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tavez

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May 27, 2004, 7:55:37 AM5/27/04
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i need to know the do's and don't's of netiquette


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Steveo

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May 27, 2004, 8:46:17 AM5/27/04
to
well...@hotmail.com (tavez) wrote:
> i need to know the do's and don't's of netiquette
>
Here's a fairly good Usenet guide.

http://www.newsreaders.com/guide/netiquette.html

Message has been deleted

Dr.Ruud

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May 27, 2004, 9:24:03 AM5/27/04
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Black Dragon:
> tavez:

>> i need to know the do's and don't's of netiquette

> Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.


So make everybody conservative in what they send, in
any way that you like.

--
Affijn, Ruud ` - ?
+ ` ? *
? `
? = `


Demetrius Zeluff

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May 27, 2004, 11:52:20 AM5/27/04
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Black Dragon <b...@thedragons.lair> wrote in news:nnq.c94otb$l6f$1...@bdhi.net:

> tavez wrote:
>
>> i need to know the do's and don't's of netiquette
>

> Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

....and don't top post when doing it. :-)

Ann Knight

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May 27, 2004, 11:54:47 AM5/27/04
to
On Thu, 27 May 2004 11:55:37 UTC, well...@hotmail.com (tavez) wrote:

> i need to know the do's and don't's of netiquette

Thank you for asking! Go to
http://member.newsguy.com/~schramm/nnqlinks.html#how , and read the
section marked 'Some Basics You Need to Know.'

--

Timo Salmi

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May 27, 2004, 2:25:40 PM5/27/04
to
S
D

tavez <well...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> i need to know the do's and don't's of netiquette

Links to Timo's FAQ materials
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html

Of Usenet news netiquette and sundry, in HTML
---------------------------------------------

Why it is sensible to observe the Netiquette
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/netiquet.html

Of proper quoting
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/quote.html

Of suitable right margins
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/margin.html

What does "Subject: Re: none" mean on the Usenet news?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/whatsubj.html

Why "Reply by email, I don't read this newsgroup" gets flamed?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/serveme.html

What are the restrictions for a proper signature?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/signatur.html

How should I react to crackpot messages?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/crackpot.html

How should I react to abusive postings or email?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/abusive.html

How should I react to chain letters?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/chainlet.html

May I just go ahead and post binaries to discussion newsgroups?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/nobin.html

Where to put test postings?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/testpost.html

Can I say hello and find friends on new users' newsgroups?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/hello.html

Please respond to my assignment to post to this newsgroup.
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/lectpost.html

Someone just broke the netiquette. Should I post/email advice?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/police.html

What is cross-posting? How do I do it?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/crospost.html

How does one create a new Usenet newsgroup?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/createng.html

How can I cancel my Usenet news posting?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/cancel.html

How long will my posting stay on the Usenet news?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/expiry.html

Where did my Usenet posting disappear?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/postgone.html

Where do I find a complete list of Usenet newsgroups?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/newsgrps.html

How do I find the FAQ (and/or the charter) of a newsgroup?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/wherefaq.html

Isn't using English compulsory on the international Usenet news?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/onlyengl.html

What are the distribution area codes for Usenet news postings?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/dislimit.html

Why don't you lay off your stupid FAQ postings and referrals?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/faqoff.html

What is all this talk about "(Pascal etc) homework on the net"?
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/homework.html

Anonymous Usenet posting, another view
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/anonpost.html

Timo's selection of Usenet newsgroups
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/news.html


Programming
-----------

Timo's procmail email filtering tips and recipes
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/proctips.html

Foiling Spam with an Email Password System
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/spamfoil.html

Turbo Pascal programming material links
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/http2.html#programming

MS-DOS batch programming material links
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/http2.html#batch

NT/2000/XP script programming material links
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/http2.html#cmdscript

Unix Bourne shell scripts programming material from Timo
http://garbo.uwasa.fi/unix/ts.html

Timo's HTML colors page
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/colors.html

ISO Latin 1 Character Entries, etc
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/latin1.html


Miscellaneous
-------------

Some Frequently Asked Garbo Archives Questions
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/garbo.html#faq

