Most of us grew up with some sort of moral barometer that we kept in mind when dealing with other people. Remember what your mom told you at that first interminable family event when she was tying the knot on that gawdawful necktie that looked so cute? Be polite. Keep your finger out of your nose. Stay quiet (or, even better, speak only when spoken to). Ugh! It's interminable, right?
And guess what? We're all using these rules in everyday life anyway, because as loath as we are to admit it, Mom was right. The world is a better place when we all treat each other with respect. Indeed, interpersonal relationships would be quite a difficult undertaking if we were all acting like uncultured louts. How likely is it that you're going to get deep into a romance if you tell your date right when you pick her up, "You're as ugly as the day I met you!" You see the problem.
And we'd never act like that in person. We'd never act like that in the presence of other people. It would mortify us to the point that, even if we weren't totally ostracized from our circle of friends and acquaintances, we would simply withdraw anyway.
So why do people sometimes participate in this behavior on the Internet?
I'm not saying that people send me e-mail regularly that says something along the lines of "I hope you get run over by a sport-utility vehicle, and that a muskrat finds creative uses for your remains," although if I did get such a message, I'd probably laugh about the muskrat part. But there are things I've noticed -- and, unfortunately, acts I've committed -- which, in any other social situation, would be, at the very least, inappropriate.
For example, I have received files over the Internet in my e-mail box which are at least several hundred kilobytes. The justification for these gargantuan file transfers is usually that the content is either extremely useful, or highly entertaining. That much is fine, and I wholly endorse sending files via e-mail when appropriate.
But consider this: let's say that you were reading the newspaper one day, and you stopped for a moment to take a quick walk outside to get some fresh air. And there I was, waiting for you, with several refrigerators I wanted to put into your kitchen. Now, you and I both know that a refrigerator is a good thing. It keeps the milk cold, so that it goes down smooth with just about any meal. However, you didn't ask for these refrigerators, and I'm insisting that they all should be in your kitchen. And you must take them. All of them. Can you see where I'm going here? If we were dealing with refrigerators, I would not hesitate to ask your permission before bringing all of these things over to your house. And if you didn't want all of them, then all you'd have to do is say you don't, and I would not force them on you. So why should you be forced to accept huge files that somebody just sends you out of the blue, without your permission?
The solution: before sending a large file via e-mail, ask the recipient if s/he wants it. Or, better still, if you're able, put it up on a personal FTP site, and just alert the recipient to its presence.
Next, we have the abusive e-mailer, also known as the flamer. You probably know this person -- and, I confess, I have been this person on a few occasions, of which I'm not proud. This person sends you a message which contains several standard infractions. Abusive language, whether foul or not, is almost always part. Either that, or they use all capital letters. THEY SHOUT. And no matter what, they are always right, and you are not.
Remember the litmus test? Would you do this to somebody in person? Let us assume that we are in a fine Italian restaurant, and you say you would like the linguini in herb sauce. Then I say, "Are you stupid? You're passing up the lasagna, you dolt!" Would this work very well? Or worse yet, I yell in your face, "YOU'LL LOVE THE LASAGNA!!" Are you more likely to change your order, or are you more likely to hate me? And then when you eat your linguini and find that you really enjoyed it, I tell you that you're an idiot for not ordering the lasagna. Isn't there something wrong with this situation? Antisocial behavior doesn't change just because we're talking via computer instead of in person.
The solution: before sending off that angry e-mail, check to see that you're at least being civil. If all you're doing is berating the recipient, don't send the e-mail; nobody deserves to be flamed, when intelligent discussion is possible.
And there's the cc'er. This person will send you an e-mail, and fire off a carbon copy (hence the term cc) to somebody else at the same time. I've been a victim of the cc'er. There is no greater hell. If the matter on which the cc'er sent the e-mail is supposed to be private, then the cc'er has already put the kibosh on that.
Take the real-life example, again. Let's say that I am your boss at some corporation, and I find your performance to be unsatisfactory. Which is preferable: that I should take you into my office and discuss the matter with you personally, or that I should start criticizing you in front of your coworkers? Or worse yet, that I should criticize you to your coworkers?
The cc is a fine tool, for when you want to get a piece of information to a lot of people in a hurry. But there are times when the matter in the e-mail should be discussed privately between sender and recipient, before the sender makes the matter public. As I've said, I've gotten cc'ed before on just such a matter, and the aftermath was decidedly less than pretty. The solution: consider the nature of your message when deciding to whom you should send it. If the matter is delicate, don't cc. If the recipient doesn't handle the situation properly, then you can go public with documentation that you have dutifully saved regarding this matter, including your original e-mail as well as the reply.
And just by the bye, the blind carbon copy (bcc) is entirely inappropriate for these cases. "Great," you say. "Now not only do I have to deal with this flaming cc'er, but I don't even know who else is in on this." The bottom line is this: private matters should stay private until both sides of the e-mail flurry have made every effort to resolve those matters. I won't cc anything that could be considered private, because I've seen what can happen from the few times it's been done to me.
Interesting though pointless side note: I've also been the recipient of the cc, which the sender seemed to have forgotten, until I responded to the question within the original e-mail, "Who the hell does this idiot think he is?" (referring to me). So be careful with your cc's, if you're going to even bother with them.
Anyway, I've been going on and on about this for a while, and I've finally gotten to the moral of the story (fans of my work at thessaSOURCE will know that I usually take my time getting here). We should be making a concerted effort among ourselves to behave in a more appropriate manner with our colleagues on the Internet. I've come up with a good rule of thumb for how to behave on the 'Net, which you've probably discerned by now:
Would I behave in this manner among other people? If I would, then it's probably fine for me to act in the same way on the Internet. If I would not, however, then such behavior is also inappropriate on the Internet. Pretty simple, huh?
Because this is the main thing: Even though there's a computer right in front of me, and several computers and servers and great lengths of fiber-optic cable between each of those computers, I'm going to be judged on my behavior by a person at the other end. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we are not just dealing with technology. The Internet is just another medium for communication.
