ILGuide
ILink Etiquette Guide
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Version 4.0
March 2001
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CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. Messaging Guidelines
III. Hosts & Moderation
IV. Glossary
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I. INTRODUCTION
A. This etiquette guide is for participants in the ILink electronic
messaging network. It is of particular help to new participants
so they can gain quick acceptance of others in ILink. These
guidelines come down to us from those who have read thousands of
messages and have been doing electronic messaging for years. Many
are the direct result of lively discussions among those who deal
with messaging problems on a regular basis and others are the
result of some very memorable disagreements. In any case, follow
these guidelines and you'll fit in just fine. If you were to
choose to ignore them, you could expect to be reminded from time
to time by an ILink Host!
B. Hosts are a special feature of ILink messaging - a major reason
why ILink is suited for general audiences. ILink messages stay
on-topic, do not include advertisements, and are civil: no
profanity nor personal attacks (flames). There is a Host for each
ILink Conference who reads all conference messages and is
empowered to moderate participants to insure compliance with ILink
guidelines.
C. The ILink messaging network consists of a number of Conferences,
each of which focuses on a particular subject such as: Politics,
Comedy, Windows, Seniors, etc. Most participants follow and
participate in more than one conference; the ones that are of most
interest to that person. There are too many conferences for
any one person to follow all conferences.
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II. MESSAGING GUIDELINES
A. Be helpful and friendly. The electronic acquaintances you make
may well turn into lifelong friends. And because you cannot see
that other person, or hear voice inflections that friends often
add to their conversations, messages frequently include some
special characters such as :-) or :) or ;-). These are
smilies (if you tilt your head, :-> looks like a smile). You'll
also see this and other manifestations of this idea everywhere.
These little touches add much to the friendliness of electronic
messaging.
B. Read the description of conferences in which you are interested
and understand what type of discussions are welcomed. Try to read
at least several day's worth of messages before you post that
first note. Read the conference messages till you're comfortable.
Jumping in can be a scary thing at first.
C. Keep messages on topic. When you do start to post, keep
reasonably close the topic of the conference. If you are posting
about religion in the Basics conference, you are causing users to
see messages they don't want: they're reading Basics to talk about
programming. You are probably also duplicating topics that are
under discussion in other, more appropriate conferences.
Another thing to avoid is posting personal chitchat in messages in
technical areas. If you find you want to chat informally with
someone, move your thread to ChitChat, direct e-mail, or pick up a
phone. Occasional chitchat does happen in conferences - it's to be
expected when people are comfortable and are having a good time.
But when it threatens to become an unreasonable percentage of the
mail, or pulls the focus of the conference off-topic, or goes on a
long time, the Host will usually step in and remind you to move
your discussion.
D. Public mail. All ILink messages are public: all messages posted
to a conference are available for all conference participants to
read. It is illegal for anyone to post copyrighted material
without the express consent of the owner of the material.
E. Post only plain text messages. ILink is a medium for people to
communicate with each other in public messages. Therefore,
encrypted or encoded data is not allowed in messages: do not post
binaries, "UUENCODED" files, DEBUG scripts, or any other encoded
file format.
F. Keep messages short and focused as an aid to the readers. Limit
message length to less than 400 lines.
G. No personal flames or vulgarity. Although users are encouraged to
express their personal opinions in conferences where appropriate
(such as Opinion, Politics, etc.), the use of personal flames in
messages directed at other members of the conference is
prohibited.
There is a difference between a personal attack directed toward an
individual, and a lively discussion or expression of personal
opinion. We encourage *idea* exchange, but if you cannot
communicate those ideas without attacking another participant
personally, you will be better off dropping the conference. Your
Host will let you know what is acceptable. Remember, treat people
as you would have them treat you.
We all know the "Seven Dirty Words". Avoid them in our conference
message bases.
H. Do not reply to inappropriate messages posted by others. Saying
nothing is one of the hardest things in the world when you are
just crying out to "set things straight". Two major reasons:
1. That is the host's job. It avoids creating personal conflicts
because the host is speaking for all of ILink. Hosts are
advised on how to handle situations plus the whole ILink team
is there for the host to draw upon for their experience.
2. Some participants will post messages who's sole purpose seems
to be to agitate others. Such messages often say nothing of
value: their authors blather on with the hope that someone will
take the bait and pay attention to them.
Those who have raised children recognize this as being just
like a 2 year old's temper tantrum - its sole purpose is to get
attention. Don't sell short the human desire for attention -
its just that most people learn as young children to not
inflict that personal desire on others.
