Chapter 3
The Core Rules of Netiquette
So you got a modem and a network subscription for your birthday and you want to make some new online friends. Where do you start?
The golden rule your parents and your kindergarten teacher taught you
was pretty simple: Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you.
Imagine how you'd feel if you were in the other person's shoes. Stand
up for yourself, but try not to hurt people's feelings.
In cyberspace, we state this in an even more basic manner:
Remember the human.
When you communicate electronically, all you see is a computer
screen. You don't have the opportunity to use facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice to communicate your meaning; words -- lonely
written words -- are all you've got. And that goes for your correspondent as well.
When you're holding a conversation online -- whether it's an email
exchange or a response to a discussion group posting -- it's easy to misinterpret your correspondent's meaning. And it's frighteningly easy to
forget that your correspondent is a person with feelings more or less
like your own.
Rule 1: Remember the human
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