If you are new to the Internet this is a very important article for you to read and may save you a great deal of embarrassment in the long run.

According to the Netiquette Home Page, "Netiquette is network etiquette, the do's and don'ts of online communication. Netiquette covers both common courtesy online and the informal 'rules of the road' of cyberspace."

If you follow these "rules" you will be able to more easily integrate into the Internet culture and be much less likely to offend someone. Disregarding some of these rules can result in losing your Internet access with your online or Internet service provider (ISP).

When sending electronic mail (e-mail), only send it to people that would want it or are expecting it. To send unsolicited e-mail to large groups of people is called "spamming." The key word is "unsolicited," meaning e-mail that is not requested. This is one of the quickest ways I know to getting kicked off your Internet service.

I work for an Internet service provider and have to deal with constant complaints from people stating that someone using our service keeps e-mailing them "get-rich-quick" schemes or chain letters. Our policy, like most other ISPs, to give only one warning to the offender to stop per our service agreement with them. If they persist, they immediately lose their service with us.

Another form of spamming is when a message is posted to multiple (usually more than five) USENET newsgroups. Netscape has a good explanation about netiquette related to newsgoups called Usenet News via WWW. While anyone can access it through the Web, Netscape Communicator users can jump to it quickly by selecting Net Etiquette off their help menu.

A pet peeve of many when dealing with e-mail or Internet chat is the use of capital letters. When your sentences LOOK LIKE THIS, it is considered to be shouting. Many hostile replies have ensued just because of the improper use of capitalization.

Along that line, try to use correct grammar, spelling and punctuation, but forgive those that don't. If you can't string together nouns, verbs and adjectives well enough to make a decent sentence or misspell every other word bigger than three letters, you may start seeing your chat options limited. Most people want to at least pretend they are chatting with a reasonably intelligent person.

On the flip-side, few things start a "flame war," (a series of hostile messages) faster than constantly correcting someone's spelling. I have even seen people kicked out of moderated chat rooms because of it. Be a bit tolerant of others. English may not be their first language or they may not have had the schooling that you did.

When chatting online or sending e-mail, it is often difficult to tell whether or not you are joking about something. Imagine that you are talking to someone on the phone and make a joking comment with a straight-toned voice and then wink to indicate your jest. The person to which you are speaking can't see your wink anymore than someone online.

To indicate emotions online most people use words in brackets like <grin> or use emoticons, often called "smileys." To understand what a smiley is supposed to mean, you have to turn your head sideways and use your imagination. For example, :-) is happy, :-@ is screaming, :-P is sticking your tongue out at someone. If you intend to use Internet chat or e-mail, you may want to check The Unofficial Smiley Dictionary to keep up with the latest in smiley definitions.

Finally, when interacting with others through the Internet, it is easy to forget that you are not talking to an emotionless computer, but a real person that can be hurt and angered. So, as the Netiquette Home Page reminds us in Rule 1, Remember the Human.