Netiquette- A Must For All
Today, millions of people around the world communicate with each other over the Internet. While communicating with other people, from friends to colleagues, it is always important to follow Netiquette.
Netiquette is a term joined together with the interlinking of the words ‘Net’ and ‘Etiquette’. As both the words give you an idea about the term, netiquette is the most important aspect of online communication. It is as important to be courteous and polite to others while communicating on the net, as it is in real life. The importance of netiquette has been emphasized over the years since communicating over the net has only increased with time. Netiquette does not only display professionalism and courteousness but also defines your character over the Internet. Three basic principles of Netiquette are mentioned below.
Always Identify Yourself
Identifying yourself while writing emails is one of the basic principles of Netiquette. It does not only display professionalism but also introduces the reader to the author of the text.
Using Appropriate and Respectful Language
It is important for us to use polite and appropriate language while communicating online. For example, always use words like ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ while communicating with colleagues.
Address Your Reader and Avoiding Sarcasm
Always address the person you are writing to. Using words like Mr, Mrs, or Ms to address a colleague in office is a must to show professionalism. Apart from addressing yourself, avoid sarcasm while writing to others, as sarcasm does not always get transferred online. A person who does not understand the sarcasm might feel offended.
On an ending note, Netiquette is of the most important aspect of online communicating. In my Art 100 class, which is a web based class, my professor has kept certain amount of credit for following Netiquette. Since all the communication between students and professor take place online, it is important for everyone to display professionalism and respect towards each other. In today’s world, Internet is used communicate between millions of people all over the world. Hence, the importance of online courtesy and etiquette should be understood by people of all ages and cultures who use the Internet for communication.
http://www.howcast.com/videos/180933-How-to-Follow-Proper-Netiquette-Rules
http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-follow-netiquette/
http://netiquetteiq.blogspot.com/2013/01/wordiness-in-email-some-netiquette.html
Netiquette is an absolute necessity in the today’s techo-centric world. Often, more meaningful communication pertaining to the workplace and productivity occur online in emails, texts, tweets, and wikis. Unfortunately, very few people are adept at verbal-only communications, and rightly so since only 35% of our normal communication is conveyed verbally, according to life coach Brenda Hooper (http://www.brendahooper.com/uncategorized/body). We lose out on the facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, and even eye movements that generally dominate casual daily conversation.
To be on the safe side, most ‘netiquette’ workshops are likely to encourage a focus on explicit technical communication. ‘Say exactly what you mean in the clearest form possible. Provide clarification where appropriate.’ But this is a cop out in my opinion. Verbal-only communicators need to learn how to convey the sarcasm, humor, and colorful language that populates their normal conversation. We must provide as much context as possible in order to convey more complex notions of sarcasm or humor. Great authors achieve this through careful exposition and character development. Where appropriate in our emails, try to craft a character of yourself in order to personify your text.
Netiquette is definitely important for the more formal parts of the internet. Particularly any sort of over-the-net communication where your actual identity is known to those that you are communicating with. Given the nature of the typical forum to comments section on the internet, it is easy to see how someone might be confused and end up portraying themselves in a poor light via their e-communication techniques. One thing that I would add to your list, which I think is a really common pitfall, is a lack of proper grammar and punctuation. Typing without these can easily be associated with unprofessionalism by whoever is reading what you are writing. There is also the problem with emoticons, which are generally okay but can be seen as annoying when overused.
I suppose it’s generally implied in your post and the video, but I think it’s also important to mention that netiquette really only applies to more formal and professional settings. For the rest of the internet, you can not have general expectations about the accepted mode of communication, and if you enter a discussion and try to force your own, more formal, rules onto the community it will generally not be received well. While it’s easy to apply rules to the professional sphere, I’d say that each forum of discussion on the internet that lies outside of that will have its own specific set of ways that you are expected to communicate. Not that these will be typically laid out for you in a rules section, but you can usually pick up what is and what is not accepted by reading through different conversations. Sometimes you will even have differences in what’s accepted on different parts of the same site, like a site that has different boards for different interests.
Personally, I’d rather the professional sphere was closer to these more open parts of the internet, as discouraging things like jokes and sarcasm seems a bit dehumanizing to me. While it can be a bit tougher to make a joke work or sarcasm make sense via text, there are communities that thrive on this sort of thing and are clearly able to do it very well. In general, netiquette seems to me like something that we only do because we all agreed to do it and use it as a litmus test for determining the worth of a person. Is our communication that much better because I know, most of the time, where to place commas? Is it better that I should spend 30 minutes worrying and searching the internet to find out someone’s preferred title before I send them an e-mail? Wouldn’t it be okay if people just TYPED LIKE THIS from time to time? I like to think that society probably wouldn’t collapse over all-caps.