Netiquette

Friends,
 
I get gobs of e-mail, as many of you know. I've passed on enough stuff myself for most of you to agree!
 
On the other hand, I've been "doing e-mail" now since 1994, so I have acquired some ideas I'd like to share. Just as etiquette is the proper way of using manners in life,"Netiquette" is the courteous way to handle internet and email stuff.

First of all:
Please take the names of your precious friends and relatives out of your address book. You can reply to us at anytime by just hitting reply to any of our emails. Our inboxes, probably like yours, are flooded with Forwards that have been sent to the entire address books of hundreds of people. If you are in the habit of doing this, please rethink your actions. Not only are you sending out the names and address of your friends and family, you don't know who they are getting forwarded to. If you continue to do this, Blind Carbon Copy it to them. Then you are protecting your family from spammers. Also, by taking their names out of your address book, you are protecting us from viruses. If you need a list of email addresses, create a document containing them in your word processing program and keep it on your desktop. You can copy and paste addresses from it and protect the ones you love enough to send your emails to from spam and viruses.

Let me know what you think of the following ideas/suggestions:
 
1.    Most of the stories that are circulated via e-mail have been circulated many many times before. Most often a new person to the internet will pass on lots of cute stories, not realizing most of us have heard  it before (many times). I would suggest for most
newcomers to e-mail that you refrain from passing on most stuff for the first six months. After that period of time, if it's new to you, it's more likely to be "fresh" to the rest of us.  On the other hand, having surfed the web for six years, I figure that if it's new to me,
the chances are reasonable that it may be new to you.
 
2.    If a source is sending you lots of "good stuff", meaning news, jokes, stories, occasionally comment back just so the sender can know that you get the stuff, and are interested in still receiving like mannered e-mail items. The person sending you the stuff is trying to communicate with you. Maybe they don't know what to say... why not respond to one of their emails and ask how they're doing?

 
3.    On the other hand, if you've sent out fifty items to a recipient who never responds, maybe it's best to stop sending that person stuff.
 
4.    Beware of file size. A 1.2 megabyte file is going to take forever to download on my SLOW home connection. If I log on in the morning intending to drink coffee while I read the local and national news, I have just been thwarted because while that huge file downloads, I have to wait for it, and can do nothing while I'm waiting but wait. A better way is to e-mail potential recipients with what you have, then if they are interested enough to respond, send it to them.
 
5.    Edit Edit Edit before you send! How many times do I get a
syrupy story with this stuck at the end: 
THIS IS A SIMPLE TEST
> >  If you love God, send this to ten people and the person that
> >  sent  it to you!!!
 
I don't know about you, but "testing" my faith with whether or not I pass on this stuff kinda bugs me, doesn't it bug you too? I wonder how many I have passed on because it says, " If you love the person who sent this, send it back to them!"
Let's edit that stuff out before sending the story!

The other kind that is really irritating is when it says,
"If you send this to 15 people in the next 10 minutes something good will happen but if you don't, something bad will happen"
or even worse:
"If you send this, you are a good person. If you don't, nothing bad will happen but God will know you don't love Him enough to take the time to send an email."

Don't send these on! How did you feel when you got that message? Did you forward it out of guilt? Not forward it and wonder if you jinxed yourself? For heaven's sake don't pass on such junk. Edit it out if the message of the rest of the email is worthwhile.
 
6. e wary of hoaxes and scams, such as the myth that Microsoft will pay you to e-mail, that Congress is about to tax e-mail; that Proctor and Gamble was just on a talk show and is Satanic. Check it out first at: Hoax of the Day ( http://korova.com/virus/hoax.htm)
 or
(http://infoplease.lycos.com/spot/webhoaxes1.html)
 
Use common sense. If it sounds fishy, it probably is. And if you haven't checked it out, don't send it on. Go to http://www.metacrawler.com and check out the story first before you send it.

Incidentally two of the best search engines on the web are www.metacrawler.com (you can search for "phrase") and www.google.com.
 
7.    Please refrain from sending .doc, .com or .exe files to anyone, as that is the best way to spread viruses. I don't even read such files sent to me anymore unless I know who they are from and that I am expecting such files from them. Even then, a virus can be sent attached to a perfectly good business document, and then send itself to everyone in your address book (which I hope is now empty of email addresses!)

And please install and use a reputable antivirus program. Norton AntiVirus and McAfee are the most popular and they are reliable and not expensive. Far less expensive than replacing all the data on your hard drive... or replacing your entire computer.

 
8.    Links to web pages are better sent than the web page. The download time
for a link is nothing. The download time for a web page sent can be huge depending on the graphics.
 
9.    If you wouldn't say it to the guys in the fellowship hall at church, why are you sending it to ME? Again, the speed of e-mail often creates scenarios about the propriety of what we send. Or to whom we send. A Supreme Court Justice in South Carolina has just been censured for forwarding a racist email joke that he would have never never told public.
 
10.    Don't hit REPLY TO ALL unless you REALLY mean to send your answer to everyone on the original sender's list.

These are just "netiquette" items that, if we all followed these guidelines, would make the internet a safer and more pleasant place to surf.