Talk:Netiquette

Back to basics

This page f***ing sucks and was reflecting people's views without any recourse to WP:NPOV etc. I've got back to basics and taken the RFC as the basis for the article. I was quite disappointed to see much of the opinionated editing that had been going on where people wished to forced their POV, rather than reflect the nature of Netiquette.

Also there was a considerable amount of waffle which I have removed.

And many of the references linked to dead sites.

If you now wish to add or edit anything, please provide an in-page reference. Thanks

 BRIANTIST  (talk) 08:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

About half of the page as it stands still could be stricken. Most of the article remains either OR-laden lists of advice or similar lists pulled from the RFC rather than coverage of third party analysis of common rules. A rewrite, or at least deletion of those huge advice lists, may still be warranted. As long as we have those lists, edits like this are bound to continue. If we replace them with statements like "ZD editorial author John Doe recommends that people do X on teh intertubes" would result in a much, much stronger article. Can move massive lists of advice elsewhere/to other wikis where OR is acceptable. MrZaius^talk 08:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

phew - That's better. Been wanting to do that for ages. Now we have an article rather than a never-ending list of OR. MrZaius^talk 20:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

In response to the recent revert, note that the Wikipedia is a place for encyclopedic, independently sourced coverage of a given topic, not summaries of RFCs. Mass deletion of independently sourced information is hardly a positive edit. Ultimate goal here should be creating a FA-level article, not rewriting the RFC and publishing a list of advice that carries with it inherent WP:NPOV issues. MrZaius^talk 11:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Examples

I removed the lines about Neal Patterson, since they don't seem particularly relevant to netiquette. Netiquette is usually concerned with the social conventions of good behaviour over online communication systems; civility in emails might qualify, but the Patterson story isn't so much about him being uncivil as much as his emails being leaked. I believe it was meant to be an example of how 'private' messages aren't necessarily private, but we already have Paris Hilton's PDA as a perfect example of that. Terraxos 20:52, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The thing is that the example is unique in having such a clear and obvious monetary cost associated with it, given the dip in stock value. Additionally, it was discussed in the context of etiquette in the linked print book about email. Restored the sourced material for now, but open to discussion on clarifying the text. Also added another similar example for the DHS. MrZaius^talk 18:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I would expect from such a page as Netiquette to provide an organized system of examples, or at least a formatted list or two. Providing examples via long sentences and the words "such as" do not educate the reader about the topic... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.156.68.135 (talk) 09:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Forwarding

Is it considered bad etiquette to forward emails without permission? 66.208.12.125 15:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but who cares. Tirus (talk) 18:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Blind Usenet Users

• Some users of Usenet are legally blind and not capable of understanding or affording text to speech programs and such. Is there anywhere that anyone knows of that the so-called rules are recognized as not applying to their use of ALL CAPS so they can see?Nirigihimu (talk) 17:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the question. Capital letters are only marginally larger than regular ones. One would expect that the users in question would be using high-contrast color schemes and larger fonts instead the above. That said, I'm not immediately aware of any precedent or source that would back up the above. MrZaius^talk 04:51, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't the place to have this discussion, you need to find a source for this claim. There are people with reading disabilities that suffer from all caps too, so it isn't a no brainer issue. --129.19.132.73 (talk) 13:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

"Network"?

I always thought it was a portmanteau of "Internet" and "Etiquette"... Moocowsrule (talk) 03:07, 7 November 2008 (UTC)moocowsrule

The earlier sources available seem to suggest the other meaning, from earlier BBSes and isolated networks, but it still makes sense. It just seems counter-intuitive nowadays due to the decreasing number of networks that remain isolated from the Internet. MrZaius^talk 17:21, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Uh... what? I'm not real "technological"... Moocowsrule (talk) 04:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)moocowsrule

There were networks where this term was used prior to the Stevens Intartubes. See Bulletin board system. MrZaius^talk 04:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Re back to basics

Article is missing the most basic concepts of (n)etiquette.

