Netiquette: Basic Rules of Networking

The technology of information and communication has been developing so fast for a decade. These days, we depend on this technology to do our daily jobs, keep updating, or just have fun. Everyday we use our computers and smart phones to get information from the internet, send emails, and even post our photos. In fact, we have become cyber society. That is why we all need some etiquette to keep the civilization on the right track when we interact with others online.

Netiquette is network etiquette which is used as basic rules when we are online. According to the book Netiquette, there are ten rules about how we should behave online. However, we will not have all explained, we can see three important rules this time. These rules can help us to communicate well with strangers without cause any harm.

Firstly, Rule 4: Respect other people's time and bandwidth says "It's your responsibility to ensure that the time they spend reading your posting isn't wasted". This point makes me realize that sometimes most of us post unimportant things which waste other people's time, effort, and bandwidth without gaining any advantage from our writing. From this point, we need to rethink about what we are going to write and whether it will bring benefit or not.

Secondly, according to Rule 7: Help keep flame wars under control, we are not allowed to do flame wars continuously. It clearly states that people who cause the flame wars are an unfair monopolization of bandwidth. Flame wars are sequence of comments from two or three people which are used to attack others' comments. They contribute bad effect toward other people who do not involve in that flame wars or even ruin a particular group discussion.

Lastly, in Rule 10: Be forgiving of other people's mistakes, we are expected to forgive others' mistake. People sometimes give us some unnecessary questions and make annoying comments. These actions can easily make us irritated, but we have to be nice. We do not need to show their mistake in public. All we have to do is that contact them personally by sending email and in the good manner.

These three rules of Netiquette can add our knowledge about networking. By applying the etiquette, we are able to be modern people who can use or technology to give advantage for everyone and also ourselves. Happy Networking!

Source: http://www.albion.com/netiquette/rule10.html