Hi,
Here is the netetiquette i post, feel free to apply it :
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E-Mail Etiquette
Introduction
This document is intended to offer guidance to users of electronic
mail (e-mail) systems, whether it's a twelve-year old computer nerd's
BBS, one of the dinosaur services like AOL-ful, Compu-Snore or
Prodigee-wiz, or the vast world of the Internet. Although it's geared
towards users of the afore-mentioned services, it has sections that
apply to all types of e-mail systems.
This is not a "how-to" document, but rather a document that offers
advice to make you more computer-worthy (probably more worthy than you
desire) and to prevent you from embarrassing yourself at some point in
the near future.
Inspiration for this document and for the tables in the Abbreviation
and Smilies sections must go to Ventanna Press for their publication
the Windows Internet Tour Guide.
Don't Be A Novelist
Messages should be concise and to the point. Think of it as a
telephone conversation, except you are typing instead of speaking.
Nobody has ever won a Pulitzer Prize for a telephone conversation nor
will they win one for an e-mail message.
Its also important to remember that some people receive hundreds of
e-mail messages a day (yes, there are such people), so the last thing
they want to see is a message from someone who thinks he/she is the
next Dickens.
Too Much Punctuation!!!
Don't get caught up in grammar and punctuation, especially excessive
punctuation. You'll see lots of e-mail messages where people put a
dozen exclamation points at the end of a sentence for added emphasis.
Big deal. Exclamation points (called "bangs" in computer circles) are
just another form of ending a sentence.
If something is important it should be reflected in your text, not in
your punctuation.
The Legacy Of Punch Cards
Although this is the 1990's, not everyone in the world has e-mail
software that has the word wrap feature (word wrap keeps you from
having to hit the Enter key at the end of the line). There are still a
large number of users with dumb (and not so dumb) terminals and
teletype devices that do not gracefully handle text longer than the
old punch card length of 80 characters. Therefore, keep the number of
characters per line below the 80 character limit. Some recent e-mail
packages have a built-in feature that automatically word wraps at a
specified character limit so that the problem is essentially solved.
However, if you're software does not support this feature, you'll just
have to remember to use the big Enter key again.
Formatting Is Not Everything
Formatting can be everything, but not here. Plain text is it. Period.
End of sentence.
Using HTML, or heaven forbid the Microsquish Rich Text Format, to
format messages so that they have fancy fonts, colors or whatever is
asking for trouble. There are lots of e-mail clients (and some
servers) which can not handle messages in these formats. The message
will come in as utter gibberish or in the worst case, crash the e-mail
client. I've seen it happen.
Abbreviations
Abbreviation usage is quite rampant with e-mail. In the quest to save
keystrokes, users have traded clarity for confusion (unless you
understand the abbreviations). Some of the more common abbreviations
are listed in the table below. I would recommend that you use
abbreviations that are already common to the English language, such as
FYI and BTW. Beyond that, you run the risk of confusing your
recipient.
This Means This
BCNU be seeing you
BTW by the way
FWIW for what it's worth
FYI for your information
IMHO in my humble opinion
OBO or best offer
ROTFL rolling on the floor laughing
RTFM read the funny manual
TNSTAAFL there's no such thing as a free lunch
TTFN ta ta for now
TTYL talk to you later
Smilies
Part of the nature of a good one-on-one conversation is the use of
visual cues. How important are facial expressions and body gestures to
a conversation? A simple eye movement can mean the difference between
"yes" and "YES". What about auditory cues? The results are the same.
Since there are no visual or auditory cues with e-mail, users have
come up with something called "smilies". They are simple strings of
characters that are interspersed in the e-mail text to convey the
writer's emotions (cues). The most common example is :-). Turn your
head to the left and you should see a happy face (the colon are the
eyes, the dash is the nose and the parentheses is the mouth). Here are
some more examples.
This Means This
:-) Smiley face
;-) Wink (light sarcasm)
:-| Indifference
:-> Devilish grin (heavy sarcasm)
8-) Eye-glasses
:-D Shock or surprise
:-/ Perplexed
:-( Frown (anger or displeasure)
:-P Wry smile
;-} Leer
:-Q Smoker
:-e
Disappointment
:-@ Scream
:-O Yell
:-* Drunk
:-{} Wears lipstick
:- Male
>- Female
Please don't ask me to interpret, because I don't understand them all.
They are typically found at the end of sentences and will usually
refer back to the prior statement.
I would recommend you use these sparingly. There are hundreds of these
things and their translations are by no means universal (a
miss-interpreted smilie could lead to a flame).
Salutations
The question here is "How personal is too personal?" or to be more
specific, how do you open your e-mail: "Dear Sir", "Dear Mr. Smith",
"Joe" or none of the afore-mentioned.
If you posed this question to Miss Manners, I expect she would come
back with a quick answer - use the standard formalities -- but I don't
know that I would agree.
