by Unknown 2:49 AM 0 comments

The Proper Etiquette

Etiquette in technology governs what conduct is socially acceptable in an online or digital situation. While etiquette is ingrained into culture, etiquette in technology is a fairly recent concept. The rules of etiquette that apply when communicating over the Internet or social networks or devices are different from those applying when communicating in person or by audio (such as telephone) or videophone (such as Skype video). It is a social code of network communication.

Communicating with others via the Internet without misunderstandings in the heat of the moment can be challenging, mainly because facial expressions and body language cannot be interpreted in cyberspace. Therefore, several recommendations to attempt to safeguard against these misunderstandings have been proposed.

Netiquette, a colloquial portmanteau of network etiquette or 'etiquette, is a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks, ranging from and to and

Like the network itself, these developing norms remain in a state of flux and vary from community to community. The points most strongly emphasized about Usenet netiquette often include using simple electronic signatures, and avoiding multiposting, cross-posting, off-topic posting, hijacking a discussion thread, and other techniques used to minimize the effort required to read a post or a thread. Similarly, some Usenet guidelines call for use of unabbreviated English while users ofinstant messaging protocols like SMS occasionally encourage just the opposite, bolstering use of SMS language. However, many online communities frown upon this practice.

Common rules for e-mail and Usenet such as avoiding flamewars and spam are constant across most mediums and communities. Another rule is to avoid typing inall caps or grossly enlarging script for emphasis, which is considered to be the equivalent of shouting or yelling. Other commonly shared points, such as remembering that one's posts are (or can easily be made) public, are generally intuitively understood by publishers of Web pages and posters to Usenet, although this rule is somewhat flexible depending on the environment. On more private protocols, however, such as e-mail and SMS, some users take the privacy of their posts for granted. One-on-one communications, such as private messages on chat forums and direct SMSs, may be considered more private than other such protocols, but infamous breaches surround even these relatively private media. For example, Paris Hilton's Sidekick PDA was cracked in 2005, resulting in the publication of her private photos, SMS history, address book, etc.

A group e-mail sent by Cerner CEO Neal Patterson to managers of a facility in Kansas City concerning "Cerner's declining work ethic" read, in part, "The parking lot is sparsely used at 8 A.M.; likewise at 5 P.M. As managers—you either do not know what your EMPLOYEES are doing; or YOU do not CARE ... In either case, you have a problem and you will fix it or I will replace you." After the e-mail was forwarded to hundreds of other employees, it quickly leaked to the public. On the day that the e-mail was posted to Yahoo!, Cerner's stock price fell by over 22% from a high market capitalization of US$1.5 billion.

Beyond matters of basic courtesy and privacy, e-mail syntax (defined by allows for different types of recipients. The primary recipient, defined by the To: line, can reasonably be expected to respond, but recipients of carbon copies cannot be, although they still might. Likewise, misuse of the CC: functions in lieu of traditional mailing lists can result in serious technical issues. In late 2007, employees of the United States Department of Homeland Security used large CC: lists in place of a mailing list to broadcast messages to several hundred users. Misuse of the "reply to all" caused the number of responses to that message to quickly expand to some two million messages, bringing down their mail server. In cases like this, rules of netiquette have more to do with efficient sharing of resources—ensuring that the associated technology continues to function—rather than more basic etiquette. On Usenet, cross-posting, in which a single copy of a message is posted to multiple groups is intended to prevent this from happening, but many newsgroups frown on the practice, as it means users must sometimes read many copies of a message in multiple groups.