What is Netiquette? Simply stated. it's network etiquette-that is. the etiquette of cy-berspace. And "etiquette" means "the forms required by good breeding or prescribed by au-thority to be required in social or official life". In other words. Netiquette is a set of rules forbehaving properly online.
When you enter any new culture-and cyberspace has its own culture-you're liable tocommit a few social blunders. You might offend people without meaning to Or you mightmisunderstand 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.
So. partly as a result of forgetting that people online are still real, and partly because they don't know the conventions,well-meaning cybemauts. especially new ones, make all kinds of mistakes.
The book Netiquette has a dual purpose, to help net newbies minimize their mistakes,and to help experienced cyberspace travelers help the newbies. The premise of the book is that most people would rather make friends than enemies, and that if you follow a few basic rules,you're less likely to make the kind of mistakes that will prevent you from making friends.
