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Courtesy of the BYTE Information Exchange Network
Computer Etiquette, By Mel North
________________________________
The following
are a few points of general BBS etiquette. If you
wish to maintain your welcome on whatever
system you happen to call,
it will be to your advantage to observe
these few rules.
(Sysops - feel free
to download this & display it on your BBS)
1. Don't
habitually hang up on a system. Every Sysop is aware
that accidental disconnections happen
once in a while but we do tend
to get annoyed with people who hang up
every single time they call
because they are either too lazy to terminate
properly or they labor
under the mistaken assumption that the
10 seconds they save online is
going to significantly alter their phone
bill. "Call Waiting" is not
an acceptable excuse for long. If
you have it and intend to use the
line to call BBS systems, you should either
have it disconnected or
find some other way to circumvent it.
2. Don't
do dumb things like leave yourself a message that says
"Just testing to see if this thing works".
Where do you think all
those other messages came from if it didn't
work? Also, don't leave
whiny messages that say "Please leave
me a message". If ever there
was a person to ignore, it's the one who
begs someone to leave him a
message. If you want to get messages,
start by reading the ones that
are already online and getting involved
in the conversations that
exist.
3. Don't
use the local equivalent of a chat command unless you
really have some clear cut notion of what
you want to say and why.
Almost any Sysop is more than happy to
answer questions or offer help
concerning his system. Unfortunately,
because about 85% of the people
who call want to chat and about 99% of
those people have absolutely
nothing to say besides "How old are you?"
or something equally
irrelevant, fewer Sysops even bother answering
their pagers every day.
4. When
you are offered a place to leave comments when exiting a
system, don't try to use this area to
ask the Sysop questions. It is
very rude to the other callers to expect
the Sysop to carry on a half
visible conversation with someone.
If you have a question or
statement to make and expect the Sysop
to respond to it, it should
always be made in the section where all
the other messages are kept.
This allows the Sysop to help many people
with the same problem with
the least amount of effort on his part.
5. Before
you log on with your favorite pseudonym, make sure
that handles are allowed. Most Sysops
don't want people using handles
on the system. There is not enough
room for them, they get silly
games of one-upmanship started, it is
much nicer to deal with a person
on a personal basis, and last but not
least, everyone should be
willing to take full responsibility for
his actions or comments
instead of slinging mud from behind a
phoney name. Also when signing
on, why not sign on just like you would
introduce yourself in your own
society? How many of you usually introduce
yourselves as Joe W Smutz
the 3rd or 4th?
6. Take
the time to log on properly. There is no such place as
RIV, HB, ANA or any of a thousand other
abbreviations people use
instead of their proper city. You
may think that everyone knows what
RIV is supposed to mean, but every BBS
has people calling from all
around the country and I assure you that
someone from Podunk, Iowa has
no idea what you're talking about.
7. Don't
go out of your way to make rude observations like "Gee,
this system is slow". Every BBS
is a tradeoff of features. You can
generally assume that if someone is running
a particular brand of
software, that he is either happy with
it or he'll decide to find
another system he likes better.
It does nobody any good when you make
comments about something that you perceive
to be a flaw when it is
running the way the Sysop wants it to.
Constructive criticism is
somewhat more welcome. If you have
an alternative method that seems
to make good sense then run it up the
flagpole.
8. When
leaving messages, stop and ask yourself whether it is
necessary to make it private. Unless
there is some particular reason
that everyone shouldn't know what you're
saying, don't make it
private. We don't call them PUBLIC
bulletin boards for nothing,
folks. It's very irritating to other
callers when there are huge
blank spots in the messages that they
can't read and it stifles
interaction between callers.
9. If your
favorite BBS has a time limit, observe it. If it
doesn't, set a limit for yourself and
abide by it instead. Don't tie
up a system as a new user and run right
to the other numbers list.
There is probably very little that's more
annoying to any Sysop than
to have his board completely passed over
by you on your way to another
board.
10. Have
the common courtesy to pay attention to what passes in
front of your face. When a BBS displays
your name and asks "Is this
you?", don't say yes when you can see
perfectly well that it is
misspelled. Also, don't start asking
questions about simple operation
of a system until you have thoroughly
read all of the instructions
that are available to you. I assure
you that it isn't any fun to
answer a question for the thousandth time
when the answer is openly
displayed in the system bulletins or instructions.
Use some common
sense when you ask your questions.
The person who said "There's no
such thing as a stupid question" obviously
never operated a BBS.
11. Don't
be personally abusive. It doesn't matter whether you
like a Sysop or think he's a jerk.
The fact remains that he has a
large investment in making his computer
available, usually out of the
goodness of his heart. If you don't
like a Sysop or his system, just
remember that you can change the channel
any time you want. Besides,
whether you are aware of it or not, if
you make yourself enough of an
annoyance to any Sysop, he can take the
time to trace you down and
make your life, or that of your parents,
miserable.
12. Keep
firmly in mind that you are a guest on any BBS you
happen to call. Don't think of logging
on as one of your basic human
rights. Every person that has ever
put a computer system online for
the use of other people has spent a lot
of time and money to do so.
While he doesn't expect nonstop pats on
the back, it seems reasonable
that he should at least be able to expect
fair treatment from his
callers. This includes following
any of the rules for system use he
has laid out without grumping about it.
Every Sysop has his own idea
of how he wants his system to be run.
It is really none of your
business why he wants to run it the way
he does. Your business is to
either abide by what he says, or call
some other BBS where you feel
that you can obey the rules.