SitesForSoreEyes
Online Manners Matter!
By Jim Calloway and Courtney Kennaday
The inspiration for this month’s column came in
the form of a YouTube video sent to us by a colleague,
entitled “Facebook Manners and You.” Whether
or not you remember those scratchy, dated, black-and-white
educational films from school, you’ll appreciate
this humorous 4 minute and 13 second video. Like all
good humor, it has the ring of truth—your behavior
on the Internet matters.
We both grew up in places and times where a premium
was placed on having good manners. When email and electronic
mailing lists came along, it seemed like communications
got shorter and less formal, and some of us forgot our
manners. New verbs were invented, such as “flaming” (a
nasty or angry retort in an email reply) and “spamming” (sending
unsolicited broadcast emails). If we used all capital
letters in a message we were “shouting.” A
code of conduct for email interactions quickly evolved,
and “netiquette”—etiquette for the
Internet—was created.
Now text messaging and interacting in online social
networks have caught on among attorneys and other professionals.
As we substitute electronic socializing for face-to-face
communication, opportunities abound that we will inadvertently
offend someone, or worse. Something happens when we’re
alone with our words and a keyboard—we let our
guard down more. Many of us are far more relaxed online
than we are in person. Stop! Anything you do
on the Internet or when texting with your cell phone
can and will be held against you!
In fact, the media is full of cautionary tales of individuals
damaging their careers or personal lives through careless
or thoughtless electronic communications. There’s
the infamous “Cisco Fatty” story (job
interviewee blows it with Twitter post), and the Philadelphia
Eagles employee fired for a Facebook post,
to name just a couple. We think by observing some social
niceties, it’s possible you won’t end up
as an online casualty—to that end, this week we
focus on sites for good online manners.
In our search about manners on the Internet, we headed
to Netlingo.com.
Netlingo lets us search for Web-specific terms and definitions
or browse by category. More than a dictionary, our search
for “netiquette” brought up both the definition
and eighteen netiquette rules. Number 1 on their list? “Do
not spam.” That’s a good one, but our number
1 rule would be: “Don’t put anything in an
email or text that you wouldn’t want on a busy
highway billboard or the front page of the local newspaper.” (We
recognize that everyone violates this rule from time
to time.)
You can find more netiquette rules at the Netiquette Home Page.
The site contains the Web version of the book Netiquette by
Virginia Shea, which has all the netiquette basics, or
you can get a quick run-down of the book’s top
ten “Core Rules of Netiquette.” Smart Computing also
has advice on netiquette, including this article with
the advice to count to ten before sending anything over
the Internet. You can find more tips by doing a site
search for “netiquette.”
If you’d like to read a nice essay on civility
on the Internet, Salon.com has an essay, Mind your
Manners Online.
The author argues persuasively that the future of the
Internet hinges on manners.
Longing for a modern day Emily Post to help you through
this manners morass? We found NetManners.com,
which fills Emily’s shoes quite nicely. There’s
Email Etiquette 101, which explains in detail everything
you need to know about email courtesy. It’s full
of great advice, and tidbits like “Online Perception
Is the Only Reality.” You can sign up for email
notification, ask the site mistress “Judith” questions,
check out the glossary, and read “how-to” articles.
Is there anything specific to lawyers and netiquette?
Well, many states have adopted professionalism codes,
which arguably extend to lawyers’ behavior on the
Internet. You can find links to them by state at the
ABA Center for Professional Responsibility.
Sometimes being polite is just a matter of understanding
the local rules and customs, both written and unwritten.
Google failed us on locating unwritten rules of courts.
(Are you listening Google?) But LLRX.com has a “must
bookmark” page with
links to more than 1,400 sources for state and federal
court rules, forms, and dockets. Jim notes that the Oklahoma
Supreme Court has links
to lots of local rules. Your state court’s
website probably offers something similar—look
for “local court rules.”
What about the new world of online social networking
sites, like Facebook and MySpace?
With more than 200 million members, chances are you’re
either on Facebook or have at least heard of it. However,
you may not be familiar with LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has the reputation of being a more “grown-up” social
network—one that professionals will feel comfortable
in. In fact, we’ve overheard more than a few lawyers
say they use LinkedIn for “work” and Facebook
for “personal.” So, if you like the idea
of doing more online networking, but still want to keep
it professional, give LinkedIn a look.
Netiquette in social network sites can differ a good
bit from email. A social media consultant has put together The
Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook. The handbook
is a concise rundown of the most popular social networking
sites and etiquette recommendations for each. For example,
you shouldn’t use a fake name as your Facebook
name or consistently use your Twitter stream
for nothing but self-promotion.
We hope that you take this column as a gentle reminder
to watch your manners online just as you do in person.
If our column has in any way offended you, we apologize,
and ask that you refer to Rule 10 of the Core Rules of
Netiquette: Be forgiving of other people’s mistakes.
Jim Calloway is the director of the Oklahoma
Bar Association Management Assistance Program. He served
as chair of the ABA TECHSHOW 2005. Calloway publishes
the weblog, Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips, at http://jimcalloway.typepad.com,
and was coauthor of the book, Winning Alternatives
to the Billable Hour. He serves on the GP|Solo
Division Technology Board. Courtney Kennaday
is the director of the Practice Management Assistance
Program of the South Carolina Bar. She advises bar members
on practice management and law office technology.
© Copyright 2009, American
Bar Association.
