Rules and Netiquette Issues

NOTE to ALL EDITORS:
Messages generated on this list are the sole ownership of the original sender. I say again, if you would like to print these messages in your publications, that is fine with me as long as you get permission from the individual who owns the copyright and in most cases it is the ORIGINAL author of that message. I would also like to see you give the CHIMNEYS-L some credit since this is where you found the information.

About accuracy and publication
1. Posted statistics and other information are only as accurate as the poster makes them.
2. The author of the post is the AUTHOR of the post. Not the owner.

About being deleted from the list:
1. The owner, at any time, reserves the right to delete anyone from the list. Although the listowner does have this right, the listowner does not like to do this but in some extreme cases it will be done in order to preserve the sanctity of the list. Offenders will be duly warned by the list owner PRIOR to this action. If you do not respond in a positive manner to this warning you CAN and WILL be deleted."
2. You may be deleted from the list for many reasons. These include but are not exclusive:
A. You didn't set your mail to NOMAIL before leaving for vacation and all of your mail from the list is bouncing to a very tired owner. To do this, look under the heading of MISCELLANEOUS
B. You were not following the guide to netiquette and the owner needed to put out a "flame", See below.
C. Your server was not working properly and mail bounced to the Listserv, which automatically deleted your address.

NOTE: The owner/list manager may add or delete users at any time or delete the entire list at any time or may choose to change the list entirely.

HOWEVER: Contact the owner dmcknew @ chimneysweeps.com if you have been deleted and have questions.

What is Netiquette?

Simply stated, it's network etiquette--that is, the etiquette of cyberspace. And "etiquette" means "the forms required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be required in social or official life." In other words, Netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly online.

When you enter any new culture--and cyberspace has its own culture--you're liable to commit a few social blunders. You might offend people without meaning to. Or you might misunderstand what others say and take offense when it's not intended. To make matters worse, something about cyberspace makes it easy to forget that you're interacting with other real people--not just ASCII characters on a screen, but live human characters.

The list of core rules below, and the explanations that follow. They are offered here as a set of general guidelines for cyberspace behavior. They won't answer all your Netiquette questions. But they should give you some basic principles to use in solving your own Netiquette dilemmas.

RULES:

RULE 1: REMEMBER THE HUMAN

The golden rule your parents and your kindergarten teacher taught you was pretty simple: Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. Imagine how you'd feel if you were in the other person's shoes. Stand up for yourself, but try not to hurt people's feelings. In cyberspace, we state this in an even more basic manner: Remember the human.
When you communicate electronically, all you see is a computer screen. You don't have the opportunity to use facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice to communicate your meaning; words--lonely written words--are all you've got. And that goes for your correspondent as well. When you're holding a conversation online--whether it's an email exchange or a response to a discussion group posting--it's easy to misinterpret your correspondent's meaning. And it's frighteningly easy to forget that your correspondent is a person with feelings more or less like your own.

RULE 2: REPLYING TO MESSAGES

When replying to messages please try and take a SMALL quote of the message you are replying to so someone who is reading your reply will have something to jog their memory as to what the original message was. Do not (unless you feel it is absolutely necessary) highlight and post the message again in your response. Also, please delete all of the headers and footers of the message that do not apply.

RULE 3: ADHERE TO THE SAME STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR ONLINE THAT YOU FOLLOW IN REAL LIFE

RULE 4: KNOW WHERE YOU ARE IN CYBERSPACE

NETIQUETTE VARIES FROM DOMAIN TO DOMAIN
What's perfectly acceptable in one area may be dreadfully rude in another.
LURK BEFORE YOU LEAP
When you enter a domain of cyberspace that's new to you, take a look around. Spend a while listening to the chat or reading the archives. Get a sense of how the people who are already there act. Then go ahead and participate.

RULE 5: SUBJECT LINE

When you compose a new message or REPLY to another message, please edit the "subject" line. Doing this will help to accurately reflect the subject matter of your message. This will allow the digest facility to provide everyone with a useful table of contents and more accurate archives.