The only effective way to deal with such persons/messages is
the same as for the 2 year old - ignore them.
I. Avoid duplications. Please avoid posting the same message to more
than one conference. This is called "carpet bombing". If you have
a message that may be of interest to people in more than one
conference, post it in the most relevant conference and post a
short notice in other on-topic conferences to let others know
where to find the complete text.
Don't attempt to reply to every message. Some new participants
are over eager to get mail but be patient, you will soon be
exchanging mail with the regulars.
Similarly, combine thank you notes. When you get help from other
participants combine your 'thanks' messages into one and thank
EVERYONE at once or add it to a post that has information or more
discussion in it.
J. Quoting. Quoting is a communication innovation that came into
being in electronic messaging. Quotes are parts of the original
message that are copied into a reply message to provide the reader
with a specific reference and focus as an aid to understanding the
reply.
The challenge is to quote enough to quickly communicate with the
reader but not so much that the reader must spend a lot of
confusion time determining the context for the reply. Plus
experience shows that people just DON'T READ posts with lots of
big quotes. Quote sparingly!!! Of all, this is the biggest and
most consistent problem plaguing private e-mail systems.
Whenever possible limit yourself to 2 or 3 lines of quote from the
previous message to establish the context of your reply. Although
there will be times when it makes sense to provide larger
quotations, if you find your message is 15-20% quote, you are
probably quoting more than you need to.
Do not quote the entire message. This is becoming popular in the
world of internet e-mail because it so quick and easy for those
creating the reply. But it is very impolite because it wastes the
reader's time digging out the relevant earlier statements.
And, don't copy in a huge quote and leave a single line or short
reply like "Right" or "I agree". Think about all the text others
are expected to read to see this single line!
K. Beware of hoaxes and urban legends. Sometimes you will see
messages that ask you to "spread the word" that you can make lots
of money, fight the government, do a good deed, or warn people of
some online or real-life peril by posting copies of a message in
lots of conferences. Below are some of the more popular hoax
messages.
Please do not post *or reply to* ANY messages concerning the
following subjects, or any other message that urges you to copy it
to as many places as you can:
MAKE MONEY FAST: This is a chain letter originally from
someone named "Dave Rhodes" that promises to make you thousands
of dollars simply by adding your name to the end of a list, and
posting the message to as many different BBSs as you can find.
The fact is, despite what the letter says, this is a pyramid
scheme and it's illegal in almost every part of the world. The
only thing you'll make by posting this chain letter is enemies.
DYING CHILD WANTS TO SET A WORLD RECORD: This story originated
in England, where a young lad named Craig Shergold really was
suffering from a brain tumor. His last wish was to become
famous by receiving huge amounts of mail. His luck changed,
however, when a wealthy benefactor in the US paid for medical
treatment and Craig has now completely recovered and grown up
and does NOT want to receive any more mail. The recipient's
name and address has changed many times since then, but neither
the Guiness Book of Records nor the Children's Make a Wish
Foundation have anything to do with this scam. If you truly
want to make a difference in the life of someone dying of an
incurable disease, make a donation to your favorite charity.
FCC MODEM TAX WARNING: This letter resurfaces from time to
time, and warns that some government agency wants to tax your
modem calls, and to post the message in as many places as you
can. Sometimes the letters look very convincing and even
contain docket numbers, but in every case to date, they have
been completely false. If anything is likely to provoke the
FCC into trying to regulate modem users, it is harassment from
users who fall for this scam.
"GOOD TIMES" MESSAGE VIRUS and other virus warnings: This hoax
message claims that e-mail with the subject "GOOD TIMES"
contains a virus that can somehow infect your computer and
cause damage through the simple act of reading the message.
The hoax message urges people to post copies of the warning in
as many places as they can. You CANNOT get a virus simply by
calling a BBS or reading a message, regardless of what the
warning says.
L. Common courtesies. The following are small irritations in the big
scheme of things, but after you have read thousands of messages
little things tend to mean a lot.
Use both upper and lower case letters in mail. A message in
all-caps comes across to the reader as shouting since all caps are
used for emphasis. A message without any capital letters looks
childish. Both are harder to read and invite the reader to skip
your posts.
Use only ASCII (characters 127 and below, or Lower ASCII) in
messages so that all computers systems can read the message. This
is becoming more important with the growing use of voice
recognition and a variety of techniques to accommodate those
physically impaired. However, messages carrying non-english
languages may use full ANSI (characters up through 255) because
those languages may need the upper 128 characters.
