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Basic Electronic Mail Netiquette (Network Etiquette) • To read this page OFFLINE: (In your browser, in its formatted style...) Save As or export as "source" format. Then "open file" within your browser software offline. • To PRINT this page from your browser: We recommend an 80% reduction to easily fit standard 8.5 x 11" page width. by Kass Johns (originally written 12/96 for http://www.kassj.com) For a great glossary of Internet related terms, take a look at the Programmer's Paradise Glossary. It's fun and easy to understand. That glossary and this page make a great primer set for the beginning email and/or net user. Thanks to Programmer's Paradise and Kathy Letizia for making it available here. If you use AOL for email or know someone who does, read this also. Before you get going as a new email user, be aware of the email chainletters and CyberMyths you will soon be receiving. Read this page for a "heads up" in preventing a panic (and angering your future email recipients). I am always getting electronic mail (email) from new users of online services. Experienced users often use online shorthand in email and forget that the new user needs to have a road map to these abbreviations and images. For that reason, I have created this page for new users of email. It is not all-inclusive, it is meant as a beginning primer for email users. Basic Netiquette "Rules" (summary) 1. ALL CAPS means shouting 2. Use underscores or asterisks for emphasizing words 3. Watch your tone -- it's written, not verbal communication 4. Check your spelling 5. Quote back only what is relevant 6. Use an automatic signature, especially if you are a business 7. Where are you located if requesting goods or services? 8. Don't send unsolicited file attachments 9. Use a descriptive Subject line 10. Only forward jokes and chainletters if you are SURE the recipient wants them (and hasn't already gotten a copy or three from someone else) 11. Don't send "Check This Out" Unsolicited URLs 12. Don't expose your email routing list to spammers 13. If you are on AOL, do not use the "Forward" command 14. Don't believe every cybermyth, urban legend, hoax or virus "alert" sent to you (verify it before believing or forwarding it to anyone else by visiting http://urbanlegends.about.com/culture/beliefs/urbanlegends/mbody.htm) Here are the rules of thumb for conversing in text-only messages. Email Netiquette Do's and Don'ts Topics on this page: 1. All Caps 2. Emphasizing Words 3. Watch Your Tone 4. Spell Check 5. Quoting 6. Signature 7. Where Are You? 8. File Attachments 9. Descriptive Subject Line 10. Forwarding Jokes and Chainletters 11. "Check This Out" Unsolicited URLs 12. Don't Expose Your Email Routing List About Email These two topics have been moved to their own page (for space): Email Abbreviations Emoticons (Emotion Icons) or Smilies Netiquette Rules Summary 1. ALL CAPS The most important rule is never use all caps for your messages. IT MAKES IT LOOK LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING. It is highly offensive and especially hard to read. Caps may be used sparingly to emphasize a word or phrase. Trust me, avoid using the caps lock key on your keyboard, or suffer the wrath of the annoyed recipient! You send me a message that is all in caps and it's going right into my trash without being read. Back to the topics list 2. EMPHASIZING WORDS Because we do not have italic and bold in email (it is "text-only" or "ASCII"), we need other ways to emphasize a word or phrase. To _emphasize_, we outline the word or phrase with an _underscore_ character (shift-hyphen), or maybe *asterisks*, or other little used characters like an =equal sign=. If your browser has enhanced text features like fonts and styles, do not use them. How do you know your recipient has those _exact_ fonts? It also takes longer to send and draw to the screen. Back to the topics list 3. WATCH YOUR TONE Please remember that you are sending a text-based communication to possible strangers. They may not know your sarcasm or witty sense of humor like your family and close friends do. For this reason, it is imperative to get into the habit of using some of the common shorthand features in your email, especially the public ones you may post to a newsgroup or forum (where hundreds, if not thousands of strangers will read your post). Just remember to act as if the reader on the other end doesn't know your personality, you have to give them hints as to your tone and emotion. See the emoticon and abbreviations lists at the end of this document. Back to the topics list 4. SPELL CHECK Nothing sends the wrong message like poor spelling. Most email users compose their messages and replies off-line, then sending them when they are next able to log on. Get a spell checker for your email software if you do not already have one. *Especially* if you are corresponding for some sort of business purpose, correct spelling conveys literacy and professionalism. Back