Netiquette is a code of Internet manners that gives us a guideline of how to correctly do various things online. This concept of codifying virtual civility has been around since the old Usenet days.

A number of guides have been put out, but the one I like best is by my friend Chuq Von Rospach along with Gene Spafford and Mark Moraes, entitled A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community, 1983-1995 (following screenshot). You can read it at: http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ia_nq.htm

Netiquette is something not pushed very hard lately. Most Internet users who've started in the last few years have never heard of it.

The lack of common sense with manners on sites allowing anonymous posting today, at times, gets downright spiteful. When no one knows a poster's real name, the use of manners and consideration for the other person get tossed, and profane and disparaging remarks become the rule instead of the exception.

Case in point, several years ago I posted on a local newspaper...