I.T. Times
Volume 2. No 4 Information Technology News of the University of California, Davis Summer 1994

Real-Life Netiquette


Much social behavior on the Internet is self-policing and self-regulating. This article, comprised essentially of excerpted user postings on the Internet, represents, in the truest sense, the info tech culture that has developed over the years on the wide area networks - and especially attitudes toward what has become appropriate and inappropriate in this environment.

[Editor's Note: All items are reprinted here by permission of the authors (or of email list moderators when authors were not traceable in archives and/or credited in the original posts).]

Doing Research Before Querying a Discussion Group

Last year a hot debate erupted when a graduate teaching assistant at a major, dare I say, top 10, Eastern university, assigned a class of undergraduates to use Internet to seek information on research paper topics. The TA did not instruct the students to use the library first and then pose well formulated questions to the net. BIOSPH-L was flooded with questions on basic environmental science.

Both the TA and the students were outraged by the complaints they received from list readers who objected to being asked fundamental questions that ought to be dealt with by the students themselves. The root cause appears to be that neither the TA nor the students had any idea who was at the other end of the line. All they saw was a computer that should be giving them answers.

What was said to them repeatedly is this. The courtesy issue is that traffic on BIOSPH-L is voluntary. If you want people to take the time to answer your questions, indicate you have done some legwork on your own and have a genuine problem looking for additional information. Otherwise, you are soaking up volunteer resources which could be better used to meet needs not answered elsewhere.

Dan Yurman ( 1994). Electronic message to RISKS- LIST, February 18. (Reprinted in RISKS-FORUM Digest, Tuesday. 22 February 1994, Volume 15 : Issue 57.)

Conserving Network Resources: Miscellany

I'm finding the online-news list extremely useful, but I wonder if you might post a message further elaborating some guidelines for everyone.

The main things I see happening are:

I don't think any of these are "make or break" problems for the list, but they certainly make many more items "cullable." I read through the online items I get, and delete about 2/3 without saving them (at least) because of these above items.

Untraceable source (1994). Electronic message to online-news@marketplace.com, March 2.

Considering Limited Capabilities of Some Systems on Internet

Many systems don't like articles over 1,000 lines or 32K (this includes the headers), so if you have a really long piece you may want to break it up. It's usually good etiquette to put "(LONG)" at the end of the "Subject:" line if you post something more than a few pages long. Oh, and I think it's generally preferred that things not be double- spaced or right-justified.

Reminder for everyone: Be sure there is exactly one blank line between the headers and the article, and don't indent the first line of the article! (Some machines have a line-eater that munches the start of your posting if it's indented.)

James "Kibo" Parry (1992). Usenet article to art.prose.d, April 30.

Letter Bombing (and Rumors) Not Appreciated On Net

[Editor's Note: The TAP (Taxpayer Assets Project) letter, signed by Jamie Love, referred to in this message was sent to multiple addresses on the Internet. It asked recipients to send a form letter to Steve Wolf of the National Science Foundation protesting reports that "metered pricing on the Internet" might replace the current practice of charging a flat rate. In a note to the Cornell University community, M. Stuart Lynn pointed out that the TAP letter was ill-conceived and showed a poor understanding of how costs are accrued and charged on the Internet. He went on to say the following about letter-bombing.]

This TAP letter is an example of the danger of participating in letter-bombing and why such is considered poor netiquette. It results in clogging up peoples' mailboxes with unwanted letters (I should probably include this one in that category), and causes a lot of unproductive time to be spent in cleaning up the aftermath.

In this electronic network age, it is too easy to launch a thousand e-ships (or more) at the press of a single keystroke. I personally will not participate in such an endeavor. And I always assume a request to forward a form letter is a hoax, unless and until I have reasonable evidence to the contrary. Whereas the TAP letter is not a hoax (it is based on sincerely-held misunderstandings), I cannot believe that Jamie Love would have sent it had he understood the facts.

M. Stuart Lynn (1994). Posted to taskforce@ivory.educom.edu by Mike Roberts

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