to the topics list 5. QUOTING Quoting portions of a previous message is common in email. The symbol for quoting is a "greater than" (>) symbol (or maybe two). Many email software packages will quote automatically. A quoted email reply may look like this: >> One Million Dollars! Who are you kidding?! Well, that's what I said, and if you want to buy it, that's how much it costs! You need to quote back a comment to remind the recipient what you are responding to, especially if it has been more than an hour since you received the original message. It is customary to leave a line space between a quote and the reply to make it more readable. Also, remember to break up long diatribes into paragraphs with line spaces between to make it easier to digest/read! Do NOT quote back the entire email message as sent to you. This wastes bandwidth and download time. Once you hit your reply command, select the non-essential parts of the original message and delete them! If you need to comment or answer a query on a part of the original message, quote only that part... not the entire message. Put your reply one line space down from the query... not all the way at the end of the reply message. Put your comment or answer near the line you wish to comment on or answer! This is also a good way to make sure you respond to each query asked. Let's pretend this is the body of the message you wish to respond to... >> So, do you want me to fly in on Saturday or Friday for the weekend? >> It really doesn't matter much to me as I have the whole weekend open. >> Besides, the family will be gone to South Carolina for the week to see >> relatives anyway. It will be no big deal either way. >> >> Today I was called into my boss's office. He was sitting there typing and >> then he said, "Well, I think we should work on a new product strategy, >> and I want your team to handle it." Needless to say, I was quite pleased with >> his faith in me. He has always been an OK boss before, but now, maybe I can >> hazard that he really thinks I have potential there. I had hoped that I could >> move up the ladder into management and now, maybe this is my chance. Rather than quote this whole section and reply at the end. Only quote the needed parts (deleting the remainder) and reply directly after the item you wish to respond to... >> So, do you want me to fly in on Saturday or Friday for the weekend? I would love to see you on Friday so we could have most of the weekend to talk! Please, fly in Friday if you can! >> Needless to say, I was quite pleased with >> his faith in me. I always knew you had the potential to soar. I am thrilled he sees it too! Congratulations! Back to the topics list 6. SIGNATURE If your email software supports it, have an auto signature added to every post from you. Be sure to include your first and last name with your email address. If it is business, add your title and/or company name and maybe a phone number with area code. This is also a great way to promote your business with every email you send. (Do not email me requesting help with locating your auto-signature capabilities, read the manual or contact the people who make your software.) But, don't make your signature so long it becomes a nuisance. No cutesy ASCII art of your dog and so on. It's overdone and annoying to most. Back to the topics list 7. WHERE ARE YOU? Remember that you are now conversing in a global arena. Keep this in mind when you post a public message via newsgroups, message boards, broadcast emails or live chat asking for help. For example, if you ask for someone to recommend a car repairman in your area... where is your area? Seattle? Atlanta? Des Moines? London? Hong Kong? Anyone can be reading your public post. And, if you ask for help with your computer or wish to buy or sell a product for the computer, realize that not everyone uses your selection of computer platforms. Are you Mac or PC? Maybe you are UNIX? Remember to specify. Back to the topics list 8. FILE ATTACHMENTS If you are sending a file to someone, attached to or via email, remember some very important points: First of all, UNSOLICITED file attachments are RUDE! Do not EVER send attachments without the permission of the recipient (no matter how cute or funny you think the image or file is). All the computer viruses spread since 1998 have come from file attachments -- period! This is EXACTLY how the Love Bug virus was spread in Spring 2000. Just because someone sends (or apparently sends -- as in the Love Bug virus) you an attachment does NOT mean you are obligated to open it. Use common sense. You would not open a package you received in your home mailbox if you were not expecting it and you did not know the sender -- you would contact the police. Do not unwittingly contribute to this heinous act of sending unsolicited attachments. NEVER send any unsolicited attachments over 1MB and not expect to get hate email in return. But, when sending a solicited attachment, remember the following: a. Which computer