Miscellaneous questions, information and comments about Timo's
programs etc
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/garbo.html#faqtimo

Journals in Accounting, Finance and OR for Research
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/opas/jott/jottjour.html

Laskentatoimen tutkielma FAQ (in Finnish)
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/opas/tlma/tlmafaq.html

Timo's collections of http links
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/http.html

Timo's collection of banners with links
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/banners.html

Timo's collection of GIF thumbnails
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/gifst/gifst.html

Of University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland A Collection of Electronic
Photographs
http://www.uwasa.fi/ktt/lasktoim/photo/

All the best, Timo

--
Prof. Timo Salmi ftp & http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ archives 193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance ; University of Vaasa
mailto:t...@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/> ; FIN-65101, Finland
Timo's FAQ materials at http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html

Thor Kottelin

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May 27, 2004, 2:36:16 PM5/27/04
to
tavez wrote:
>
> i need to know the do's and don't's of netiquette

Please see e.g. <URL:http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/nnqlinks.html#know>
and RFC 1855.

Thor

--
http://thorweb.anta.net/ IRCnet #areena

Mike Easter

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May 27, 2004, 3:54:11 PM5/27/04
to
Timo Salmi wrote:
> Of suitable right margins
> http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/margin.html

"Personally, I have set my editor's wrap at column 69 for the Usenet
news when I write. The same goes for my email."

I'm sure you're using 'the right kind' of editor.

If users of the ever-popular Outlook Express in its native condition
[without OE QuoteFix] follow the advice [of course I'm paraphasing here]
"if a little bit shorter is a little good, then shorter yet must be even
better" then they'll be fragmenting people with 'normal' 72+ish char
lines into nasty ugly shortlines.

The native OE user has to stay within a very very narrow range, and not
make it still shorter to be 'better' and even if they do, it is going to
fail soon and result in shortlines. So, they should stay pretty
'precisely' with your suggested 'around 72'.

I'm picking on this nit because I see OE users read advice about line
lengths and they come away thinking 'shorter is better' - if 72 is good,
then 68 must be better.


Thanks for you wonderful pages and help. I have found many many useful
things at your site.


--
Mike Easter

Rodger Whitlock

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May 27, 2004, 11:56:36 PM5/27/04
to
On 27 May 2004 04:55:37 -0700, tavez wrote:

> i need to know the do's and don't's of netiquette

Better that you know the "whys".

Oft-repeated sermon: Netiquette is not a bunch of arbitrary rules
devised by four-eyed, double-domed savants in ivory towers. It
wasn't invented as a trap for the unwary or as an implement with
which to belabor the newbies.

Netiquette's underlying philosophy is "if you use email and
newsgroups this way, you will be a better communicator."

The object of Netiquette is to help you get your message across
to people. It's really a form of psycho-ergonomics, you might
say.

Examples:

One: on-screen text remains a pain to read. Thus, Netiquette says
"trim quoted material to the minimum necessary to establish
context of your replies" so your messages are not unnecessarily
long. You might call this the "less is more principle."

Two: You can't depend on someone being able to access older
messages in newsgroups. (Yes, Virginia, some folks have newsgroup
access w.o. having web access and their news servers don't have
long retention periods.) Thus Netiquette says "be sure to quote
what you are replying to so as to establish context."

Three: Experience has shown that email and newsgroups are much
more like the back and forth of a spoken conversation than the
normal exchange of printed documents found in offices. Also, it's
hard on-screen to be constantly doing the equivalent of flipping
back and forth through the pages of a lengthy document. Thus
Netiquette says "intersperse your response point by point through
the quoted material you are replying to."

Four: People are easily confused when you intersperse your reply,
so Netiquette says "be sure that quoted material is marked as
such." Decently programmed newsreaders and email clients do this
with a > in the left margin.

Five: When lots of people are taking part in a thread (like a big
conversation at a party), everyone wants to know who said what,
particularly late arrivals on the scene. Netiquette says "be sure
to attribute quoted material."

Six: No one likes being misrepresented. Netiquette says "when you
trim quoted material, be sure to indicate significant elisions
and paraphrases."

