On the internet the way people communicate has changed severely, this is primarily because of the advent of chat rooms and instant messaging systems which allow people to communicate in real time with one another in a written format.

But along with these changes comes a certain ignorance. Because there is no formal teaching on how to use the internet, many of us follow what we see others do. Often in a chat room a person trying to communicate quickly will leave out any pretense of capitalization or sentence structure, they will leave off all punctuation and even use emoticons as part of their sentences. And then later on, they will do the same thing in other written formats on message boards, e-mail, and even on official communications within corporate organizations.

Because of this, rules of internet etiquette called netiquette have been written so that people need not remain ignorant as to what is appropriate on the internet, specifically on message boards, in personal communications, and formal communications.

Netiquette Rule # 1 - No personal questions.
Asking personally identifiable information on the internet, (I.E. someone's phone number or where they live or their real name) from someone who you have not established a relationship with is not only rude but is very dangerous. Most people have a standard as to how long they have known each other before they will give this information out, my personal standard is three months. That means do not ask me my real name if you have only just met me. My screen name or handle will do just fine. This also means if you do KNOW someone's personal information you do NOT share it with others, or on general message boards without asking them if its all right, this is again, not only taboo, but extremely dangerous.

Netiquette Rule #2 - Don't shout, and be careful how you type.
On the internet we have a certain anonymity, but because people cannot see how you dress, or how you have your hair done, you WILL whether you like it or not, be judged by how you type. Typing in all caps is considered shouting, and is considered very rude in most circumstances, unless it is used only on a word here and there to add emphasis. U, R, And Y are letters, not words. They are occasionally appropriate in chat rooms and messengers, but are not considered appropriate in e-mails and on message boards. Use of cursive or scripted fonts is also rude, as they do not show up on everyone's computers the same and can be very hard to read, use a medium sized font, and a font color that is easily read on the background that is showing. Check your spelling, capitalization and punctuation, it makes it easier to read what you have written, and people are less likely to skip to the next message or e-mail.

Netiquette rule # 3 - Don't spam.
Sending forwards can be rude, they can fill a persons inbox very quickly and keep them from receiving e-mails they really want. Do not forward anything unless you have asked and are sure that person wants it. Do not forward lost child e-mails, most of them are fake, a few of them were real and have been found, most of those e-mails have been going around the internet since the early 90's. If you really want to help a lost child visit http://codeamber.org. Also most virus warning e-mails are hoaxes, and in a few cases, these hoaxes have been used to spread real viruses. Also Bill Gates is not giving away free money, and there has not been a single e-mail tracking system created yet that works, and there is no legitimate company currently trying to make one. Chain letters or e-mails are particularly rude, especially if they promise good or bad luck, also nothing will pop-up on your screen after you send the e-mail, no matter how many times you try again to send it.

Before forwarding an e-mail you may want to look up and find it its true or not, to do that check out some of the following sites.

http://www.snopes.com
http://www.truthorfiction.com
http://www.urbanlegends.com
http://www.breakthechain.org
http://www.scambusters.org
http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBOtherHoaxPages.html

Netiquette rule # 4 - Protect your friends.
When you forward an e-mail, and you put a whole bunch of addresses in the "To:" line, or you forward an e-mail that is cute, and it has a lot of other addresses on it from those people who forwarded it before you. You expose each and every one of those people to receiving more spam. There are people out there who make their living spamming people, and they love getting forwards like these because many of them can have hundreds of other e-mail addresses that they can use to send spam to. IF you are going to forward something clean it up first. Remove all those other e-mail addresses so they don't get passed on, and use the BCC line to put all those friends e-mail addresses in, then they will not be able to see who else received it, they will only see the address in the "To:" line. (Bcc means Blind carbon copy.) Also you can use a program such as e-mail stripper http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm to clean out the carrots (>>>) that are a result of all the people that forwarded it before you.

Netiquette rule # 5 - Don't steal.
Okay you aren't hopping into people's houses, and stealing the good silver, but someone just worked hours, maybe even days or weeks to write that, and you just passed it off without acknowledging the author. You also just used that graphic on your website that you thought looked so cool and you didn't get permission even though you got it off someone else's site. That's not only rude, but it's illegal because it's a violation of copyright law. Please make sure when you copy and paste a small piece of text, you quote the source, and when you use a larger piece of text you give credit to the author (and when possible a link to the authors site if they have one). Don't steal other peoples graphics or pictures, thousands of websites get shut down everyday for bandwidth theft and/or copyright infringement. It's rude, it's wrong, and it's illegal.

Netiquette rule # 6 - Be careful how you say it.
On the internet, since other people can't hear you talking, they can't hear your tone. Are you being kind and soft spoken, or sarcastic and smarmy? Its often very hard to tell, so when you write something double and even if you have to, triple check it. Make sure what you wrote comes across correctly, if you are trying to be peaceful, make sure you don't use harsh words that come across sounding spiteful or angry. If you are actually being sarcastic, it is usually okay to show it by expressing it, the most common way that I know of to do that is to enclose it in asterisks like so. *Smiles sarcastically* No of course I never knew that!
This is not usually acceptable in formal communications, but then sarcasm is not usually acceptable in formal communications either. In some forums and most messengers you can also use emoticons, although these can sometimes be less specific and are not appropriate in more formal communications.