Etiquette and Our New World

In the cynical world we live in I try to maintain hope that we are generally a good species that has respect and cares about the great good and other peoples feelings. When did people stop caring about professionalism online and generally how you look to the rest of the world (minus the physical)? Recently I have read an article about netiquette and I noticed that it spawn other rants (like mine), but I haven't read them... I'm supposed to be studying.

First, a story about etiquette in the real world... you do not call a house of 4 students, during exam time, at 7:30 in the morning, on a Saturday. Unless their house is on fire. (Tyler is not a student but he keeps the same hours as the rest of us.) You particularly don't call, to say that your in a line to pick up a Wii... Use your head... I seriously thought the world was coming to an end when the phone rang.

Back on track, I agree with Porue's post and find the current state of netiquette appalling. From email, to IM, to forum behaviour, everything that people used to time is now a garbled mess. Emails have always been the center of online etiquette discussions... the "reply to all" function was always first on the list.... Then there was BCC... yes, if you are spamming people used BCC so they don't get a whole new resource of email addresses to re-spam back. Finally, with regards to email, people seem to think its okay to send typos and screwed up engrish because they are sending the email with a quick response time... That's no excuse and it reflects badly on you and your professionalism... If you can't type on a blackberry... THEN DON'T

IM - if you are above the age of 15 there is no excuse for not typing the entire word 'you' or 'are' you aren't typing any faster or learning anything... such as how to clearly communicate yourself. The use of emoicons should be kept to a minimum, and should be used to show emotions that can otherwise not be conveyed with the text. :) :P :( are acceptable. (I sometimes throw in :$ which is the blushing one on MSN).

Finally, Forums... You are NOT anonymous. Ever. In most forums, they are archived, and indexed... chances are if Google can find it... your (next/current) employer can find it and those you are ranting about can find it. You never know who is reading the forum, and you have no reason to be rude and say things that you wouldn't say in person. Even worse when you bad mouth a person who deserves your respect and you just don't know who they are.... like a CS secretary or a CS Professor or a Co-op adviser... They are reading and they know who you are.

This rant when much longer than I intended, and my point really is... your online persona should be a reflection of yourself. Hopefully it will be the best image of yourself because you are able to manipulate it as you chose. However it seems that many use anonymity and removal of physical nonverbal actions and reactions, to explore their otherwise hidden dark side... and that makes me sad.