JDELIST DISCUSSION GROUPS (FORUMS) NETIQUETTE

Larry_Jones

Larry_Jones

Legendary Poster
JDELIST DISCUSSION GROUPS (FORUMS) NETIQUETTE
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INTRODUCTION:

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 the JDEList 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.

So, partly as a result of forgetting that people online are still real, and partly because they don't know the conventions, well-meaning cybernauts, especially new ones, make all kinds of mistakes.

This document has a dual purpose: to help JDEList newbies minimize their mistakes, and to help experienced JDEList travelers help the newbies. The premise 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.

The contents of this document were originally copied from the book
"Netiquette_ by Virginia Shea
Albion Books, San Francisco, U.S.A. / [email protected]
After some modifications the below rules are offered here as a set of general guidelines for behavior within the JDEList discussion forums. They won't answer all your Netiquette questions. But they should give you some basic principles to use in solving your own Netiquette dilemmas.

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THE RULES:

RULE 1: REMEMBER THE HUMAN
Never forget that the person reading your mail or posting is, indeed, a person, with feelings that can be hurt.
Corollary 1: It's not nice to hurt other people's feelings.
Corollary 2: Never mail or post anything you wouldn't say to your reader's face.
Corollary 3: Provide a name or nick name that you may be addressed by. It is difficult to relate to "jdecnc" as opposed to "John".

RULE 2: USE THE SAME STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR ONLINE THAT YOU FOLLOW IN REAL LIFE
Corollary 1: Be ethical.
Corollary 2: Be courteous. If you receive advice that helps you, be sure and thank those who provided the advice.
Corollary 3: Finish the conversation. If you initiated a thread/issue please update it with your final resolution.

RULE 3: ALWAYS PROVIDE INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR CONFIGURATION
Identify your platform, OS Version, DB version, OW version, Service Pack level, etc.
Corollary 1: Use Signatures to always default this information at the end of your post.
Corollary 2: Don't assume that everyone out there has the same configuration or environment as you. This is provincial thinking.
Corollary 3: Answers may be version/environment specific, so let everyone know where you are coming from when you post an answer.

RULE 4: RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME AND BANDWIDTH
Corollary 1: It's OK to think that what you're doing at the moment is the most important thing in the universe, but don't expect anyone else to agree with you.
Corollary 2: Before you post, search! It is highly probable that your question has been asked and answered before. Use the JDEList web site and search the forums for your issue prior to posting the same question again.
Corollary 3: Post messages to the appropriate forum. If you expect to get help here, post to the right forum. OW Programming questions go to the OneWorld / XE Developers forum. OW Technical questions belong in the One World / XE forum. Application Questions go to the One World / XE and World forum. World Technical questions belong in the World forum.
Corollary 4: Do not post virus warnings, chain letters, jokes, position openings, product advertisements, etc to the list/forum.
Corollary 5: Take private discussions offline rather than sharing with the group.
Corollary 6: Do not post subscribe or unsubscribe requests.
Corollary 7: Stay on topic. Don't start a new thread/issue by responding to a post that is completely unrelated to your issue. Just start a new one instead. This does not apply to threads that mutate - rather to totally unrelated issues.
Corollary 8: If you are on the mailing list, please do not broadcast the fact that you are out of the office to the rest of us. Set your "Out of Office" email to NOT send responses to email from jdelist.com


RULE 5: MAKE YOURSELF LOOK GOOD ONLINE
Corollary 1: Lurk before you leap.
Corollary 2: Know what you're talking about and make sense. When you see yourself writing "it's my understanding that" or "I believe it's the case," ask yourself whether you really want to post this note before checking your facts.
Corollary 3: Check grammar and spelling before you post.
Corollary 4: Make sure your writing is clear and logical. Are you clearly stating the problem or its resolution? Read ALL of your post before you send it. Read it from the viewpoint of the intended audience. It may make sense to you but will it make sense to them?

RULE 6: SHARE EXPERT KNOWLEDGE
Corollary 1: Offer answers and help to people who ask questions on forums.
Corollary 2: If you've received email answers to a posted question, summarize them and post the summary to the forum.

