Etiquette On-Line

Al Macintyre's Radio Weblog : Al's random interests while learning what can be done with Weblogging, and perhaps what ought to be done.

Etiquette On-Line

This topic has come up a few times when it is apparent that different people have figured out ways to behave that others question.

An important rule for me is to try to stay out of trouble. Sometimes people misunderstand what we meant to say. It is important to try to correct that misunderstanding as fast as possible, before more people are given alleged quotes of something you allegedly said but did not mean to convey. Perhaps we read something into what someone else said, that is not quite right. The sooner other people are told about our postings about them, so that they can correct any misconceptions, the better. It is just common courtesy.

Even if the odds are high that I will win some law suit against me, court cases are expensive, and eat a lot of our time that could be used more constructively. Better to avoid such messes in the first place.

When we get information from someone else, and pass it along, we should try to make clear who is saying what, so there is no chance that a third party will think that we are saying what we are really quoting.

I have been using info found many places, and linking back to where I got it from, giving credit, but that might not be enough. In Understand Radio Referers, I explain one way we find out who is doing this on us, but suppose we misquote someone, misunderstand what they said, so that now we have a falsehood. How does that person that we are misquoting by accident, have an opportunity to see that we misunderstood so that it can be corrected? I do not have an answer to this yet. There need to be mechanisms of notification to people that we using their info, link to where we using it, and these mechanisms need to be beginner-friendly so they get used right from the beginning.

If I do not have anything good to say about some one or some product, do not say anything at all. In fact it is better to only mention products and services that on balance I have more good stuff to say than not, because there is an implied recommendation to other people to try it out.

Lepak's Guides to home PC beginners needing to learn etiquette of e-mail and other Internet Discussion scenarios. Magid on e-manners. e-mail etiquette (with a list of common acronyms). Professional Conduct. e-ethics.

Dave Winer on Integrity, thanks to Alison Fish for providing this link. She also has a story on the need for people able to coin clever phrases that summarize what we mean.

There's a related responsibility to write clearly and elegantly. I started my Brain to Brain category to address this need.

Ernie the Attorney mentions that Lawyers are supposed to use plain English, but that aint good enough. We can still use plain English and not be clear.

Not everyone agrees on Privacy. Here are some common viewpoints. I do not want to get in an arguement who is right. I just want to explore the Internet without unneccessarily antagonizing people of contrary viewpoints.

Strong privacy for individual people is a basic civil right. Digital privacy is basic decency and respect for others. No one should pry into your private affairs unless they have a court order signed by a judge.
Strong privacy for individual corporations is neccessary because data belongs to copyright holders and they have a right to profit from or restrict access to that which belongs to them.
The Internet is a community. Privacy is in contradiction to that. It would be like having a public library in which you can't read any of the books because each one belongs to a different person.
Privacy undermines our economy. Businesses need to build data bases of what potential customers might want to buy, based on their surfing habits, so that advertising can be tailored to what people seem to be interested in.
Privacy protects criminals. We need strong regulation of what goes on in public, and on the Internet, so as to catch wrongdoers.
There is no such thing as privacy on the Internet. Everything you do leaves footprints that people such as commercial interests, criminals, the government, can monitor. Sooner or later what you think is private will be in data bases being used to try to sell you products, or steal from you, or accuse you of something. So never say anything on your personal computer, or on the Internet that you cannot say in public.

[Blogfish QUOTE]

Weblog Etiquette: The Identity Disclosure Dillema.

"Dan Hartung asks if you blog using your real name."
[Scripting News]

Etiquette is a strange thing, nobody wants to spell it out for you, you sort of have to play it cool. Just put your hands in your pockets, and figure it out without looking like you're trying to figure it out.

Anyhoo, I have been struggling with the issue of anonymity in a weblog. It seems that the Radio community appreciates identity disclosure, as it is a catalyst for building trust. I have noticed other communities have a slightly more sarcastic tone and coincidentally or not, identities go as far as handle name, and stop there. I could be wrong, these are just my observations.

Reasons I would like to remain vaguely anonymous: my boss does a google search and my name pops up everywhere. Experimenting with a different voice, trying to find a voice. Experimentation with identity, period. (Male or female? don't know, but blogfish has a great tutorial on configuring tomcat with every permutation of webserver.)

[UNQUOTE Blogfish]

One of my rules of thumb is that on the Internet, and on our Computers, Nothing is truely Private.
- The people who are in the business of privacy have managed to have millions of credit card numbers stolen. Visa statistics say that we are 7 times more likely to have our credit card number stolen if we use it on the Internet than if we use it in the Real World.
- Since 9/11, scores of government data bases have been broken into.
There are only degrees of privacy, based on our degrees of understanding the underlying technology.
- One of the many Microsoft security flaws is that if you write something, then delete it, it does not really go away, it just gets coded as deleted, so that then if you send that document to someone else, they can undelete everything you ever said then deleted.
To help stay out of trouble,
Avoid saying anything negative about our employer or a former employer.
If it is not Ok to say it openly to all co-workers, managers, vendors, customers, then do not try to say it privately on the Internet.
We might want to keep that job, or get a job reference.
Let's not burn those bridges.