Netiquette in Newsgroups
Netiquette is a general term for good etiquette
on the Internet. In particular I'm talking about newsgroup
etiquette. It's a basic cut and dry Do unto others as you
would wish done unto you type philosophy. Nothing difficult
about it at all.
No, nobody made me God or the ruler of the
Internet, I'm just stating general guidelines I would recommend
you follow. However, regardless of what I say and what others
say, some of you out there (you know who you are) will never
quite get the point. So let me clarify.
When posting in news groups, do not...
- Send Spam (junk messages i.e. make money fast or
chain letters) on public newsgroups. Depending on the
content it may very well be illegal to do so.
- Use all capitol letters. This is considered a serious
offense in newsgroups and I have even known some
instances where it can get you kicked off a news server.
Use of all caps it considered yelling, and when not
called for (such as in moderation) it is considered rude.
- Try not to fill your messages with useless content. Such
content includes, but is not limited to:
- Long signatures with your favorite poem, URLs,
ASCII art, etc.
- Sending single word posts with the words
"test," "hi,"
"hello?," "Me Too!," etc.
"Hello there!" does not qualify as
being any better. You know what I mean.
- Quote from entire articles which came from web
sites. Simply offer the URL if it is relevant to
the topic of the newsgroup.
- Messages that have absolutely nothing to do with
the topic of the newsgroup.
- Unnecessary or irrelevant binary file
attachments.
- Engage in Flaming wars. Discussing items of
controversy and posting a relevant and substantial
argument is fine under appropriate topics.
- Quote unnecessary text from a post in your reply. Use it
to enhance the message by providing key pointers to what
the previous individual or individuals said. The use of
the tag <snip> is often used to show that you
clipped something out so those who need more information
can refer to the previous message in full.
- Use obtrusive obscene language. Fine, use a swear word if
you feel it's the only way to express yourself properly,
just don't make yourself look like a blabbering fool by
using the F word every other sentence. And I may
note, there are a few newsgroups where obscene language
is not allowed. Also consider if the audience is mature
enough for the language. I'm sure if you post on a
newsgroup like alt.binaries.picture.erotica.bondage, you
won't have a problem using excessive profanity. But use
good judgment none-the-less.
- Don't "Test" in public groups! Never! Never!
Never! There are special groups all of USENET that allow
you to test messages. Such as microsoft.test
(a free news server and a free newsgroup to test in--use
it)!
- People should not post large files or programs as parts
of messages in news or mail. it clogs up the servers
around the world that have to store that stuff for 2
weeks. not to mention those who download on autopilot.
It's better to find somewhere to store it and post the
address.(submitted by Mikey)
- Limit yourself when cross posting. The only reason you
should post to more than one simultaneous newsgroups is
if the subject of your post is relevant to all groups.
HTML Netiquette
HTML Netiquette is one area of high controversy.
If you stick on newsgroups long enough you are bound to find an
HTML flame war in the works. Why? The reason is simple. HTML is a
fairly new format for sending news articles. The Pros
often often insist that it provides increased legibility, fun and
spice to news articles, color and flamboyancy to otherwise plain
text, etc. The Cons are often concerned with whether or
not it adds usefulness to messages, bandwidth problems, server
and client-side storage space problems, security reasons, and
incompatibility with older browsers.
Please keep the following in mind when posting
in HTML in any newsgroup.
- Remember, there are only a few news readers out there
that support HTML. Those I know of are both made by
Microsoft. In whole, these programs make up a small
percentage of news readers in use. The theory behind HTML
in news posts currently is to send two copies of the
message. One in HTML and one in plain text. Supposedly
when a non-HTML compliant news reader receives one of
these posts, the HTML file is delivered as an attachment.
However the promised Plain Text second part is
generally poorly formatted, garbled with strange
characters, and not very legible.
- Ask yourself: Why you are posting in HTML and is it a
good reason?
- It is considered VERY rude to link your image to a server
that isn't yours or you don't have rights to. Be
considerate and download the image and place it on your
own server or FTP site. (submitted by Anita from
Microsoft).
- You increase the file size of your message when posting
in HTML.
- When adding images and backgrounds, you are hiding added
file size to the message. When your post appears on a
USENET server, it will show the file size of the text and
HTML, not the image linked within the text (attachments
are different).
- Unless you're posting to a group where music is relevant,
do not embed music within your posts.
- Optimize your graphics. Optimization reduces the file
size of graphics without loosing image quality.
- Choose colors that are legible on top of each other.
Remember, make it legible! Don't send off a post that you
can almost read. Make so you can read it!
Be very careful using special backgrounds pictures and
colors.
- In Outlook Express you can't change Link color so
the default blue doesn't show up legibly on dark or black
backgrounds.
- Using huge fonts are considered Yelling just as
much as using all caps.
There, that's it for now. Just remember to use
good sense, ok? Ok? If you visited my page, and are breaking any
of these rules above, I pray your web browser will forever be
stuck on the Disney site!
Be Good!
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