From: jamie@access.digex.com (James Treworgy)
Subject: Re: **CALL FOR COMMENTS** - Netiquette, the Net, and You
Organization: Express Access Public Access UNIX, Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 17:41:17 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.195441.29574@leland.Stanford.EDU> samuels@matia.stanford.edu (Steve Samuels) writes:
>6) Be specific.
>
>        Remember you're typing, not speaking.  Because of this, many
>_obvious_ things to you are not obvious to your audience.  That's why we
>have the smiley ( ;^) ) characters, to denote sarcasm or humor.  A
>perfect example of being ambiguous was someone who wrote, "*I* always
>thought the words were...."  Someone else was upset at the fact that
>this person was not only wrong, but also had clearly set themselves up
>as an authority due to the emphasis on the "*I*"!  I (and I believe the
>author as well) took "*I*" in a self-deprecating way, to mean more of a
>"well here's one lowly opinion, take it for what its worth."  Notice
>that these two construals of the writing are _direct_opposites_!  But,
>if we heard the person speak, it would be easy to tell exactly which one
>he meant.  Beware of ambiguity, and use smileys!

(I am posting rather than emailing because I think this is worthy of
discussion).  I fundamentally disagree that you should have to qualify
everything you say with smileys.  No other written medium abuses punctuation
so much, why do we have to on usenet? Humor and sarcasm especially suffers
because of them... it's like watching a sitcom with a laugh track dubbed
in.  I like to be given the benefit of the doubt with regard to my ability
to determine the mood of a given posting... not told "this is a joke" before
I have a chance to make my own decision.

A better rule is "don't read usenet with your flamethrower on".  Before you
respond to something read it carefully.  I have seen people flame things
that were pretty obviously written with humorous intent, but the flamer
had just read the words without looking at the whole context.  And of
course *write* carefully, and ye shall then avoid being flamed.  I've
read lots of funny stuff in books, magazines, newspapers and every other
printed media but I've only seen smileys on usenet.

Another rule which I heard before and like a lot (which kind of summarizes
a couple of the other good things you had in the posting)... always write
more than you quote! I can't stand postings which are 60 lines of quoted
material followed by a one-line comment or "Yeah, I agree with that".  There
is no law which says you have to quote the entire article to which you are
responding.  Only quote the specific lines of text which directly relate
to what you are talking about.  If people want background on a discussion
they can go read the older articles.

One other good rule... don't respond to flame-seekers.  As you read r.m.phish
sooner or later someone will post (in all capital letters no doubt)
"Phish sucks, all phishheads can burn in hell" or "Rush kicks ass over
phish and Geddy Lee is a much better bass player than Mike Gordon".  These
invariable turn into long, drawn-out battles over the net (I have yet to
see it on r.m.phish but has happened lots on r.m.gdead).  They can be avoided
completely if nobody follows up to the article.  If you want to respond
to the guy by email, fine, but there is no point in following up to the net.

Whew, I'll get off the soapbox now, thank you, thank you.  Now for some
obligatory Phish content.  That "roll like a cantelope" show people were
talking about, I had a 45 minute soundboard of part of that show
(3/11/90 at the front) with the absolute best Harpua I have ever heard on
it.... so it's worth finding not just for the antelope variation!! So Shelley
has 45 minutes with Cantelope on it... anybody got any other bits and
pieces, we can rebuild it... better... stronger... faster... (although I 
haven't seen my chunk for a while... could be in never never land).
But my tape was made from a great soundboard, so it does exist!! This show
can be found! Anyone out there want to 'fess up?

-- Jamie
-- 
James A. Treworgy
jamie@digex.com