You can ask for people to follow your rules of netiquette and frown at lack of compliance. But demanding compliance where you suffer no resource impact is simply being inflexible, rude and boorish.

In real life most people pat ourselves on the back for making allowances for people with Tourettes. Further many real life associates are tolerated despite being a bit loud, because we realize that tendency is very hard for them to control. We can tell from other content that loudness alone is not being used in a hostile manner. But on the net people with old, all caps teletype for the BLIND software are met with "get an update to your software or get out of this forum". Similar kids on locked down computers might have difficulty with changing CAPS or other aspects.

Ask any prominant Miss Manners column and you will find their advice is to look for multiple forms of etiquette breach or actual harm before concluding hostile intent and claiming your etiquette must be strictly enforced for civilized and productive interaction. The internet mixes people from many cultural etiquettes and at many levels of education. So in fact based on this lack of consideration and flexibility, some of the self-appointed, "quick to condemn" netiquette enforcers are among the rudest people on the Internet.

What to do. If you find your personality to be a bit brittle on the topic of following the rules, then simply do not renew invitations (access) to rule breakers when everyone else gets one. However it is generally considered rude to withdraw a standing/permanent invitation (logon) without actual hostile behavior. So bouncing or banning someone for rules infractions that were not intended as harmful to anyone is premature...unless such infractions have potential for significant resource waste and it has been explained before. Wasting your time repeatedly explaining the rules is NOT such a resource waste in itself since you had an option to be quiet. If you are so brittle over purely technical violations that you must have action...perhaps you should not be involved with site activities.

Remember a call for conformity by someone popular or in a popular clique can just as easily be a test of social power, as it is a call to improve social interactions, save resources, or spare feelings. Do not adopt additional rules too quickly or without mentally testing them for both good and bad effects. Too many unjustified rules is simply cumbersome or elitist. The old adage "More rules make for a more polite society" is a form of elitism and the smartest advocates of it are well aware of that aspect. 69.23.124.142 (talk) 07:05, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The only netiquette specific points above are covered in the article and, more importantly, this is not a howto or guide, it's an encyclopedia article seeking to define the term and document its impact. Lacking further context, I'm not sure any of the points made above can or should be added - Could you please clarify your request? MrZaius^talk 17:45, 28 February 2009 (UTC) PS:Took the liberty of moving the above to a new section prior to responding, for clarity's sake - The former section was nearly 2 years old, and has no clear link to anything found here.

This article is pretty poor. Two sections: "History", "Common characteristics", the latter featuring detailed accounts of obscure and specific cases. That information may be relevant, but it should be in another section. Also IBM should not be mentioned in the intro, it's just an example, it could be in a chapter called "Examples". Anyway, just sharing my opinion right now, don't have time to do anything about it. --Kai Carver (talk) 10:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have said, not that the article is poor, but that it needs reworking. It has some good content, but it's hard to understand from the point of view of someone trying to learn about the subject, because it goes too quickly into details and examples. --Kai Carver (talk) 10:49, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Rules of the Internet

Why does "Rules of the Internet" redirect to this? most people who are searching for the "rules of the internet" are looking for this: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rules%20Of%20The%20Internet&defid=2799580 174.95.13.163 (talk) 01:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. It shouldn't, as it's under the internet phenomenon heading and can be readily sourced to hold it's own article. It's a meme, not actual rules. Some, to be specific Rule 34 and 35, are still memes but they continuously are obeyed by sheer statistical averages (even by those who have no idea of the Rules). Either way it's no sort of "newtiquette" (the article itself pretty ridiculous).

I happily support it being removed, outside of simple referencing, into an article of its own again. Whoever deleted the previous article and added it here is an idiot. 121.215.138.200 (talk) 06:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Sutter Cane

Reference to IBM's Redwiki guidelines

Current reference to IBM's guidelines (#cite_ref-13) points to a wrong page, I guess it needs to be point to the following URL http://www-01.ibm.com/redbooks/community/display/redbookswiki/Writing+guidelines+and+etiquette#Writingguidelinesandetiquette-Whattowrite —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.56.134.82 (talk) 07:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)