Make Yourself Look Good Online (Week 7)

            In real life, we - people follow some ethical codes in order to respect someone and in return get the same kind of treatment from them. This term is called etiquette and it comes from the word “étiquette” which means ticket in French. Now when referring to cyberspace, this term itself changes into netiquette and includes some main rules that are worth to be followed. Initially, it is presumed that netiquette was used in Palo Alto Research Center in between the 70s and 80s [1].  To further spread these rules, Virginia Shea released a book called “Netiquette” which mainly focuses on ten fundamental rules that are to be followed in modern cyberspace. In the following paragraphs, I will mostly target the 5^th rule which is “Make yourself look good online” and give a few examples about it.

Make yourself look good online

[source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/218354281917321230/]

What do we mean by saying “make yourself look good online”?  It implies that your behaviors and comments in the online world are supposed to be valid. By valid I mean the quality of the written statements. For example, people on the Internet are mostly anonymous to others and it means that no one can really know their gender, skin color, age, and so on. This leads to the fact that the essential way of making yourself look good is by having quality writing. People will pay attention to your style and content. In order to stay out of such moments, it is important to fix spelling and grammar mistakes, to be comprehensive of what you are discussing, and being pleasant and polite during such occurrences [2]. I have seen many people have some grammar mistakes in their works, especially in my classmates’ works during school years. I believe this is mostly due to the fact that they never used tools like “Grammarly” to check their work before submitting it. In my personal experience, this tool helped me fix several crucial mistakes that would increase the quality of my work. When it comes to “understanding what you are talking about”, people on Twitter are one of the prime instances of such occasions. Some people on social media platforms like Twitter would share false information which essentially is influenced by their bias. I remember during the Formula 1 race days there would be some decisions made by stewards which would not be appreciated by the public. Later, some people on Twitter would make tweets explaining the reasons behind such decisions and some biased fans would start writing nonsense comments in defense of whom they are supporting. Eventually, being polite is another important factor for the 5^th rule of netiquette. Let’s try to avoid offensive language. Instead, let’s be more pleasant toward one another. Sometimes it may be okay to use such language between close friends; however only in private conversation, not places like forums or group conversations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it may be well understood that netiquette is a vital part of the online world and by following its rules we can stay out of further troubles on the Internet.

References

[1]	J. Ford, "When was netiquette created?," AnswersToAll, [Online]. Available: https://answerstoall.com/users-questions/when-was-netiquette-created/#When_was_netiquette_created. [Accessed 14 February 2022].
[2]	"Core Rules of Netiquette," [Online]. Available: https://coursedesign.colostate.edu/obj/corerulesnet.html. [Accessed 14 February 2022].