RULE 6: STICK TO THE SUBJECT AT HAND

This is a list for chimney sweeps, please steer clear of subjects such as:
A. Religion
B. Politics (of course we don't have politics in the chimney industry)
C. Sexual Orientation D. Anything that does not in some way reflect the chimney industry or owning a business.

RULE 7: PERSONAL RESPONSES

Do not respond in a personal nature to the whole list. If you have personal information to pass send it directly to THE ONE OR TWO individuals that it is meant for, not the whole list.

RULE 8: SIGNATURE FILES

Lets keep our signature files to a minimum, one or two lines. Signature Files...
NO blatant advertising of products or services, just indicate your website for them to go to.

RULE 9: PERSONAL ATTACKS

Posting messages to this list for the purpose of identifying other sweeps, companies etc. who YOU think may be operating in an illegal or immoral way without fact and judicial findings is NOT authorized. Anyone who wishes to post anyway will be immediately removed from the list.

RULE 9: DO NOT WRITE IN ALL CAPS :-)

Do not write in all caps unless you are YELLING at that person or emphasizing a word or two that is important.

RULE 10: RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME AND BANDWIDTH

It's a cliche that people today seem to have less time than ever before, even though (or perhaps because) we sleep less and have more labor-saving devices than our grandparents did. When you send email or post to a discussion group, you're taking up other people's time (or hoping to). It's your responsibility to ensure that the time they spend reading your posting isn't wasted.
The word "bandwidth" is sometimes used synonymously with time, but it's really a different thing. Bandwidth is the information-carrying capacity of the wires and channels that connect everyone in cyberspace. There's a limit to the amount of data that any piece of wiring can carry at any given moment--even a state-of-the-art fiber-optic cable. The word "bandwidth" is also sometimes used to refer to the storage capacity of a host system. When you accidentally post the same note to the same newsgroup five times, you are wasting both time (of the people who check all five copies of the posting) and bandwidth (by sending repetitive information over the wires and requiring it to be stored somewhere).

RULE 11: MAKE YOURSELF LOOK GOOD ONLINE

You will, however, be judged by the quality of your writing. For most people who choose to communicate online, this is an advantage; if they didn't enjoy using the written word, they wouldn't be there. Spelling and Grammar..."although they DO count, not everyone is a genius, so please be tolerant of typos and honest spelling mistakes"

RULE 12: SHARE EXPERT KNOWLEDGE

It's especially polite to share the results of your questions with others. When you anticipate that you'll get a lot of answers to a question, or when you post a question to a discussion group that you don't visit often, it's customary to request replies by email instead of to the group. When you get all those responses, write up a summary and post it to the discussion group. That way, everyone benefits from the experts who took the time to write to you.
If you're an expert yourself, there's even more you can do. Many people freely post all kinds of resource lists and bibliographies, from lists of online legal resources to lists of popular UNIX books. If you've researched a topic That you think would be of interest to others, write it up and post it. Sharing your knowledge is fun. It's a long-time net tradition. And it makes the world a better place.

RULE 13: HELP KEEP FLAME WARS UNDER CONTROL

Netiquette does forbid the perpetuation of flamewars--series of angry letters, most of them from two or three people directed toward each other, that can dominate the tone and destroy the camaraderie of a discussion group. It's unfair to the other members of the group. And while flame wars can initially be amusing, they get boring very quickly to people who aren't involved in them. They're an unfair monopolization of bandwidth.

RULE 14: BE FORGIVING OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MISTAKES

If you do decide to inform someone of a mistake, point it out politely, and preferably by private email rather than in public. Give people the benefit of the doubt; assume they just don't know any better. And never be arrogant or self-righteous about it. Just as it's a law of nature that spelling flames always contain spelling errors, notes pointing out Netiquette violations are often examples of poor Netiquette.

Finally, be pleasant and polite. Don't use offensive language, and don't be confrontational for the sake of confrontation.

For you Newbies on the net these rules are not designed to discourage you from posting to the list. It may seem a little overwhelming at first but as you lurk at first and see how things operate you will get a better understanding of how things work. You will come to appreciate these few rules.

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