Netiquette: Internet Etiquette in the Age of the Blog [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Anyone who uses the Internet can benefit greatly from reading "Netiquette." It is one of the most helpful guides I've ever read on the subject. Since I've been online for ten years I can say that I picked up many of these rules just from interacting with other users. I've made my share of mistakes and I wish I'd read this book sooner. I'm happy that finally someone tells things like they are in reality. Yes we all hate spammers and there is a chapter on that subject. There is some helpful advice about how to "mung" your email so spambots can't harvest it. This is especially useful if you are building a website and want to keep your email address relatively private.

Matthew Strawbridge believes that using all lowercase letters makes you appear like an amateur. I think some people think they are being cool but it is quite annoying to some readers. One of the things I didn't agree with Matthew Strawbridge on is his advice to return emails within four hours of their delivery. I think he should have instead addressed the problem of addiction to emailing! I remember fondly the situation I found myself in when I frequently checked emails and answered promptly and ended up emailing someone sixteen times in one day. I now believe in only answering emails once or twice a day at most and if someone emails me five times in one day I try to only send one email back with answers to all their questions.

This book gives good advice on how to deal with trolls, how to protect kids online, why you should avoid cyber-squatting, what you can do about spam and viruses and how to deal with online auctions. There is also some helpful information on blogs and building websites.

I really wish I could afford to buy this book for everyone I know. One of the things I seem to constantly be reminding people of is to use BCC instead of CC so everyone in the world doesn't get all your email addresses! Yes, some spammer can get ahold of them and then spam you like crazy. If you are getting a lot of spam also look up your email online because I found one person who had listed mine at their site. I was not pleased.

So this book is really for everyone! Read this book and buy as many copies as you can for everyone in your life.

~The Rebecca Review

It's inevitable that how to behave in a civilized manner on the Internet should be dubbed "netiquette." And no doubt all of us good citizens want very much to know exactly which fork to use with the salad and whether we should extend our pinkie finger when drinking tea--or perhaps be told that such an extension is a vulgar genteelism. Furthermore is it okay to now drop the hyphen in "e-mail" and close it up, thereby saving a keystroke from the top row of the keyboard? All up-standing burghers want to know.

Matthew Strawbridge, who has the kind of proper English name from feudal times that inspires confidence and is obviously a right proper English gentleman, is here to tell us what Emily Post is no longer around to tell us.

First, yes it is okay to write "email." Although Strawbridge doesn't say so in so many words, "email" is the form he uses throughout and that's good enough for me.

Second, no forks and no pinkies are mentioned. (I was just J/K--See "Appendix A - Instant-messaging abbreviations.") Wait a minute! "J/K" is almost as hard to write as "just kidding" and I don't like it nearly as much as what I sometimes use, "JJ" for "just joking." Perhaps we have a Brit-Yankee usage problem here.

And if I see one more smiley face I am going to scream. (But nobody can hear you when you scream on the Net.) ;-)

Strawbridge divides the book into three parts, "Forms of Online Communication"--email, forums, real-time messaging, browsing, blogs and wikis; Online Services--file transferring, auctions, domain names and such; and Other Issues--advertising and spam, security, spelling and grammar, emoticons, and when and if it's okay to write all caps or all down style. (All caps is still SHOUTING and uncultured while all down style is okay in instant messaging, but otherwise lazy. Well, he doesn't say "lazy" exactly. He merely points out that all lower case writing is not easy to read.)

In a sense Strawbridge's book is an introduction to the Internet as much as it is a primer on Internet etiquette. It's crisp, concrete and easy-to-read. He packs a lot of information into 160 pages. For example, do you know what a CAPTCHA is? It's "a picture of a word or number that has been stretched and skewed in such a way that it is still readable by people but difficult for software to extract." CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart"!

You know about Wikipedia of course, but did you know that a "wiki" in general is a website with pages that anyone can edit online. The term comes from Ward Cunningham who named his software after the very quick Wiki Wiki bus service at the Honolulu Airport.

Strawbridge is a reasonable man whose advice, if followed by all, would make the World Wide Web a better place. Of course it would be nice if we could get the spammers to disappear. Not so curiously, Strawbridge is mum on what we can do about those rascals except to note that if people stopped patronizing the spammers they would go out of business. If. Only.

However despite Strawbridge's eminent good sense I do have a quibble or two. In the section on "flame wars" Strawbridge notes that a "disproportionate number of arguments take place online" and blames the lack of visual and tonal expression in text messages and the fact that there are so many different opinions expressed online for the arguments. But he doesn't mention the fact that people are emboldened because they can hide behind relatively anonymous screen names to say things they would never say in person. Also he recommends not directly challenging self-styled "experts" as a way to avoid arguments. That will work but I think it's better to brave the flame than to let an erroneous or cockeyed opinion go unchallenged.

One final thing. In the abbreviations appendix Strawbridge writes that he prefers "LOL" to "HAHA" which he finds "deeply annoying." Isn't it interesting that HAHAHA is annoying but ROTFLMAO is not. I wonder why. Maybe because it seems that the HAHAHA is aimed at the reader.

I'm a long-time computer geek, and I'm well aware of what is generally acceptable behavior on the 'net. But when asked to list the "rules", it's tough to come up with a comprehensive source that you can point the newbie to. Matthew Strawbridge has taken a shot at that goal in his book Netiquette: Internet etiquette in the age of the blog, and it's a commendable effort.

Contents:

Introduction

Part 1 - Forms of Online Communication: Email; Forums; Real-time Messaging; World Wide Web; Blogs and Wikis

Part 2 - Online Services: Transferring Files; Online Auctions; Other Online Services

Part 3 - Other Issues: Advertising and Spam; Security; Miscellany; Conclusion

Appendix A - Instant-messaging abbreviations; Appendix B - Netiquette for Internet Service Providers; Appendix C - Summary of Rules; Glossary; Bibliography; Index; About the Author

I know some people will take exception to these "rules" and assert their right to do whatever they please. Conversely, Matthew has gathered together the conventional wisdom that has evolved over time about how people expect others to behave when they're online. Making an attempt to generally follow these guidelines tends to make everyone's experience much more pleasant. For instance, the forum rule "lurk before you leap" means that you should observe the flow of an online group and get a feel for how things are done before diving in. Breaking the established norms of a discussion group gets you started off on the wrong foot and can ruin what might be otherwise be a beneficial exchange of views. Or another "for instance"... for bloggers, "check the spelling and grammar of your blog posts." Instead of just blasting out something on the keyboard and hitting submit, take a second and read your entry back to yourself. Make it easy for your reader to follow what you have to say. And yes, I've been guilty of this one far more than I'd like to admit.

I would expect some readers to quibble with particular entries, such as "don't use VoIP unless you need an immediate response." Depending on who you're calling and what the situation is, VoIP might be perfectly acceptable. Or the one that states "only create a blog if you really need one." Yes, there are far too many abandoned blogs out there, as well as too many that discuss things that no one cares about. But how would you know if you need one unless you give it a try? But in my opinion, these "judgement calls" are few and far between, and the vast majority of the rules are ones that you should disregard at your own risk...

Good book, and one that you'll probably want to gift-wrap for your favorite troll or SHOUTER...