In a non-business situation, I would recommend that you bypass the
standard formalities. At most, I would only include something along
the lines of "Dear Virgil" or just "Virgil".
In the business situation, things are much more complicated. Each
situation will need to be evaluated on its on, but in general, I would
use the following as a guide: If you normally address a person as
Miss/Mrs./Ms./Mr. Smith then that's the way I would initially address
them in e-mail. If you normally call them by their first name then I
would either omit the salutation or follow the guideline specified in
the prior paragraph. If you are unsure, stick to the formal
salutation. It's the safest bet.
Signatures
If you had to guess what a signature was (the e-mail version), you
would probably be close.
On a paper document (save a tree, send e-mail) it's typical to close
the document with the following:
Gene Wicker, Jr
Gene Wicker, Jr.
I Will Follow... Services
Since it's not possible (yet) to sign your e-mail, users will
sometimes include the same information (minus the signature) at the
bottom of their e-mail messages.
I would highly recommend this practice because the originator is not
always clear to the recipient. Lots of companies use abbreviated names
or numbers for employee e-mail addresses and those abbreviations or
numbers will mean little to someone not familiar with their
significance.
I would also recommend that you included your e-mail address in this
information. Sometimes it can be very difficult to locate your e-mail
address in the information that's a part of transmission, especially
if it's going across the Internet.
If your e-mail address is a business address, I would include your
title and company name in the signature. Normally, this might be part
of a letterhead, but in the e-mail world letterheads are not used
(wasted space).
You will sometimes run across a user's signature that contains a quote
(as in "...the secret to life is that there is no secret.") after the
person's name. This has become a fairly common practice. If you choose
this option I would recommend that the quote be something that is a
reflection of yourself. Keep it short. You don't want the quote to be
longer than the message.
Also you will run across signatures that contain images built out of
keyboard characters. These are kind of hard to describe unless you've
seen one, but you will surely know one when you see it. As with the
quote, the image should be a reflection of the person.
Whether you choose to add a quote, an image or both, I would recommend
that you keep the total number of lines for the signature down to four
or less.
Threads
Once you send that first e-mail, you will probably get a response. If
you want to reply to that response what should you do? The wrong thing
to do is to start a new e-mail message. This breaks the link (called a
"thread") between the original message and your soon-to-be-created
response. Without the link, it can get difficult for the users on each
end to follow the sequence of messages, especially after several
exchanges. This becomes an even larger problem when you are dealing
with newsgroups (more later) where several people may be replying to
messages and trying to follow the thread of exchanged information. The
correct thing to do is to reply, which is essentially the same thing
as creating a new message, but maintains the thread.
Quotes
Nothing is more wasteful than to reply to an e-mail by including a
complete copy of the original with the words "I agree" , "Okay" or
"Ditto" at the bottom.
The correct method is to use quoting. This is best explained by an
example:
>and do you agree with the proposal to hire Ms. Ross to
>handle our legal services?
Yes. Please make the necessary arrangements.
The '>' in front of the text indicates to the recipient that this is
quoted material from his/her last e-mail message. The second sentence
is your response to the quoted material. The key with quoting is to
include enough material in the quote so that it will be relevant to
the recipient. Imagine that the original message was a hundred lines
long and the only question that required a response was located in the
last sentence. Why send the whole message back in the reply? That
would cause the recipient to scroll through the hundred line message
again just to find your response at the bottom.
Quoting can occur again and again as in the example:
>>and do you agree with the proposal to hire Ms. Ross to
>>handle our legal services?
>
>Yes. Please make the necessary arrangements.
Arrangements made. Our first meeting is scheduled for tomorrow
morning.
From this we see both two level quoting (>>) and one level quoting
(>). The (>>) indicates that the sender is quoting your quote and the
(>) is a quote of part of your message you sent in reply.
Don't get hung up in quoting. After so many levels, all you end up
with is a bunch of ">" and very little substance.
Save A Tree
Sometimes I think that the best thing that could happen would be for
someone to take away the printer. Why? Every time I send an e-mail out
to a large group, a third of the group will print the message even
before reading it, a third will read it and then print it, and the
last third will simply delete it.
One of the goals for e-mail usage is to eliminate (or greatly reduce)
the shuffling of paper, but what chance does that have if a
significant number of people are going to print every message they
receive. I'm not saying that all messages should not be printed. I'm
saying that too many messages are printed for no reason (a lot are
printed and never retrieved from the printer).
Unless you have a very primitive e-mail system, it probably has some
system (usually called "folders") that can be used to permanently
store messages for recall at any time in the future. If the same
people who print messages for paper file systems would create the same
structure in the e-mail system with folders, it would accomplish the
same goal, but would save an enormous amount of paper (and trees).
Privacy, Are You Kidding?
