"Etiquette" means "ticket" in French. On the Internet, "netiquette" is your ticket to "travelling" (by FTP, TELNET, and electronic mail) without annoying others.
The elemtary social conventions of Netiquette are nothing more than common sense, human civility, and exemplary restraint in the face of "noise to signal ratio". In other words:
The term "spam" refers not to a famous canned meat product, but rather to a single article posted repeatedly to a large number of newsgroups (as opposed to using proper cross-posting.) While many spams are commercial and/or self-promoting, the definition of spam is strictly quantity-based.
"Spam" postings are a flagrant abuse of Usenet. In their worst form, these mass-postings are carried out by automated programs, which bombard dozens or even hundreds of newsgroups with junk articles. Like telemarketers who annoy thousands of people with irritating phone calls in the hope of finding a few lucrative customers, "spammers" attempt to publicize their services or views through notoriety and sheer volume of posting.
"Spam" is destructive for several reasons. It not only wastes the time of thousands of people who must wade through the junk postings to read articles of interest, it also wastes the money of those who pay to read Usenet news. If "spam" postings were not discouraged or restricted by system administrators, Usenet would be in danger of being swamped by junk articles, damaging the very medium such posters hope to exploit.
Usenet is intended not as an advertising billboard or channel for electronic junk mail, but as a free forum for the discussion and exchange of ideas. If you wish to make a commercial posting informing readers of your services, investigate the "biz" hierarchy of newsgroups, which exists for such purposes. Be courteous to others by posting responsibly; you will not only help to improve the quality of Usenet but also avoid the backlash risked by ignoring basic rules of "netiquette".
In Usenet usage, a "troll" is not a grumpy monster that lives beneath a bridge accosting passers-by, but rather a provocative posting to a newsgroup intended to produce a large volume of frivolous responses. It may consist of an apparently foolish contradiction of common knowledge, a deliberately offensive insult to the readers of a mailing list or a newsgroup, or a broad request for trivial follow-up postings. You are probably reading a troll if you see a brief message posted with lines similar in character to the following:
- "PCs are much better than Macintoshes."
- "People from Fairbanks are all right wing radicals."
- "We should move the state capitol to Anchorage."
- "What's your favorite fish? Everyone post!"
The result of such postings is frequently a flood of angry responses. In some cases, the follow-up messages posted in response to a troll can constitute a large fraction of a newsgroup's contents for as long as several weeks. These messages are transmitted around the world to thousands of computers, wasting network resources and costing money for people who pay to access the Internet. Troll threads also frustrate people who are trying to carry on substantive discussions in a newsgroup.
People post such messages to get attention, to disrupt newsgroups, and to make trouble. The best response to a troll is NO response; if you post a follow-up message, you are contributing to the resulting clamor on the newsgroup and most likely delighting the troller. Before posting a response, consider the following questions:
- Have responses already been posted by others?
- Will my post add any information that others likely are not already aware of?
- Is the issue resolvable, or will discussion turn into name-calling?
- Should I send email instead of posting?
- Will I later regret the contents of what I am posting?
In Internet usage, a "flame" is a posting to a newsgroup that attacks another person or group of people, usually in response to an earlier posting. People post "flames" for a variety of reasons. Sometimes discussions of emotional issues in newsgroups degenerate into angry name-calling. Sometimes new users posting to a newsgroup are flamed for not being familiar with the content of the discussion or not showing proper "netiquette" (Usenet manners). And sometimes people flame one another because they are aggressive, rude, or short-tempered.
You should resist the temptation to post a flame to a newsgroup. Because flames often involve personal insults, they can destroy the possibility of further constructive discussion. Ask yourself the following questions before posting a flame:
- Will you later regret posting this?
- Are you sure you haven't misinterpreted what the person wrote?
- Was this person trying to get attention or provoke angry responses?
- Would you be insulted if someone responded to one of your own postings in this way?
- Is this a personal matter in which other readers will have little or no intereset?
- Should you resolve the issue by e-mail instead of posting?
Responses to flames may also take other unpleasant forms, such as harrassing e-mail or complaints to system administrators. If you insist on flaming another poster, be as restrained as possible, and preferably redirect follow-up postings to newsgroups dedicated to this purpose, such as alt.flame. (However, be forwarned, for the inhabitants of this group are skilled at insulting one another and may direct their energies towards flaming you for posts they consider uncreative.) Be careful also to check the newsgroups to which your article is being posted; your opponent may have added irrelevant groups to embarrass unwary responders. In particular, make sure your response is not being posted to diagnostic newsgroups such as misc.test, which are used for network testing purposes purposes and will fill your mailbox with automated responses.