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The
Internet is a new medium of communication on a global scale. But making the
transition from standard discourse to “Netspeak” requires some careful
adjustments. And while there are books and manuals explaining how to
navigate the Net, none tell you what to do once you get there.
Here are a few simple guidelines for well-regarded social behavior in
cyberspace. Call then “The Rules of Netiquette.” Memorize them or risk being
ostracized from the vast new artificial intelligentsia.
Rule
No.1: Shrink
your vocabulary.
You only need about 200 words on the
Internet, and about one third of those will be jargon. Using any more will
make you appear as though you’re some kind of smart-ass strutting your
erudition, which will upset your fellow communicants.
Rule
No. 2: Learn
the acronyms.
This is the best way to follow Rule No.
1. Commonly used acronyms on the Internet range from the useful (FTP for
File Transfer Protocol) through the complex (MIME for Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions) and the breezy (WYSIWYG for What You See Is What You Get)
to the downright rude (RTFM for Read The [expletive] Manual).
Rule
No. 3: Express
your emotions.
Remember the happy face, that grinning
yellow disk from more than two decades ago? It’s made a comeback of sorts in
the form of “emoticons,” feelings expressed in a sequence of chracaters. If,
for example, you tilt your head to the left and look at the symbols [;-)],
you’ll see that they vaguely resemble a smile and a wink. So if you’re
happy, say it with punctuation. It’s one of the few chances you’ll get to
use any in cyberspace.
Rule
No. 4: Prepare
for debate.
And plenty of it. Net surfers are a
notoriously obstreperous lot. A good deal of the debate focuses on computers
but there are other topics too. Is the government eavesdropping on Internet
communications? Did NASA really put Gene Roddenberry’s ashes on the space
shuttle? Was Lee Harvey Oswald working for the Trilateral Commission or the
British Royal Family’s Secret Albanian Drug Bund? If you know the answer,
keep it to yourself. Telling kills the fun.
Rule
No. 5: Settle
all arguments with rock lyrics.
Net surfers have been known to invoke
record sleeves as a kind of rhetorical flourish. They might, for example,
sum up a bulletin-board discussion on UN intervention in Bosnia with “As Bob
Dylan once wrote...” or “Wasn’t it Geddy Lee who said, ‘Invisible airwaves
crackle with life’?” In this vein, I’m fond of quoting the Residents:
“Edweena went to Calumet and left from there to college/She took along a
porcupine whose name was known as knowledge.” I don’t know what it means
either, but it usually clinches the round in my favor.
Rule
No. 6: Lose
your inhibitions.
That you’re a
faceless, anonymous typing entity on the Net will eliminate your — and
everybody else’s — sense of shame. Your lust for barnyard fowl, for example,
need no longer be a dirty little secret. Chances are there’s someone else on
the Net who feels exactly the same way. Nor need you be self-conscious about
that special ritual involving a king-size jar of peanut butter, a goat and a
car battery. To meet interesting people, you have to learn to share.
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