platform are they using? Macintosh or PC? If you are sending an ".exe" (executable) file to someone on a Mac, they won't be able to do anything with it. .exe format is for PC users only. Besides, that will probably mean the file is big, which brings us to the next point... b. File size. Not everyone is using a corporate or government-sponsored email account when it comes to email. Some of us pay for our own metered accounts... we pay by the hour. Or we may have slow internet access for reasons of costs or no availability in our area. Do not send a file attachment that takes a long time to download. This costs the recipient money. Do not suck up my online time with an attachment that prevents me from downloading email from my real paying clients. If I lose money because the photos of your kids took me 20-30 minutes to download, I will be quite angry and likely to bill you for my time at my minimum hourly rate. Better yet, those photos and humorous programs you think everyone wants? Put them on a web site and give out the URL. Let folks browse it at THEIR convenience, not yours. Always ask first if the recipient wants to receive a "XXXkilobyte" file from you in "XYZ" format. If so, then send it along in the next message. If you use a corporate or government email account, you are not paying for it out of your own pocket. Also, they likely are faster network speeds than the average home user. The file that you downloaded lickety-split onto your office computer may take your buddy, at home on his slower system, much longer to download. Most large corporate or government office systems run on high-speed networks that cost thousands of dollars a month just to access (not even operate). Chances are your friends don't have that high-speed transmission on their home systems. c. If you are sending someone a joke or something text-based, instead of sending it as a file attachment, copy and paste the contents right into the email. Don't bulk up the email transmission by sending it as a separate file attachment. As long as fonts and type styles are not critical, and only the content of the piece is of value, then paste it into the email message. Then you do not need a file translation for some odd word processor document that the sender used and the recipient may not have. Remember: Not everyone in the world uses Windows or the Microsoft Office software. I don't. The majority of people employed in the graphic arts industry use Macintosh. If you send to someone who is involved in professional publishing, they are highly likely not using a PC. Many of us don't even use our best equipment for email. I use an older computer with a slower modem because it is a notebook and can go easily on the road with me. I don't use my faster system for simple email, I save that for Web use only. Don't bog me down with huge email messages or file attachments without asking first. Thanks. Back to the topics list 9. DESCRIPTIVE SUBJECT LINE Make the subject line of your email descriptive of the contents. If you have something you need help with, for example, it may read, "Q Help w/Quicken." (The Q is for Question or Query.) Or maybe, "Report on Polaski Account." Make the subject descriptive. For example, if you send me a joke that has the subject line: "Humor," and I want to keep it for later, that subject means nothing to me as I look for it again. Do you realize how many joke emails are forwarded around the internet on a daily basis? Make the subject more descriptive, like: Cat Rules humor, or Microsoft buys Catholic Church humor, or 50 rules for men humor. Then, those of us who keep it, can better retrieve it later. And no, please don't send me all your jokes. I probably already get them from someone else, plus I have some topics I enjoy and most I do not. Back to the topics list 10. FORWARDING JOKES AND CHAINLETTERS Do NOT forward those email chainletters around the internet. They clog up the internet and annoy people just like they do in normal mail. Even the good luck and guardian angel ones--annoying. Remember, not everyone will think the joke you plan to forward is funny. And, chances are that your recipient got the same joke from two other people, especially if they are an online or computer professional. We get them by the ton. If you forward jokes, do so sparingly to folks you KNOW will appreciate them. Back to the topics list 11. "Check this out" UNSOLICITED URLs Don't send them to me. These "Check this out! URLs" are the sort of emails sent with a web address and a short sentence like "Check it out!" or "Thought you'd like this." Most online and computer professionals I know (including me) get annoyed at receiving these. Here is what I do when I get these... Since there is no description in the email of _why_ I should take the time to visit that web URL, I am forced to delete your submission. As an Internet professional who gets many, many emails per day, I cannot possibly take the time to look at unsolicited sites when no valid reason is