USENET and LISTSERV Netiquette

Nora Oliveri

For on-line discussion forums to work properly, people need to interact in a productive manner, complying with certain groupwork rules. Chuq von Rospach (chuq@sun.com) named these rules as the "Netiquette". This document ( "A Primer on How to Work with the USENET Community") is in the public domain and it is available through many servers and distribution sources.

A summary of the keypoints included in Chuq Von Rospach's rules is as follows:

Never forget that the person at the other end is a human being.
Do not accuse user behavior to the net manager
Be careful of what you say about others
Be brief
Your message reflects your personality, feel proud about them.
Use descriptive titles.
Think about who your audience is.
Be careful about humor and sarcasm.
Send your messages only once.
Please, do not send material of dubious content.
Use e-mail, do not do follow-up.
Read your messages and avoid repetitions.
Double-check newsgroups updating and distribution.
Be careful about copyrights and licenses.
Quote references appropriately.
When do you make an abstract, make an "abstract".
High discussion tones are considered to be harmful.
Do not overlap signatures.
Limit length and character control.

USENET and LISTSERV Netiquette

Nora Oliveri

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Published on 19.Feb.1998