by Joanne Merriam

A little different from any other form of communication people have ever known, the internet is spawning new rules of etiquette (generally and somewhat whimsically called netiquette). Get it wrong, and you can offend people without even knowing you've done so. Here are a few tips for getting it right by email:

• As writers, we should know how to indicate emotion through text - but not everybody does. Remember that you can't hear inflections or see body language online, and make allowances for that. Be generous when interpreting the intent of others.
• Generally, don't pass on virus warnings. Most virus warnings are hoaxes, and they all take up bandwidth that could be more usefully employed. (Bandwidth measures the speed and resources required for information transfer. If your computer transfers information very quickly, then you probably aren't terribly concerned about wasted bandwidth, but if your computer is slow, or you pay by the minute for your internet connection, then you'll care that somebody is wasting your time and money by sending you more information than you need or want.) Good places to check out virus warnings are the Symantec Encyclopedia (http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html), and the US Department of Energy's Hoaxbusters (http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/). While actual viruses are dangerous, email is not an efficient or effective way of combatting them - viruses will be talked about on the news.
• Check with people before adding them to a list of people to receive forwarded messages (like jokes), especially if you'll be sending off-colour material. Many people despise joke-forwarding, regarding it as a waste of time or resources.
• Likewise, don't pass on chain letters, unless you know for certain your correspondent likes them. Chain letters also take up a lot of bandwidth. Some of them are heart-warming poems or luck charms, while others are just... well, wrong. Bill Gates will not give you a nickel every time you pass on his email, nor will a donation be made to the American Cancer Society or by the Make-a-Wish Foundation (even if philanthropists wanted to pay you to forward emails, there's no way to track that you've sent them). The US Government is not trying to impose a tax on modems. Craig Shergold has recovered from his brain tumour and is no longer collecting get well cards. And so on. Don't forward stuff you can't verify.
• All caps? That's like raising your voice, online. Don't SHOUT.
• Be careful with replies. An advantage of email is the carbon copy (or cc) feature, which allows you to effortlessly send the same email to many people at once. Say your friend Cordelia sends you and six other friends an invitation to a party at her house, and the two of you get into a conversation, continuing to cc your friends on all your emails. This clutters their inboxes (and wastes bandwidth), which is a little rude - especially since they can't very well ignore these emails the way they would spam, since there might be something about the party they need to know. (Worse, suppose you forget you've been ccing Wesley and you say something nasty to Cordelia about him.) Use the carbon copy feature responsibly.

Happy surfing!