Stop right where you are and set aside a couple of brain cells for the
following statement: there is no such thing as a private e-mail. I
don't care what anybody says, states, swears or whatever, there is
just no such thing as private e-mail. The reason? Keep reading.
With some e-mail systems, the e-mail administrator has the ability to
read any and all e-mail messages. If this is the case where you are
located you better hope that there is a honest and respectable person
in that position.
Some [2]companies monitor employee e-mail (I consider this one of the
worst forms of censorship). The reasons for this obtrusive behavior
range from company management wanting to make sure users are not
wasting time on frivolous messages to making sure that company secrets
are not being leaked to unauthorized sources.
E-mail software is like all software in that occasionally things go
wrong. If this happens, you may end up receiving e-mail meant for
another person or your e-mail may get sent to the wrong person. Either
way, what you thought was private is not private anymore.
Somewhere in the world there is a person (usually a hacker) who is
able to read your e-mail if he/she tries hard enough. Of course "Tries
hard enough" is the key. It's not that simple to read another person's
e-mail (usually) . (Usually) there are security measures in place to
prevent this from happening, but no security is one hundred percent
hacker-proof. I have "usually" in parenthesis in the prior two
sentences because I'm making the assumption that the person/persons
who install and operate your e-mail system have taken the necessary
precautions. Of course, the same must also be true for the
person/persons on the receiving end of your e-mail.
So where does this leave us. First, let me reiterate the initial
statement: there is no such thing as a private e-mail. Got it? Second,
don't send anything by e-mail that you would not want posted on the
company bulletin board. If it's safe enough for the bulletin board,
it's safe enough for e-mail. Finally, if you are debating whether or
not to send something personal by e-mail, either deliver it by hand or
send it by snail mail.
Flames
What is a "flame" or specifically what does it mean "to be flamed?" To
be flamed means that you've sent an e-mail to a person(s) that has
caused that person(s) to respond in many, not-so-nice words. It's
basically a verbal attack in electronic form. I would provide
examples, but I'm not too sure of the age of my audience and I, in
turn, do not want to end up getting flamed from the readers of this
document.
Sometimes the reason for a flame is quite obvious (keep reading), but
in other cases you just never know. You might send what you think is a
harmless e-mail to ten people. Nine people respond in a rational tone
while number ten sends you a flame. Just remember that everyone sees
the world differently. You may be lucky and spend your whole life
dealing only with the people in the group of nine, but I'll bet that
sooner or later you will run into person ten.
How do you respond to flame? Tough question. The best answer would be
to ignore it and go about your life as logical and rational human
being. If this is not your first reaction, it probably will be after
you've been flamed a couple dozen times. You will find out that
responses just aren't worth the effort. Remember that old saying about
"You can please some of the people...".
If you do choose to respond you will probably end up in what is known
as a "flame war". This is where two or more people end up exchanging
flames for an extended period of time, usually to the point that users
start making references to one's mother, one's mental capability,
etc... At some point, all those participating in the war will
eventually forget what originally started it and go back to being
normal human beings.
Never been flamed? Well if you are begging for it, I would suggest one
of the following:
Send an e-mail in all UPPER-CASE. Use of upper-case words is the
equivalent of shouting in some one's ear. ONLY use upper-case words
when trying to make a point (such as I just did). Even at that, you
should be careful with who you are exchanging messages.
Make a comment about grammar or punctuation. Nobody wants to feel like
they are exchanging e-mail with their eighth-grade English teacher.
Send a mass-mailing advertisement. This is numero uno on the don'ts
list and will generate more flames than the devil himself.
Think about the amount of junk mail you receive everyday by snail
mail. Even though you don't want it, you find you must look through
all of it because somewhere in that stack of unwanted advertisements
and wasted paper could be your monthly water bill. The same principle
applies to the e-mail. Would you want to search through a mailbox full
of advertisements simply to find that all-important message from your
boss?
Request computer help without providing system-specific information.
For example, if I submitted an e-mail that stated "I've got this
problem with Word...". Well is that MS Word for DOS, MS Word for
Windows, MS Word for Macs? What version? Version 2.0? Version 6.0?
Remember, the world (and its users) is made up of every kind of
computer imaginable, from IBM PC's to Macs to UNIX workstations to the
one your neighbor assembled in his garage.
The correct method would be to list all the system specifics first,
then describe the problem or question. For example, if I were seeking
answers to questions about Microsquish Word for my computer at home, I
would list Gizmo Model SR-32 (Microchannel Clone, 486-66Mhz, 16MB RAM,
400MB SCSI hard disk), MS DOS 6.22, MS Windows 3.11, MS Word 6.0a and
then state the problem in detail.
