2.5. Tips for posting and reading messages

If you’re new to Usenet, before you start posting messages, learn what you can about it’s customs and “culture”, what is known as “netiquette”. Here are some quick tips:

* Behave as you would in real life when posting messages or follow-ups to other messages: be polite, respect other people and their opinions (even if they are different from yours).
* Unless the newsgroup was specifically created with a specific language in mind, the common language when posting messages on Usenet newsgroups is English.
* Not everyone has the same grasp of English; many users – this author included – don’t have English as their native tongue. Keep this in mind when reading messages on Usenet, and don’t flame others if their posts have bad spelling or grammatical errors.
* Commenting on others’ typos and bad grammar is always a bad idea, whatever their mother language(s) may be. It tends to create unnecessary tension and animosity.
* That said, POSTING ENTIRE MESSAGES IN CAPITALS IS VERY ANNOYING (NOT TO MENTION MUCH HARDER TO READ), SO please don’t do that. Try to avoid doing it, even in the subject header.
* Don’t quote entire messages (unless you think you have a very good reason for it), but rather only the parts that are relevant for your response).
* Try to develop the habit of placing your response underneath the quoted part, not on top of it. Especially in long threads, this makes it easier to keep track of what is being written.

Posted in: 2. Usenet