Signatures at the end of messages may contain information which
serves to identify the author and, optionally, to provide the time
and/or location of authorship and/or contact information such as
an e-mail address. If the author is posting as a representative
of a company, corporation or any other type of legal entity
(including ILink), the name of that entity and the individual's
title may appear in the signature. Don't add 'extras' to your
messages, like large fancy characters, large quotes or pictures.
They are cute once, but people get annoyed seeing them over and
over again. If you add a signature, make it small - two lines or
less - and tasteful.
If you use taglines at the bottom of your messages, keep them to
one line. Obscene or slanderous taglines are prohibited.
M. No advertising is permitted except in the Buy-Sell Conference and
those conferences which have been granted an exemption from this
rule. If you are not sure whether or not a particular conference
permits advertising, please ask the Host. This does not prohibit
messages that say, "You can buy this widget for about $50". It
DOES prohibit messages that say, "I'll sell you this widget for
$50. Call me at...". This type of sale must ONLY be handled in
Buy-Sell. Why? Because just like commercials on TV, it disrupts
the program (the conference).
N. Exceptions to the above guidelines may be approved for specific
conferences. For example; foul language may be appropriate in
Writers or Recovery Conferences, and binary coding such as
UUENCODE and DEBUG scripts may be appropriate in some programming
conferences. Check with the host.
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III. HOSTS & MODERATION
A. A conference host is a participant appointed by ILink to be
responsible for a conference. A host:
* "chairs" the conference
* helps spur new discussions and takes part in old ones
* answers questions on conference topics/policies
* keeps conversation on topic and limits personal or
"chitchat" messages, especially in technical or specialty
conferences
* guides participants to other conferences when then require
additional information not available in the current one
* routinely advises ILink's administration on the state of
their conference and is responsible for keeping order when
necessary
B. THE MODERATION PROCESS
Hosts have volunteered their valuable time and effort to be
responsible for a conference. By taking their advice, you can
help make a conference useful to the maximum number of readers.
If they ask you to move a thread or request your cooperation in
staying on topic, do it gracefully. They have been empowered to
enforce the rules in "their" conferences, should it become
necessary. Please let the host deal with any problems that arise.
Commenting on problems, especially flames and vulgarity, will only
cause more trouble.
And what happens, you ask, if a conference rule is broken?
Usually, nothing. The host will send a message reminding the
participant of the rule and requesting that it be followed. Nine
out of ten times the participant complies and the conference gets
back to its normal functioning.
And what about the tenth time? Unfortunately, some participants
take the host's request as a personal insult. Others may be so
angry at a real or imagined flame that they continue the rule
violation even after receiving the host's request.
At this point the host will send a message with a subject line
that says FORMAL WARNING. This message simply advises the
participant that if the host's request continues to be ignored,
the participant's access to ILink will be cut off for a 30-day
cooling-off period.
Such suspensions are rare, but for continued conference
disrupters, even more severe sanctions are possible.
Participants who question a host's moderation message are
requested *not* to do so in the regular conference, since this
would be off-topic and disruptive. A special ILink conference
called Host&User has been designed to allow (ONLY) that participant
and host to discuss the issue.
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IV. GLOSSARY
Acronyms: In addition to the smiley faces: :) :-) ;-) and friends,
there are several shortcut ways of saying certain frequently-used
phrases, such as:
BTW = by the way
OTOH = on the other hand
IOW = in other words
IMO = in my opinion
IMHO = in my humble opinion
FWIW = for what it's worth
FYI = for your information
Carpet bomb: The same message posted to multiple conferences,
especially if the message is off-topic for the conferences in
which it appears.
Conference: A message base devoted to the discussion of a specific
topic. Conferences may be local or international.
Flames: This term originated at MIT and migrated to the Arpanet and
Internet computer networks. The story was that the term was taken
from a comic book character who could turn himself into a
superbeing by uttering, "FLAME ON!" at which point he flamed the
bad guys, then turned back into a normal person by saying, "FLAME
OFF!". The analogy has stuck in BBSing. When we in ILink talk
about flames we mean nasty, personal attacks that go directly at
people rather than at their *ideas*.
ILINK-INFO Conference: A conference for the feedback and comments of
ILink participants. This is the conference for suggestions about
new conference ideas and asking of questions and getting answers
about the ILink.
Quotes: When replying to a message there is an option to import a
section of the original message into the reply. This part of
that message is called a "quote".
Thread: A collection of related messages within a conference which
may be sorted by THREAD, SUBJECT and DATE.
UUENCODE: A utility that translates binary files such as executable
programs and images into ASCII text that can be transmitted in
messages. Its use is not permitted in ILink.
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