given. I prefer that the message states why I should visit the site. Maybe because... ...it is pertaining to the business of my company ...it mentions my company by name ...it may be useful for an article I am working on ...it is a humorous subject that you know I may be interested in or some other reason why I should take the time to visit this site. To surf the web in my office, I need to switch from my normal email machine and transfer web URLs to that machine (taking time). Then to surf through the web takes time, not to mention the enormous screen draw time sucked up by most web sites these days. I can easily lose a half an hour by trying to get to one web URL. You also need to understand that I am on the Internet all day, every day, as an Internet professional. Normally, I do not "surf" the web for entertainment or pleasure. I consider that a sort of busman's holiday, if you will. (Please remember this netiquette as you send "check it out" web URLs to other people who use the Internet professionally.) Back to the topics list 12. DON'T EXPOSE YOUR EMAIL ROUTING LIST When you send or forward an email or some sort of joke that has many recipients, do NOT send it so that anyone reading the post can see all the other email addresses you sent it to. Do not post all the email addresses in the "To" or "CC" header for just anyone to see. This is how SPAM email gets started. SPAM is the term used for unsolicited junk email -- just like junk mail in your house mailbox, nobody wants junk email. You need to post multiple email addresses into the BCC (BLIND carbon copy) header (rather than "To"). This suppresses the list from view by everyone in the known universe. Otherwise, spam generators (human or automatic) can simply copy the whole list of email addresses to their own lists. I am sure that nobody on your mail list wishes to be added to yet another spam mail list. It is extremely bad form to post everyone's email address on a header for everyone else to see. Make sure you "BCC" or "suppress" the list (whichever your email software supports). If you see no option to BCC or suppress the list, ask the tech support of your email software company how to do that. Check their web site for the information. Back to the topics list About Email I hope this page of rules and the additional netiquette pages help you get over the fear of being a new email user. Email is great. You can "talk" with friends and relatives often and do not have to wait to store up information to write at one sitting. Also, since you are on a computer, email is the best, most effective way to communicate with the tech support people who make your computer and software. Look up their email address in your manuals. Contact them for support. You will likely get a better and faster answer by email (not to mention--free!).    Back to the topics list Here's a shortened checklist to remember, now that you have read the complete explanations: Basic Netiquette "Rules" (summary) 1. ALL CAPS means shouting 2. Use underscores or asterisks for emphasizing words 3. Watch your tone -- it's written, not verbal communication 4. Check your spelling 5. Quote back only what is relevant 6. Use an automatic signature, especially if you are a business 7. Where are you located if requesting goods or services? 8. Don't send unsolicited file attachments 9. Use a descriptive Subject line 10. Only forward jokes and chainletters if you are SURE the recipient wants them (and hasn't already gotten a copy or three from someone else) 11. Don't send "Check This Out" Unsolicited URLs 12. Don't expose your email routing list to spammers 13. If you are on AOL, do not use the "Forward" command 14. Don't believe every cybermyth, urban legend, hoax or virus "alert" sent to you (verify it before believing or forwarding it to anyone else by visiting http://urbanlegends.about.com/culture/beliefs/urbanlegends/mbody.htm) Back to the topics list    More Email Netiquette and Novice Information: [ Email Netiquette ] [ CyberMyths Debunked ] [ Don't use AOL's "Forward" Command ] [ Emoticons (Smilies) & Shorthand (Abbreviations) ] [ Stop The Junk Email! ] [ Programmer's Paradise Glossary ] © Copyright 1996-2001 by Kass Johns, all rights reserved world wide. The opinions and recommendations stated here are solely those of the author and are not the responsibility of anyone else. This is an independent publication not affiliated or otherwise associated with, sponsored by, or sanctioned by any vendor. We state here that we have used trademark names in this publication for editorial purposes only, with no intent to infringe on those trademarks. Permission is granted to copy this document for personal use only for *non-commercial* purposes, in electronic or printed form, provided that this copyright notice is not removed. This work may not be used on another Web site or online service, sold for profit, included within commercial works, or altered or changed in any way without the express written permission of the author.