RULE 7: HELP KEEP FLAME WARS UNDER CONTROL
Corollary 1: Do not post flame-bait.
Corollary 2: Don't respond to flame-bait.
Corollary 3: Don't post spelling or grammar flames.
Corollary 4: If you've posted flame-bait or perpetuated a flame war, apologize.

RULE 8: RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE'S PRIVACY
Corollary 1: Do not give out names/addresses of individuals on the list to recruiters and the like.
Corollary 2: Do NOT privately email questions or replies to an individual that can be addressed or read by the group. The purpose of the List/Forum is to share knowledge! Its OK to be a "newbie" here. It is not OK to bombard individuals with private emails.

RULE 9: ENGLISH IS THE "OFFICAL" LANGUAGE OF THESE FORUMS
The participants in these discussion forums come from a wide variety of countries and ethnic backgrounds. Because of this it is essential that a common language be used to accomplish the goal of "Shared Knowledge".
Corollary 1: Respect the fact that English is not the native language of all participants and excuse grammar, spelling, or vocabulary errors due to this.
Corollary 2: Avoid "colloquialisms" (informal english and slang) and big words (like "colloquialism") that are not part of "Basic English". Instead phrase your post as simply as possible. This will encourage and enable others to take part in, or benefit from, the conversation.
Corollary 3: Do not use abbreviations like BTW, IMHO, w/in, FWIW, etc. These are very difficult for non-English speakers. This rule does not apply to the JDE abbreviations such as APPL, UBE, BSFN, etc.

RULE 10: BE FORGIVING OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MISTAKES
Corollary 1: You were a newbie once too!
Corollary 2: There are no stupid questions here.

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/w3timages/icons/wink.gif Submitted for Final Review Jan 25, 2002

Larry Jones
[email protected]
OneWorld XE, SP 15.1
HPUX 11, Oracle SE 8.1.6
Mfg, Distribution, Financials<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by christian_audet on 2/5/02 10:27 AM.</FONT></P>
 
Thank you Larry that was fast,/w3timages/icons/king.gif

I will read it this week and I'm sure that we have some interested member that will read it also. I will tell you as soon as I'm finish reading it and I will give you my comment./w3timages/icons/love.gif

Christian/w3timages/icons/smile.gif

*** SHARED KNOWLEDGE = BETTER KNOWLEDGE ***

Implementing B7333 (Xe) SP16.1, SQL
(Support B732, B7331 and B7332)
 
Larry,

I like it !/w3timages/icons/love.gif

I will for sure read it again but I want to ask other who have read it what is there opinion ?

Then we will be able to put that as THE OFFICIAL RULES !

Christian Audet

*** SHARED KNOWLEDGE = BETTER KNOWLEDGE ***

Implementing B7333 (Xe) SP16.1, SQL
(Support B732, B7331 and B7332)
 
OK Larry,

I was the only one to reply to this post incredible, I don't think that mean I was the only one to read it ! I know that others did also.

Ok I'm ready to take it as "The Netiquette", do you have any last minute change?

Christian Audet

*** SHARED KNOWLEDGE = BETTER KNOWLEDGE ***

Implementing B7333 (Xe) SP16.1, SQL
(Support B732, B7331 and B7332)
 
Christian,

I don't have any further things to add. I'm sure once its published we will receive lots of criticism, er ... I mean feedback, on its contents. Which is fine, I'm thick skinned. However this brings up two questions:
1) How will the document be published/distributed?;
2) How will proposed changes be introduced and by whom?

Here are my suggestions or answers to these questions:
1) In some discussion groups documents of this nature are automatically posted/emailed once a month. I suggest we do the same if this can be automated.
2) I suggest that the Forum Moderators make the determination of what changes can/should be made without resorting to any further public comment.

Cheers,

Larry Jones
[email protected]
OneWorld XE, SP 15.1
HPUX 11, Oracle SE 8.1.6
Mfg, Distribution, Financials
 
Larry,

I agree and for sure only Administrator and/or Moderator will manage the Netiquette (if any management is required).

And only Moderator should tell any 'User' that they do not follow the rules. I'm not talking about asking for Configuration, that's normal for every body to ask when they are not there) but for the rest of the Netiquette we (the moderator) will take care of it.