Seven: There's no point cluttering up everyone's screen with
quoted .sig blocks. (A variant on the less is more principle.)
Normal attribution lines make this entirely unnecessary.
Netiquette says "be sure to prefix your .sig with the standard
separator line hyphen-hyphen-space so client programs can
automagically trim this for you."

Eight: In long complex threads, quoted material gets layered
pretty deeply and it becomes very hard to figure out who said
what given the normal quoting mechanisms. Netiquette should say
"if *germane* quoted material is deeply nested, take the time to
unravel it into chronological order." (I just made this rule up.)
The real issue is that many people do not delete earlier levels
of quotage that are not directly germane to their reply. Threads
drift, you know.

Nine: Threads do drift from one topic to another. Netiquette says
"When the topic is no longer in accord with the Subject: header,
change it to read 'New Topic, was: Old Topic' as a courtesy so
those not interested can skip your immortal words."

Ten: Messages sent broadcast to a newsgroup or mailing list may
inspire you to write a reply that is really only of interest to
the original author. Netiquette says "make sure you pay attention
to the address your reply is sent to. Don't send essentially
private replies to public forums."

Eleven: If you post a question to a mailing list or newsgroup,
replies are likely to be of general interest. Netiquette says
"don't ask for private email replies."

Twelve: The folks who answer questions in newsgroups and mailing
lists are volunteers and don't owe you anything. They are acting
out of kindness and interest, not because they have to.
Netiquette says "don't ask for private email replies because you
don't read the forum regularly." If a forum is worth asking a
question in, it's worth watching for the answers.

Thirteen: Not everyone has the same software you do. In
particular, some (many?) people use email clients that do not
render html. (After all, both of these media were designed for
plain ascii text.) HTML is *very* hard to read if not rendered.
Netiquette says "if you must send email in html, be sure there's
a plain-text alternative version."

Fourteen: Not everyone has a high-speed connection to the net.
HTMLization of a message greatly multiplies its size, esp. if the
html is heavily interlarded with <font> tags. HTML message use
way more bandwidth than plain text. Netiquette says "don't send
messages in html." (I have yet to see an html-ized version of a
newsgroup or mailing list message where html was essential.)

Fifteen: for the same bandwidth reasons, special newsgroups have
been set up to segregate large binary postings from short text
discussion postings. Netiquette says "don't give people a nasty
surprise by putting binaries in discusssion-only newsgroups."

Sixteen: for the same bandwidth reasons, Netiquette says "don't
send large files via email unless you've checked with the
intended recipient first."

Seventeen: people like a degree of privacy. They don't like
having their email address scattered far and wide across the net
unnecessarily. (Spamming makes this issue far more important than
it was in the early, more innocent days of the net.) Netiquette
says "if you are sending the same email message to a whole bunch
of people, put their addresses into the BCC: (blind carbon copy)
header where they aren't visible to recipients." By way of
counter example, I have one email correspondent who sometimes
forgets to do this, so I have a listing of his entire email
address book!

I'm sure I could go on and on and on in this vein, but you will
note that Netiquette really is saying "do this and other people
will respond appropriately. Don't do this, and other people may
ignore you."

It's in your self-interest to follow these guidelines -- which,
as intimated at the start of this message, were developed the
hard way, by experiment and experience and are entirely
pragmatic.


Remember, Netiquette is in *your* self-interest. No one much
cares if you follow it or not. No one is keeping score. If you
get complaints that you aren't following good netiquette
practices, it's because people are interested in what you have to
say, but you are putting unnecessary speedbumps in the way of
comprehension. Do you *really* want to do that?

That's why.


--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
[change "atlantic" to "pacific" and
"invalid" to "net" to reply by email]

Virgil

unread,
May 28, 2004, 1:37:36 AM5/28/04
to
In article <nnq.40b6b81...@news.newsguy.com>,
toto...@atlanticcoast.invalid (Rodger Whitlock) wrote:

> Remember, Netiquette is in *your* self-interest. No one much
> cares if you follow it or not. No one is keeping score. If you
> get complaints that you aren't following good netiquette
> practices, it's because people are interested in what you have to
> say, but you are putting unnecessary speedbumps in the way of
> comprehension. Do you *really* want to do that?
>
> That's why.

Nicely expressed.

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