"NETIQUETTE" -- NEW RULES AND POLICIES FOR THE INFORMATION AGE.

• Author: Sloboda, Brian

Technologies are changing faster than ever before, and with these changes come new opportunities -- and new rules -- governing how people should communicate and interact. Common courtesy is something that your mother probably taught you as a child. Saying "please" and "thank you", never interrupting, and being polite were the rules that most of us grew up with. These rules typically applied to face-to-face interactions, or conversations on the telephone.

Because of technological innovation, we now have rules for technological interactions. The new rules include principles like do not flame, send spam or type in ALL CAPS. This article will discuss these new rules, and explain why they are important. It will conclude with a discussion of a sample policy that electric cooperatives might adopt to address employee use of electronic communications.

Regular users of the Net have adopted unofficial rules and standards to govern behavior of individual users and providers of web sites. Just as in the real world, not everyone says "please" and "thank you." In the cyber world not everyone adheres to netiquette. However, in the cyberworld, if you violate one of these rules, there will be people who are happy to inform you of your violation, and they are rarely subtle.

We will examine the new rules of the information age from two perspectives, the individual user and the company that maintains a web presence and provides Internet access to its employees. Along the way, we will also explain some of the "locations" where these rules must be followed: e-mail, Usenet, chat rooms, and message boards.

E-mail

Electronic mail has become one of the most popular aspects of the electronic age. It allows for practically instantaneous communication with anyone who is on-line. In 1998, 3.4 trillion e-mail messages were exchanged in the United States, equal to over 12,000 e-mails for every American.

With that much information going quickly from user to user, it is easy to make mistakes or violate the societal norms of the electronic world. It is easy to write an e-mail that will be taken the wrong way by the reader. Humor sarcasm, anger and other emotions don't always convey in an e-mail in the way that we intend. When speaking face-to-face or over the telephone, nonverbal gestures and changes in voice signal to the listener the intent of the message. With e-mail, we should carefully review what we write before we send it. B-mail has amazing value because it is fast. But that speed has a downside: it gives us the opportunity to fire off a message that may not truly convey our thoughts, or that conveys thoughts that we really don't want to send.

One interesting communication innovation on the Internet has been the development of what are called emoticons or smilies. An emoticon is an expression of emotion typed into a message using standard keyboard characters. Some common ones are :)(smile), :( (frown), and ;) (wink). (Exhibit 1 provides a list of other common emoticons.)

People who type an e-mail message in ALL CAPS are sending a negative message. This is the Internet version of yelling and is considered rude. Don't do it unless you are certain you need to. And note that it is easy to accidentally hit the Caps Lock key on your keyboard without even realizing it.

It is also easy to send an e-mail when you are angry. It only takes a few seconds to reply to an e-mail in a knee-jerk manner. Making a telephone call gives you a few seconds to cool off. Walking to someone's office gives you time to think about what you are going to say. E-mail is instantaneous. Once that e-mail is sent, there is virtually no way of getting it back without the recipient knowing. A good way to deal with the urge to send an angry e-mail is to go ahead and write it. Let your emotions out. Once you are finished and ready to send the e-mail to the unsuspecting target, delete it. Then write the real one.

There are some other things to remember about e-mail. Never forget that it is a person on the other end with whom you are communicating. Humanity is sometimes taken out of our digital age. Writing an e-mail to someone should be done with the same care and thoughtfulness as a telephone call or a traditional letter. Just because the person will be reading it on a computer screen does not mean that you should be rude, insensitive, or not type your name at the end of the message. While these may seem like little things, they are the things that keep us civilized.

Most people with e-mail accounts receive jokes in their inbox. It is a safe bet that if you are receiving the joke, others on your address list have as well. It is not necessary to forward every joke you receive to your friends and coworkers. Remember that when you e-mail something to someone, they have to pay to read it. It takes up bandwidth (the transmission capacity of an electronic line such as a communications network, computer bus or computer channel) and time to download into their computer. If the joke is in the form of an attachment, then the size is even larger.

Also remember that when you forward something, your name is forever attached to it. If the joke is insensitive or politically incorrect, you must be prepared to have your name associated with the material forever. You have no control over who will be the next person to receive it after you send it.

Usenet

Usenet, sometimes called newsgroups, are the community bulletin boards of the Internet. They were around long before the Internet exploded in popularity By the end of 1997, 50,000 newsgroups were in existence.

Newsgroups are not housed on any one server and no one individual is responsible for them. Each newsgroup is devoted to a specific topic, such as alt.sports.football, or if you want to be more specific, alt.sports.football.pro.washredskins.

Newsgroups are broken into eleven different categories, with alt being the largest and most common. (See Exhibit 2 for a list with descriptions.) "Alt" is short for Alternative Newsgroup, and is devoted to a specific topic. In a newsgroup, messages form "threads," one person replying to what another has written, and someone replying to that, until the discussion ends.

To gain access to a newsgroup, you need a piece of software called a newsreader. Both Netscape Communicator and Microsoft's Outlook Express have newsreaders. Others are available on the Internet. However, not everyone will have access to the same newsgroups. This will depend on your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Some ISPs provide access to more newsgroups than others. While one ISP may have over 10,000 newsgroups available to its consumers , another may have 30,000. Also, the messages will not be there forever. Depending on the ISP, the messages will be deleted anywhere from one week to one month after they have been posted to the newsgroup. There are a few services such as Deja.com which allow you to search past discussions and post replies if your ISP does not have a certain newsgroup.

The rules of netiquette that apply to e-mail also apply here. Users should be even more diligent in their efforts to obey the rules of cyberspace when writing articles or replies in newsgroups because people will point out your indiscretions. When this happens, it can be an unpleasant experience. Civility will take a backseat to the power that a keyboard and anonymity gives to some users. It is in some ways similar to road rage-- an emotional overreaction to a small infraction. The best thing to do is ignore flames, aggressive attacks sent by others. It is not worth your time or the time of others to respond. If you have done something wrong, simply learn from your mistake. Retaliating will not solve anything.

Often this type of "flame war" escalates and others in the newsgroup are drawn in. The best suggestion when joining a newsgroup is initially to stay in the background and lurk. Don't write anything until you have spent time reading the messages. It will not take long to spot the patterns. There are bound to be a couple of regular contributors who want to boss the group. Ignore them. Don't play their game.

One problem is that the others in the group will see your e-mail address. If you want to include an email address but do not want to use your primary one, there are several Internet services that allow you to set-up an e-mail address for free. Yahoo, Hotmail and Mail.com all offer free web-based e-mail services. You can access your email account from any computer that has access to the Internet. Using this type of service will help to...