Since we can't see all post that are 'Out of Netiquette' then in those case I will personaly accept a private message to tell me about certain message to look at.

For the automatic posting, we will see with Eric what's possible.

For your other question about where the Netiquette will be ? : We want to include it into new user message (when they register) and into a common area of the forum (easy access for everybody) and also easy for moderator to tell user to look at (something similar) to the JDE Guidelines on top of main page.

We still need to ask Eric to create those link and then we will be able to start pointing to thoses rules.

Christian Audet

*** SHARED KNOWLEDGE = BETTER KNOWLEDGE ***

Implementing B7333 (Xe) SP16.1, SQL
(Support B732, B7331 and B7332)
 
Hi Larry and Christian,

Excuse me to reply NETIQUETTE so late.
I had read it immediately when Larry had posted it onto the board.
I wanted to read it again before reply it.

Great, excellent work! Congratulation Larry /w3timages/icons/king.gif

"Larry is right as usual. Just an addition..." /w3timages/icons/wink.gif

The only thing that miss a bit for me is a rule to ask the listers to setup carefully the auto-reply features of their mailing system, do not disturb JDEList with auto-replies.

Larry, thank you again! /w3timages/icons/cool.gif

Regards,

Zoltán

B7332 SP11, ESU 4116422, Intel NT4, SQL 7 SP1
(working with B7321, B7331, XE too)
 
Zoltan,

thank you for the compliments, but really - I just compiled others work.

I agree with the issue on the auto-reply. I thought I had that in there but apparently not. This should be under Rule 4 as follows:

Corollary 8: If you are on the mailing list, please do not broadcast the fact that you are out of the office to the rest of us. Set your "Out of Office" email to NOT send responses to email from jdelist.com

Larry Jones
[email protected]
OneWorld XE, SP 15.1
HPUX 11, Oracle SE 8.1.6
Mfg, Distribution, Financials
 
Larry & Zoltan,

I just did the change to the Netiquette Document at the top of this thread.

Christian

*** SHARED KNOWLEDGE = BETTER KNOWLEDGE ***

Implementing B7333 (Xe) SP16.1, SQL
(Support B732, B7331 and B7332)
 
I did it !

Take a look at the FAQ board it is exactly Larry's document but with Bold for title and my little comment at the end.

That's only the first step, this document will be linked to the board with a shortcut.

Christian Audet


*** SHARED KNOWLEDGE = BETTER KNOWLEDGE ***

Implementing B7333 (Xe) SP16.1, SQL
(Support B732, B7331 and B7332)
 
Hi,

I recently wanted to add a new idea to the NETIQUETTE when I detected that it appeared already on the FAQ board.

Should I add my new idea yet?

Here it is:

"Please, when you make rely then include some identification information into your post about the replied post. Without these informations, many times there is no sence of the reply, because e-mail listener won't be able to identify the replied post as well on the Forum when reply was sent by e-mail instead of created on the Forum replying directly the post.

Bad example:
============
It doesn't work.

Better example:
===============
Hi XY,
The Aaaa Bbbb Cccc method doesn't work.
Regards,
jr. VW

Please, include the name, nickname or alias the autor of the replied post and a minimal information about the content what do you reply to."

Larry, Christian

If you think so that you will put it into the NETIQUETTE then please, be so kind as to translate my idea to English/w3timages/icons/cool.gif Thanks.

Regards

Zoltán

B7332 SP11, ESU 4116422, Intel NT4, SQL 7 SP1
(working with B7321, B7331, XE too)
 
Zoltan,

I understand your new point but for now the Netiquette document is "fix" until a complete implementation on the list.

I don't mind if you add sugestion in this thread so if we do any revision of it then we may consider adding new part to it.

Any idea that you have may be consider in a future version of the document, one important point about the Netiquette document is that we want to keep it as small as possible.

Thank's for your comment/w3timages/icons/cool.gif

Christian Audet

*** SHARED KNOWLEDGE = BETTER KNOWLEDGE ***

Implementing B7333 (Xe) SP16.1, SQL
(Support B732, B7331 and B7332)
 
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