Netiquette Rulebook

Netiquette Rulebook

 Golden rule of Netiquette: don't make people do work for you that you can do yourself.

The rules haven't really changed but the technology we're using sometimes allows us to break them easier and quicker than ever before.  So here's our growing list of the common things you should look out for when trying to be a good corporate netizen.  Any suggestions?

1. The subject line is there for a reason. It should never be left blank. It should never say something useless like "Email".
2. If you wish to e-mail somebody don't find any old email from that person in your inbox and press 'reply' unless you are willing to erase all the original text and subject.
3. Don’t hit send. Email has the potential to be the most permanent record of communication ever created. In the future, our digital records may be our legacy. Remember that when you are chewing someone out or forwarding some great internet link to questionable content.
4. Learn how to add a standard signature. Include your phone number, your address. If you can make the font small - do so. Do not include a paragraph of disclaimers or useless information if you can avoid it. Get a backbone. Don't cya with each and every message you send.
5. Don't ask somebody to call you without giving the phone number to call.
6. Know how big your e-mail message is. Watch those attachments. Anything over 1MB is rude. Anything over 5MB is an IT problem for your company and your recipient's company.
7. If you are replying to something include the original text beneath yours. Not doing so places a burden on the other side and assumes everyone considers you the most important and memorable person in their world.
8. Don't press Enter except after a paragraph. If you break up a line using Enter according to your screen size you are assuming the world doesn't have blackberries, treos, or even computers with screens different than yours.
9. Don't include those > marks on each line of the original text. After 2 replies it becomes an illegible mess. By breaking up the lines iIt also assumes your screen width is equal to your recipients screen width.
10. Never EVER reply-to-all. reply to the people that care. oh yeah nobody cares.
11. Don't be sneaky with bcc. For one thing if you send to some unsavvy emailer they may reply-to-all and blow your cover so be prepared to wipe egg off face. For another its cowardly and unsportsmanlike conduct.
12. Sending a msg to lots of people. Here's a case where you must use bcc. It's not polite to 'publish' a large number of people's addresses to a lot of people that might not know each other. The bcc hides the addresses so it solves the problem but causes another one: now nobody knows who else the email went to so it's up to you as the sender to include in the body of the message right at the top "to: all 5th grade parents" or some such.
13. Mass mailings. You may send safely to at most 50 people. Beyond that you are treading into the waters of spammers and there are serious risks. A big one has to do with community based spam filtering. If enough people hit the 'this is spam' button then your mail serever may be blacklisted to anyone subscribing to that filter. This means you have just prevented ANY future email from getting to ANY subscriber of that list from ANYONE at your company and even OTHER companies if they share your mail server.
14. Making it pretty. Email was conceived as a text based medium. It works well that way: it keeps the size down and allows for all kinds of cell phones and other devices that can't handle more than text. When you fancify and embed pictures you are taking a chance: blackberries and such may take your picture out and treat it as an attachment and formatting is ignored for the most part.