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Netiquette: Knowing the Rules to Live By On the Internet

Because of the unique nature of USENET, be sure you have a proper understanding of the expected norms of behavior before actually participating in newsgroups. Netiquette is a term to describe these accepted rules to live by on USENET and the Internet. If you follow the general guidelines described below, you will do just fine working with USENET news. [...]

Understand the USENET culture.

[...] it is important to keep in mind that USENET has a unique culture that you need to understand before you begin to participate in discussion groups. Besides the geographic diversity of USENET users, they also come from various backgrounds, research, government, education, and commercial. USENET is then a diverse international community [...].

Given the wide array of newsgroups, each has a unique identity and norms by which members are to behave. Some newsgroups are virtual free-for-alls, while others expect more civilized discussions. Therefore, before jumping into a discussion, it is best to learn about the background of the newsgroup before posting an article.

There are, however, certain categorizations we can cautiously make about newsgroups within various hierarchies. Some USENET hierarchies (such as sci, comp, and news) focus primarily on facts, not opinions. Participants of these newsgroups would be less patient with highly opinionated postings. Others, such as soc and rec may be more opinionated, but still listen to new member opinions. Finally, some groups like talk and misc usually generate more flames than anything else and may throw some heat much more easily and often at a "newbie" posting.

Read news.announce.newusers and FAQs. Before joining in the discussion of newsgroups, you should read the information found in the news.announce.newusers and news.answers newsgroups. These newsgroups include discussions on writing style, proper internetiquette, an USENET overview, and how to post articles effectively.

Additionally, many newsgroups regularly post a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list. FAQs are a means of answering the questions most commonly asked that arise in a given newsgroup and prevent the need for a member to answer the same questions again and again for each new newsgroup member. Before posting an question, make sure you check the FAQ list either in the newsgroup itself or in news.answers. Many newsgroups post a FAQ list every 2 weeks.

Before posting, you should know the focus of the newsgroup. While many are intended for discussions, some are primarily for announcements or queries. Therefore, in these cases, it is usually unwise to participate in discussions in newsgroups that are intended for other purposes. Additionally, some newsgroups will always have controversy, but be sure to keep it in its proper place. There are newsgroups (especially talk newsgroups) designed for debates, while other newsgroups for people of like minds to hold discussions.

... remember exactly where it will be distributed to. If it is in the normal USENET hierarchy, your message will normally be distributed worldwide to an audience of some 7 million potential readers. Also, be sure to get the most appropriate audience for your message, not the largest.

[...] format your articles so that they are easily readable. Limit your articles to 80 character lines. Email when possible. With the flood of new Internet users, resource constraints have been a concern recently on the Internet. Therefore, it is wise to do your share to avoid posting needless messages. For example, simple "thank you" messages are best sent via email rather than to a newsgroup. If an answer is not of general interest, reply via email.

One of the more important netiquette rules to keep in mind is never post an advertisement to general purpose newsgroups. It is possible to announce products or services, but only to the comp.newprod newsgroup and the biz newsgroups, which are specifically devoted to commercial postings. Submission guidelines to these newsgroups are regularly posted in them.

Signatures are a means to include additional information about yourself at the end of each newsgroup article you post. They are perfectly acceptable, as long as you keep it short (no more than four lines). Also, avoid the practice of creating pictures from text characters and placing them in your signature.

Another major no-no is to post multiple copies of an article in multiple newsgroups. This is sometimes referred to by Internet gurus as "spamming". While an article may be cross-posted to a small number of appropriate newsgroups, use great caution before doing so. USENET users often get irate when they have to read or download the same message in several different newsgroups.

After you send an article, it may take some time before it is posted to the newsgroup. Do not immediately assume that the article was not posted and quickly repost it.

While it is tempting to relay important breaking news to people, avoid using newsgroups as your means to do this. Because of the nature of USENET, most readers will have already heard the information elsewhere by the time they read your post. However, there is an exception: you can use the misc.headnews newsgroup for such discussions. [...]