(Copyright © 2000-2001 --
this item revised 17 June 2001)
Over the last twenty years or so, Usenet readers and posters have discovered through trial and error that some ways of doing things work best for everyone. Not all of these are obvious, so old hands sometimes need to tell newcomers about these rules of thumb, which go by the general name of "netiquette".
These are not special rules for alt.algebra.help! They make every newsgroup work better. And they are not handed down from on high by some self-appointed cabal, but have grown up out of the experience of ordinary Usenetters like you.
You can find an excellent rundown at the NNQ Links; if that link is down, try one of the mirrors here or here. The NNQ Links are also a good place to find about how Usenet works in general (including technical info, if you want it), how to find a newsgroup to match your interests, and so on.
Some of the most important points follow. Again, for more information including detailed justifications, please see the NNQ Links cited above.
Check line lengths: set your posting software to wrap somewhere between 65 and 72 columns.
Make sure you have quoted-printable turned off. Otherwise
when you post an equation it will come out like this:
x=B2 + y=B2 =3D z=B2
and there will be stray = and =20 at the ends of your lines. You
won't see them, but the majority of us will.
Netscape and MSIE users, please make sure your vcard is turned off.
Please don't post test messages to a.a.h. Special groups exists for just this purpose. See I didn't see my article after I posted it. Can I post again?
Post in plain text -- no HTML, no pictures, no MIME. Boring, perhaps, but it lets you reach the widest audience. If you really need a picture to explain your problem, please see "How do I post a picture or attachment?".
DON'T SHOUT. Capital letters are perceived as shouting, which is rude. They're also harder to read than normal mixed case.
If you're composing a message on a word processor, make sure to turn off "smart quotes" or "curly quotes". They may look right to you, but curly quotes, em and en dashes, bullets, and squared and cubed symbols come across as unreadable nonsense characters to many of us.
If you're posting a follow-up, make sure to trim your quotes.
If you're making a joke, be sure to add a smiley :-) or the equivalent. Believe it or not, there is someone out there who will otherwise think you are completely in earnest. "Obvious" humor is not obvious to everyone, and not everyone "gets" the same jokes. (Also, many people who read the group think in a different language from you.)
If you send someone an e-mail copy of something you post, make sure you say that it's a copy. It can be irritating to spend time composing an answer to what looks like a private e-mail, only to find out later that it was merely a copy of a publicly posted article.