News and netiquette

Communication on the Internet is quite different compared to communication through other media. Writing an e-mail is different from writing a regular letter, and it is difficult to find an analogy to reading and posting articles on USENET.

More or less unwritten rules for communication through e-mail and USENET has evolved, just like the unwritten rules we have for other kinds of communication. Thousands of people try to follow these rules and they also expect that other people should follow them.

The problem appears when a new user breaks these unwritten rules. It is very annoying for the other users, even if you break the rules without knowing them. This can lead to negative feedback which makes you frustrated. Breaking the unwritten rules of communication has only negative consequences.

Fortunately there are ways to learn these unwritten rules because someone has written them down. A nice way to get started is to read the postings at the newsgroup news.announce.newusers. You should also read the following document http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html.