Whatever the case may be, we need to follow a simple set of rules of common courtesy and common sense before our e-messages get us fired or make enemies out of friends. The rules that follow are based on a set of rules that I saw several months ago, I have augmented a couple of the rules to make more sense. When composing a message, make proper use of capitalization. Using all capital letters in a message, is the equivalent of shouting at the person. Don't send messages without filling in the subject line and be specific.
Some people sort their messages by the subject.
When sending forwarded messages to others, get rid of the address headers, no one wants to sort through three pages of addresses to get to the message. I believe that Netscape has an option to forward messages without the headers. When you reply to a message refrain from sending back the message to which you are replying, unless it is absolutely important to include it into the message. Before sending e-mails with long file attachments, notify the recipient before sending the longer message. A good rule to follow is send a brief message to the person before sending any message or file longer than 500K Bytes.