specialized attachments are the most evil because they assume the most and can actually be a security threat. They require a PC, Windows, and assume that you are reading email with a graphical mail reader, and that have the appropriate application to open the document. Many users don't have Word/Excel (and even if they do, do they have a version as new as yours?), many people are using alternative platforms like Mac and Linux where Office is either far less common or simply not available, and still others receive so much email that the extra time and effort to launch attachments is a pain.

  The all-too-typical, annoying example: You get an email from a friend with a fancy event flier as a Powerpoint or Word attachment about a party or some event. Say you read mail on a plain text terminal, or on an alternate platform such as Mac or Linux. Maybe your company mail system is archaic and doesn't handle attachments, or maybe your company has been burned by viruses and worms and filters out attachments from external mail. You have to forward the mail to your home PC because where you have MS office installed. Then, wait till you get home, open the attachment on the one computer that has Office on it. Then, all you see that it's a one page when/where/why flier with goofy graphics and pretty colors! This could've been done in 5 lines of plain text and saved everyone the pain of opening the attachment.

Useful and pertinent linkage

• Jukka Korpela's page on a similar theme, that has evolved since I wrote mine to have a lot more meat than what you're reading here.
• Email Postnews answers your netiquette questions A classic tongue in cheek response to several questions on USENET foibles. A staple of news.announce.newusers.
• Usenet Newsgroup basics. A now-archived page where Google.com instructed folks where newsgroups originated and how to avoid getting flamed as a clueless newbie! Before they decided to try to sweep usenet under the rug and form their own groups.
• Dos and Don'ts of usenet posting from google.com
• How do I quote correctly in USENET?
• Bottom vs. top posting and quotation style on Usenet
• Usenet signature FAQ--do's and don'ts of those closing "signatures" and the 4-line limit!

Page created: Feb 15, 2002 Last updated: Jan 4, 2008 (fixed broken google groups links)