Nettiquette is some informal “rules” set by the community of digital world. You will not go to jail for breaking this rule, but if you care about your friends, then there is no harm in following some nettiquettes.
1. Email is simply a mail !
Yes, if you will not write something in your “paper” letter, then don’t write it in your email.
Never write confidential or private information in your email because an email can be easily forwarded to many people without you know it. If you friend who receive the email is using a public computer and forget to log off (well, things like this do happen), then someone might easily read the inbox and do whatever he/she wants with it.
2. Keep it concise
Make your email brief and clear. Many people don’t have time to read long pointless email.
3. Do not send spam
Most people hate to receive spam. So you can avoid to be one of the spam sender too. Chain emails with cute photos, sweet poems, jokes, angels, and the ones threatening us “send this to X people or something bad will happen to you” are categorized as spam !
Unless you are really sure that one particular friend likes to receive those kinds of email, don’t send. Never forward a chain email to all people in your contact list, it’s rude, impolite and unethical.
4. Do not spread hoaxes
Hoax is basically a lie. Not everything you read in the Internet is true !
When one day you got an email about sick girl who needs money for operations and we will donate few cents for every forward, DO NOT BELIEVE !
I have received the same emails since over six years ago. The same girl, same photo. Even if the girl does exist, she might already cured, or already dead, or never exists in the first place.
One thing is sure, she will not receive a single cent from your forward because there is no system in the world that can completely track every forward of an email. It simple can’t be done and is a serious offense against privacy.
Also do not believe some stupid rumours about Yahoo is closing down and you must copy paste this to all people in your messenger list or your account will be closed. It’s simply stupid and irrational. If they want to know which accounts are active, they can simply open their database. There won’t be any need for them to ask us to forward stupid messages who will ended up creating unnecessary bandwidth for their servers !
There are thousand of other lies out there. Basically, when you receive a news from email or any digital source, do not act immediately. Check whether the news is true or not from http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org or http://www.hoax-slayer.com
5. Do not write in all capital letters
Writing in all capital letters feels like you are shouting. There are other ways to emphasize something. If your email support rich format, use bold or underline. If you are sending plain text email, use double asterisks ** like this **
6. Do not use acronyms
Writing email is different from internet chat or sending sms. If you like to use “btw” instead of “by the way” or many other acronyms, keep in mind that using too much acronyms will make your email less readable, especially if your reader is someone not familiar with those acronyms.
Many people use acronyms to be cool, but is it really cool? No, it’s not cool for some people.
7. Put empty lines between paragraphs
Naturally, packed writing will not be easy to read. Giving one empty line between two paragraphs is a simple task which will greatly help the person reading your email.
8. Fill in the subject
Make sure the subject properly represents the information written in the email content. Some people receive hundreds of emails every day, and they will have alot of problem if you send them 10 emails per day, all with no subject. When important thing comes up, it will take time to find the correct email.
9. Use To, Cc and Bcc correctly
An email can be addressed to one or more recipients. Put the main recipients of your email in the “To” section, they are the primary readers. If you want other people to be notified that you are sending something to your primary readers, put their addresses in the “Cc” section. If you want someone to receive your email, read the content but does not see other recipients of that email, write the address in “Bcc” section.
10. Respect privacy
If you send something to a group of people who does not know each other, do not write their addresses in “To” section, use “Bcc” instead.
Why? Most people do not want their email address to be revealed to strangers just because they receive the same email.
11. When forwarding an email, delete the old recipients
When you forward and email, remember to delete all the previous recipients before sending. Also remember to put the addresses in “Bcc” if the recipients does not know each other.
Why? When a lot of people sending email forward to a lot other people, eventually those email will reach someone who will sell those addresses to email marketer (yes, those addresses can worth few dollars). As a result, those emails will start receiving (more) spam.
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