Key Takeaways
- Netiquette rules developed over time with the rise of communication technologies, like bulletin boards and email.
- Articles and books described unwritten netiquette rules that evolved, formalized in documents like RFC 1855.
- Online spaces today have their own rules, like Facebook, but personal netiquette is important for a pleasant experience.
As with any communication technology, we had to figure out the rules of proper conduct online as we went along. For a while you could learn about “netiquette” and how not to be rude or socially spurned on the net, but does this even make sense as a concept anymore?
The History of Netiquette as a Concept
The public only really started to access the internet in the 1990s, with the rise of the World Wide Web, but rules of conduct already existed for bulletin boards in the 80s, and, of course, early email users developed their own rules as well. With the limits of these communication methods, you needed to know how to get your message across, so ideas like “all caps is yelling” took root.
Just as with etiquette in other walks of life, articles and books about netiquette (which, believe it or not, I was taught in school in the 2000s) didn’t make the rules. They just described what unwritten rules had emerged, and then made them written.
Netiquette was somewhat formalized with documents like RFC 1855 where rules for conduct on various digital channels are compiled. It makes for fascinating reading, and a lot of it would still be valid today.
Did Anyone Ever Follow the Rules?
In the early days of the internet, when we had relatively small groups of people on forums, things were pretty tightly policed. Of course, it depended on the owner of the site and the moderators. I was a moderator on several forums myself in my teenage years, and I took the job rather seriously, I’m embarrassed to admit.
If you failed to follow the rules, or people in that online community just didn’t like you, well, you’d be booted out of the community. To my own personal recollection, this often happened, despite new members having to apply for access.
Today, Online Spaces Have Their Own Rules
Facebook, just by itself, is much, much larger than the entire internet was in the 90s. While large private platforms have their own formalized rules of conduct today, enforcing them effectively is easier said and done. Improvements in AI and automation help, but you’ve probably experienced just how much of a free-for-all the internet is these days.
If you slice it into smaller chunks, such as subreddits or moderated Facebook groups, it’s possible to get some order from the chaos, but out in the open it feels like you have to do something literally illegal before there are any consequences. Unpleasant behavior is almost expected in online spaces at this point, which to me at least shows that netiquette is dead. If it was ever alive to begin with!
It’s Better To Make Your Own Netiquette
“Be the change you want to see” as they say, and to that point I think the best we can do to have a better internet experience is to have your own rules and follow them. These can include, as mentioned in RFC 1855, a refusal to take the bait and engage in pointless arguments online. They only serve to put you in a bad mood and run up your blood pressure anyway.
Set your own code of conduct on how you engage with other people, and how you process what’s on the net. Just because everyone else thinks it’s the Wild West, doesn’t mean you have to!