Send a e-mail asking for the meaning of BTW or :-) . If you've not
already found these in this document, keep reading. E-mail users use
lots of abbreviations (not everyone can type 200 words a minute) and
other funny characters. These are two of the more common examples --
"BTW" is the equivalent of "by the way" and :-) is a happy face or
smile (turn your head to the left).
Better Than Snail Mail
You would think that since e-mail is electronic and electronic
information is suppose to move at the speed of light, your e-mail
message would arrive seconds after you send it. If you're sending
e-mail to the person in the office next to yours it might happen that
way. In most cases, however, the message will probably take anywhere
from a couple of minutes (majority of the time) to a couple of days
(in which case there is usually a problem).
Think of it this way. Sending e-mail locally is as easy as delivering
it by hand. Following that premise, if you had to hand deliver mail to
some one clear across the country, doesn't that take a little more
effort?
The reason it takes longer is that in the transmission of a message
from point A to point B, the message may pass across one, two, or up
to who-knows-how-many different types of mail systems before it
reaches its destination. Remember my earlier statement? All computers
(and e-mail systems) are not the same.
No matter how far away you are sending your e-mail message I'll
guarantee that it will beat snail mail. On top of that you save the
cost of a stamp.
A Blessing And A Curse
E-mail is a conversation that does not require an immediate response
(like a telephone). If someone calls you on the telephone, you pick it
up (unless you have an answering machine, voice mail or you are just
plain rude) and the conversation begins. This is an interactive
conversation.
With e-mail you send a message and then wait for a response. The
response may come in five minutes or the response may come in five
days. Either way it's not an interactive conversation.
If a hundred people send you e-mail in one day, so what? You didn't
have to talk with all one hundred. Just think of all the hellos,
good-byes and other unnecessary chit-chat you avoided. With e-mail you
only deal with their messages (which usually omit hellos, good-byes
and such) and you deal with them on your own time. That's the
blessing.
Now for the curse.
Too many users assume that the minute someone receives an e-mail it,
the person will read it. Bad assumption.
If you schedule a meeting for an hour from now and send an e-mail to
each attendee, the chance that all the attendee's will read that
message within the hour will be pretty small. On the other hand, if
you schedule the meeting for the next day, the chance that they will
read the message will be pretty high. Remember, e-mail is not designed
for immediacy (that's why you have a telephone), it's designed for
convenience.
Some (not all) e-mail systems have features that try to combat this
problem. These features (usually called "notification") will notify
you when a person has received your e-mail and may also notify you
when the person has read it (really all it can do is assume you that
the person has looked at the first screen of the message -- it has no
way to know if the person has read the message word for word).
Referring back to the example in the last paragraph, you could check
to see who has checked their e-mail before the meeting and then
telephone those who have not read it.
Newsgroups
If you have access to the Internet, you may have access to newsgroups.
At the simplest level, a newsgroup is a collection of related e-mail
messages tied to a specific topic. Some examples might be a newsgroup
for users of Microsquish Word, a newsgroup for the fans of the works
of [3]Rita Mae Brown or a newsgroup for owners of handmade bicycles
manufactured in Wisconsin. If you seen a list of the available
newsgroups, which is now well over the 20,000 range, the topics are
quite diverse and amazing.
Anyway, on to more important items....
Don't call a newsgroup a anything but a newsgroup. They are not forums
(that's on Compu-Snore). They definitely are not BBS's. They are
newsgroups. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Before posting (think of it as sending an e-mail message) to a
newsgroup, I would highly recommend that 1) you monitor it for a few
days (called lurking) to make sure the newsgroup's content is relevant
to your interest, and 2) read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
section if there is one. FAQs usually will provide a statement of
direction for the newsgroup along with any other guidelines for its
usage. Following these two tenets will help you avoid that dreaded
flame.
If you find that you want to post an entry to a newsgroup, make sure
it's the right group. Posting a message for help for Microsquish Word
in the WordImperfect newsgroup won't get you anywhere other than a
possible flame (there's that word again).
One last no-no for news groups is called "spamming". Spamming is
repeated posting the same message to a particular news group(s) for no
other reason than to be obnoxious. This is definite flame bait.
_________________________________________________________________
An [4]Adobe Acrobat 4 version of this document is available [5]here
and a Microsquish Word 2000 version of this document is available
[6]here.
_________________________________________________________________
This site was honored as a [7]Cool Site of the Hour
on November 1, 1996 and January 6, 1998.
[BUTTON]
References
1. http://www.iwillfollow.com/emailetiquette.html
2. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/12/08/email_monitoring/index.html
3. http://www.iwillfollow.com/rmb/
4. http://www.adobe.com/
5. http://www.iwillfollow.com/emailetiquette.pdf
6. http://www.iwillfollow.com/emailetiquette.doc
7. http://www.coolcentral.com/hour/
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MandrakeSoft Inc http://www.mandrakesoft.com
San-Francisco, CA USA --Chmouel
