Netiquette

Netiquette is a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks, ranging from Usenet and mailing lists to blogs and forums. However, like many Internet phenomena, the concept and its application remain in a state of flux, and vary from community to community. The points most strongly emphasized about USENET netiquette often include using simple electronic signatures, and avoiding multiposting, cross-posting, off-topic posting, hijacking a discussion thread, and other techniques used to minimize the effort required to read a post or a thread. Netiquette guidelines posted by IBM for employees utilizing Second Life in an official capacity, however, focus on basic professionalism, maintaining a tenable work environment, and protecting IBM's intellectual property. Similarly, some Usenet guidelines call for use of unabbreviated English while users of online chat protocols like IRC and instant messaging protocols like SMS often encourage just the opposite, bolstering use of SMS language.

History
Netiquette began before the 1991 start of the World Wide Web. Text-based email, Telnet, Usenet, Gopher, Wais, and FTP from educational and research bodies dominated Internet traffic. At that time, it was considered somewhat indecent to make commercial public postings, and the limitations of insecure, text-only communications demanded that the community have a common set of rules. The term "netiquette" has been in use since at least 1983 as evidenced by posts of the satirical "Dear Emily" Postnews column.

Want to know about etiquette? Some examples of netiquette are listed below:

• Not using someone else's name and pretending to be them.
• Not posting or distributing material that is deemed illegal.
• Not using abusive or threatening language.
• Not posting racist remarks regarding peoples sex, race or gender.
• Not spamming message boards or chat rooms with useless or repeated messages.
• Not trying to obtain or use someone else's password.
• Not trying to obtain personal information about someone.

These are the phrases which are often used online, they include;

• lol - Laugh Out Loud
• afk - Away From Keyboard
  
• rofl - Roll On Floor Laughing
  
• omg - Oh My God
  
• brb - Be Right Back
• cu - See You
  
• imo - In My Opinion
  
• bbl - Be Back Later
  
• btw - By The Way
  
• g2g/gtg - Got To Go
• n00b - New User
  
• imho - In My Honest Opinion